This is the first I have ever heard of this, and honestly I don't think it's nearly as big a deal as you make it out to be here. Admittedly I do not keep my eyes glued on the transaction pages, and I don't track every transaction ever made, but if a team is saving 1m on their cap every 4 seasons, then that in and of itself is doing what you say about juggling a checkbook. You say that "Balancing cap space is just as important for a GM as sim testing or drafting. This rule change might not force more free agents or players leaving teams more often but it will make teams actually have to juggle a check book instead of just having 4 years of minimum every contract."
So to me, all you're saying is that the GMs are in fact doing their jobs by balancing their cap space, they're just doing it 3-4 seasons in the future. I know of at least 3 GMs that had their budgets planned out that far, and I personally always knew to within a mil or so how much OCO would have each of the next 2 upcoming seasons.
(edit: I'm not passing judgement on whether or not such behavior is morally right or wrong, but in taking advantage they are helping out their teams to the best of their ability which is their job, so *shrugs* idk how to feel about it to be honest)
Also, no team is going to have 4 years of minimum (as in 1m on a rookie deal) every contract. The problem that you have presented is incredibly niche and rather rare. Most players who it would be worth it to do this with have signed original deals of 3y/1m at roughly 225 TPE. Take into consideration that most users will have earned an additional 400 or so TPE by the time that they sign an extension, and they're probably going to sign a 1-season extension in order to get them to the 800 TPE threshold to get them to sign an unlimited contract. But when they sign that extension, they're signing at 625ish TPE, or 3m per season. Now if you're saying a player is taking minimum for 4 seasons, then sure, I absolutely agree. I took minimum for 10 seasons and would gladly do it again, but the minimum is the minimum no matter the TPE you're at. I'm not sure what you mean by that, so I very well may be misunderstanding your point.
So, all in all, I guess I don't see what point you're trying to make here. It seems like it's a rule that's occasionally going to be abused but it's such a niche department that I don't see a need to outlaw it, at the very least not with the way the rule was written. If you want to say that a player cannot sign a new contract and then an extension on the same day, I'm fine with that. Make them wait a week, I think that's a good idea, forces them to earn more TPE that could possibly push them to the next tier.
To address what I think that the rule was atually targeting, I think that it was an attempt to force teams to spend more money for longer by preventing them from signing players to extensions until late in the season when they had added an additional 60-100 TPE, depending on equipment purchase. That's because somehow every team in the league has cap space every season to field their entire team plus OL bots, and as the person who typically updates OL bots a lot of them are of the 7.5m variety. I believe that 5 or 6 teams used T4 bots this season. The easier explanation, imo?
Just lower cap space. I've thought it since S23, but didn't want to say anything because I was a GM, of course I wasn't going to say anything. I was gonna enjoy the extra space I had to sign my rookies to bigger deals than I ordinarily could. And I did that. But really it did not need to be so high, although at this point I think active players would be out of a job in some situations if it were lowered, so I think it needs to stay in place.
So to me, all you're saying is that the GMs are in fact doing their jobs by balancing their cap space, they're just doing it 3-4 seasons in the future. I know of at least 3 GMs that had their budgets planned out that far, and I personally always knew to within a mil or so how much OCO would have each of the next 2 upcoming seasons.
(edit: I'm not passing judgement on whether or not such behavior is morally right or wrong, but in taking advantage they are helping out their teams to the best of their ability which is their job, so *shrugs* idk how to feel about it to be honest)
Also, no team is going to have 4 years of minimum (as in 1m on a rookie deal) every contract. The problem that you have presented is incredibly niche and rather rare. Most players who it would be worth it to do this with have signed original deals of 3y/1m at roughly 225 TPE. Take into consideration that most users will have earned an additional 400 or so TPE by the time that they sign an extension, and they're probably going to sign a 1-season extension in order to get them to the 800 TPE threshold to get them to sign an unlimited contract. But when they sign that extension, they're signing at 625ish TPE, or 3m per season. Now if you're saying a player is taking minimum for 4 seasons, then sure, I absolutely agree. I took minimum for 10 seasons and would gladly do it again, but the minimum is the minimum no matter the TPE you're at. I'm not sure what you mean by that, so I very well may be misunderstanding your point.
So, all in all, I guess I don't see what point you're trying to make here. It seems like it's a rule that's occasionally going to be abused but it's such a niche department that I don't see a need to outlaw it, at the very least not with the way the rule was written. If you want to say that a player cannot sign a new contract and then an extension on the same day, I'm fine with that. Make them wait a week, I think that's a good idea, forces them to earn more TPE that could possibly push them to the next tier.
To address what I think that the rule was atually targeting, I think that it was an attempt to force teams to spend more money for longer by preventing them from signing players to extensions until late in the season when they had added an additional 60-100 TPE, depending on equipment purchase. That's because somehow every team in the league has cap space every season to field their entire team plus OL bots, and as the person who typically updates OL bots a lot of them are of the 7.5m variety. I believe that 5 or 6 teams used T4 bots this season. The easier explanation, imo?
Just lower cap space. I've thought it since S23, but didn't want to say anything because I was a GM, of course I wasn't going to say anything. I was gonna enjoy the extra space I had to sign my rookies to bigger deals than I ordinarily could. And I did that. But really it did not need to be so high, although at this point I think active players would be out of a job in some situations if it were lowered, so I think it needs to stay in place.