So Metro posted in the chat about his horrible cap situation. It appears to be wholly self-inflicted and normally in that case we go "live and learn." But it appears Metro has been playing for only about a month and it looks like he has no idea what he is doing. During free agency 1, he signed a 36 year old OL with 70% retirement chance to a 6 year contract worth $11M a year. It appears he has no conception of how the salary cap works based on his huge free agent spending spree, which put him way over the cap. I looked over his roster, and while we could design a way to get under the cap this year, he would be left with huge dead cap for next year, meaning he might need to repeat the process the following year, and he is basically left with a multi-year rebuild project.

Metro you can chime in on what you would like and make your case to the league, but the way I see it, there are two options:

1. Go into tank mode for two seasons. Cut your high priced players, eat the dead cap, trade away everything of value for future draft picks, including your picks this year, get more dead cap, have a roster full of minimum salary guys for two seasons, lose a lot of games, then come back for real once the dust settles. A veteran owner might appreciate such a challenge, but having played only for a month, maybe you don't want that route.

2. Beg the league for cap relief. Select a bunch of players to cut, then ask for your dead cap to be cut to 0. That will get you under the cap and you can operate "normally" but know that it will be incumbent on you to maintain financial responsibility. This is already a stretch, as I usually don't offer to help on self-inflicted wounds, but you are a new guy. It would probably be more fun for you to be able to play with some cap room, so I'd probably suggest this. But simply stated, you have a lot a deadweight players on your team anyways that I think you could cut and replace with cheap free agents anyways. And being new, you will probably end up losing a lot of games while you are learning anyways.

So chime in with your thoughts Metro. If others have advice for him, please contribute. I know there are forum threads that explain the basics of finances. Could someone post the link for him?

He is $69M over the cap right now, with $41M of that being dead cap. He also needs $69M in cap room to sign draft picks. He would need to cut salaries with cap costs totaling $98M to survive. He has so many making over $10M shouldn't be hard to find 7-8 guys to exchange into minimum salary slots.

Possible suggestions:

Kevin Hunter $20M
Robert Hernandez $11M
Steve Ryant $13M
Lynn Rice $18M
Kevin Calder $17M
James Carter $5M
**** Trickle $15M

If you do option one, it would be all that and more.

Tough one honestly. Self inflicted for sure. Will also damage that team if he leaves for future years.

I don’t like that he did this and then says going to leave if he can’t fix it. Kinda makes me want to not relief him because he will still have issues next season. It’s almost best to learn how to deal with cap.

Ultimately the situation sucks and if relief is needed to keep it going then I’m for it. But shame on you fire doing this to yourself and you should have to learn the hard way. If you think you can walk into a league and just blow a team up like this and then threaten to leave, I’d almost rather you just leave.

Cap relief this year would have to be after draft. He us over next year too, so does he learn next season and deal with it in his own?? Probably a quitter and none of this is worth it in the end. Dilzdozers go AI by week six imo.

Regardless of how this plays out, metro, if you don’t quit I will coach you front to back on this game. Step by step. Whatever I know.

There will be links and reading involved but I’m your four questions and help. Just please see this through as it will be helpful on your journey.

If my trade with metro is being viewed as unfair or something I'd happily undo it, if that's even an option. I honestly thought it was a fair trade.

I support debt relief for metro.

No such thing as an unfair trade of both parties accepted. This isn’t GDB arbitrator world.

Looking at your roster there is a lot that can be done. Some cuts and maybe some resigning to less than quality players to mitigate future cap allocation. It will be tedious working by proxy but I bet we can make this work.

You ready??

Come on cut him some slack. He a newbies. Let him have a fresh start by clearing his debt.

I agree he should get that. But he has to consider multiple seasons of issues with his cap. He will require guidance in order to prevent total collapse and boredom. The team needs overhaul with education. That combo leads to success and fun-if you like and aim to win.

You can teach him after his debt is clear up.