I watched with dismay as my salary cap position got steadily worse over the course of a draft. Upon further review, it appears that the current crisis reflects my true position. I made a series of bad decisions during free agency, thinking that I was fine cap-wise. Many other players have issued maximum contracts and the like, only to find out later that they can't actually afford them. The problem actually shows up during the draft, when we are forced to issue contracts with fat bonuses, but the roots of it occur when we are lulled into issuing excessive contracts. Under the New UI, the contract screen should more accurately reflect our current cap position. There already is a listing for "Min for Remaining Players," but it is not reliable. We need to know ahead of time that we are making bad decisions, and not just find out later that we're in trouble. Were you just fixing a previous problem, or do I need to add all my contracts up in order to find out I'm over the cap? Spoiler alert: I won't. If you are restoring competitive balance, what are the listings for "Current Contracts" or "Min for Remaining Players" any good for? Am I going to get continuously nerfed for daring to have good players?
Agree with OP I'd like to add the old UI, both before and during the draft, gave an updated Salary cost of draft picks. Not having that info created an unknown in my salary cap logs.
It used to be Cap avail minus (-) draft picks = actual cap money. With FA's, I always took an avg per yr of the contract offered and subtracted that from cap avail: Cap Avail minus (-) FA's minus (-) Draft pick cost = cap available - subject to change dependent on FA's actually signed.
The bottom line was in the old UI - I ALWAYS knew exactly what i had to begin with and what I would (in the case of FA's *could*) have after a sim or draft pick.
The absence of knowing the total cost of all draft picks available is a critical wound to my ability to accurately track my cap during the offseason. A known factor (cap cost of draft picks) became an unknown factor. File under things we had that were uneccessarily changed in the update yet are things we absolutely need.
Don't get me started about the new ordering of player attributes on player pages. Nothing is grouped with like attributes, as it was in the old UI. It's not even in alignment with how attributes are listed on coaching page, the player card, or the order of attributes on the player weights edit page. Baffling.
What I really find concerning about the new UI are all the things we had that were really beneficial that were not carried forward into or included in the new UI.
In the effort to fix things, things are being broken.
Which brings us back to the front. Managing offseason cap has become more guesswork than fact work. Data we used to have (draft pick costs) are now unknown and far from the reliability of cap information that long time players grew accustomed to and trusted.
The OP is dead on and on point. The contract page has *never* given an accurate cap bar. The issue is not insignificant and deserves more conversation. Thanks for the post, thanks for the read.
The salary (Celery!!! GO SETON! *Dan Patrick Show*) bar on the contract page is in the moment. It does not include any other monies currently being offered. It only uses the current cap available and the contract being negotiated. I too, have trusted it after giving multiple contracts believing it to include the contracts outstanding. I completely destroyed the cap of the first team i took control of as a result. It's why I do all my contract math with a pencil and keep track of my cap on my notes page. As stated, the issue becomes even more complicated when cap numbers such as the cost of draft picks are not only not given but also included in the total cap available / used bar located on the player contract popup.
Nothing but empathy, compadre. It's never to late to ask the admin to help.
MFN takes a LOT of manual work, and it's not getting easier. The best result of a new UI is I can put away my pencil and paper (or spreadsheets for you youngin's). Homework sucks.
