Sixth Annual AGOP Contest

It’s here, oh, it’s finally here! The awe inspiring, cataclysmic, revolutionary, expeditionary, only once a year, and sometimes not even that, the thing we’ve all been hoping for and dreaming of, the only thing that makes life worth living, the one, the only Sixth Annual AGOP contest! Yay!!!

Each offseason, we put aside the hopes and dreams of the previous Jets season, to be replaced by new hopes and dreams, usually illusory, sometimes delusional, of the season to come. To that end Gang Green Nation is announcing the greatest thing in the history of the interwebs, the all new and improved, zero calorie, gluten free, even better than before, Sixth Annual GGN Offseason Plan contest (“AGOP”). No animals were harmed in the creation of this contest. The glorious AGOP competition returns, in the best shape of its life. We are asking all of you aspiring GMs to think deeply about the Jets roster, salary cap, potential trades, the draft and potential cuts and assemble the best 2018 Jets team you can, under the rules set forth in this article.

For those who are new to the contest, here’s how it works. All entries must be submitted via Fanpost. A few of the best will be selected by the expert judging team at GGN, and we’ll present those finalists to the GGN community for a vote. The winning plan gets its author bragging rights as best fake GM for a day at GGN over the next year, and, a PRIZE (YAY)! The winner gets a Jets related prize of their choosing from Fanatics.com, so long as the price is less than $30. Sorry fans of other teams, if you win your prize is still limited to Jets related merchandise. The winner also gets their winning entry prominently featured in the most respected, prestigious and spectacular of all possible forums, a front page article on GGN.

The rules are as follows:

1. The title of your Fanpost must begin with “AGOP:” (no quotes). You can follow that with whatever title you want, but it must begin with “AGOP:” so we can easily distinguish it from other Fanposts. Example - AGOP: It’s A Foregone Conclusion This Is The Winning Entry. If you do not follow this rule your entry will be excluded from consideration.
2. The deadline for Fanpost submission is 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 17, 2019. No exceptions. One entry per GGN member. Any GGN member who submits multiple entries, whether under one user name or multiple user names, will have all his entries disqualified. Don’t try to create or use multiple user names to submit multiple entries. You will just be wasting everybody’s time, and your entries won’t even be read.
3. There is no mandatory length, but there should be as much explanation as is necessary to fully explain how your plan benefits the Jets, works under the salary cap, makes reasonable trades, sets the team up for the future, etc. Spelling and grammar are not paramount, but entries should be reasonably readable. Use spell-check, use paragraphs and try to proofread for grammar and punctuation errors. If we struggle too much to decipher your entry it will probably not be judged favorably.
4. Your plan MUST fit under the 2019 salary cap or it will be disqualified. In addition, consideration will be given to how the 2020 salary cap will be affected. If you try to backload too many contracts and push all salary cap hits into 2020 and beyond your entry will not be judged favorably.
5. Feasibility of plan execution is important. Don’t propose a trade of Darron Lee for Aaron Rodgers and a draft pick. It’s not going to happen. If you think a trade might be perceived as one sided, tell us why it works for the other team involved.
6. Plans must be salary cap compliant using overthecap.com’s cap numbers. Jason at overthecap.com has a really nifty salary cap calculator tool, which you can access here. We strongly urge you all to make good use of this tool, as it allows you to fiddle with the contracts of every player on the roster and every Jets’ free agent, doing all the calculations for you in terms of salary cap consequences for cuts, trades, restructures, franchise tags, re-signings, etc. THIS TOOL IS A MUST USE FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES. If you use the calculator you can be assured your numbers are correct. Use it. And in case I haven’t made this clear, USE IT. It will make the cap much less of a bear to wrestle with. Restructuring of current contracts to create cap room is allowed provided it complies with the data on overthecap.com, is allowed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and is shown to be something the player should realistically have no objection to. Please keep in mind proration of signing bonuses is permitted for a maximum of 5 years under the CBA, so no proposing a ten year proration to finagle extra cap space.
7. In past years we limited the draft to the first 3 or 5 rounds, to save us the trouble of trying to evaluate some obscure 7th round pick we were unfamiliar with. That restriction has been removed and you can now produce a full 7 round draft. I doubt this change will make much difference; 6th and 7th round picks don’t move the needle much. But you asked for it, and now you’ve got it: full 7 round drafts for all! Huzzah!! That makes the Jets’ draft, for the purposes of this contest and prior to any trades, as follows: 1 (#3), 3 (#68), 3 (#93), 4 (# 105), 5 (#140) and 7 (#217). Draft picks must be justified in being available at their designated slot by at least one reputable mock draft site. You can find an extensive list of Mock Draft sites here. If you are using a Mock Draft that appears to be an outlier in terms of where one or more players are chosen, tell us which Mock Draft you used and why. For example, if you are picking Nick Bosa in the third round, there better be some very good and highly persuasive reasons why you think he’ll be available there, or we aren’t buying what you’re selling. No more than 2 trades of draft picks for draft picks are permitted. If you propose more than two trades involving picks for picks, only the first two such trades will be considered. Unlimited player trades (players for players, picks for players or players for picks) are permitted. You should provide some reasons why the trading partner would want to do any proposed trade. Any trade of draft picks must be in rough compliance with the standard trade value chart. You can find a nifty interactive version of the trade value chart here. This interactive chart allows you to input any team’s name and it highlights all of that team’s 2018 draft picks on the chart; very cool. Trades may include picks from any round, as well as future years 2020 and 2021, but not beyond 2021.
8. Trades of current players for draft picks are limited as follows: Jamal Adams for a #1, Leonard Williams for a #3, Chris Herndon for a #4, Marcus Maye for a #4, Quincy Enunwa for a #5, Darron Lee for a #6, Avery Williamson for a #6, Brandon Shell for a #6 and Thomas Hennessy for four #1s and three #2s (just kidding). Sam Darnold is off the table, period. No other Jets player may bring back any draft picks in a proposed trade. The reason we have set values in players for draft pick trades is so that everyone is playing by the same rules. That is, Entry X may propose trading Leonard Wiliams for a #1, while Entry Y proposes trading Williams for a #3. Entry X then has a clear advantage in his plan, though they are both simply trading the same player. To avoid such issues, we have set standard trade values, similar to the way we require you to roughly comply with the draft pick trade value chart. Please don’t bother disputing the set values; they aren’t important so much for their accuracy as they are for their uniformity. Every year somebody feels it necessary to engage in lengthy criticism and debate about the set trade values; DON’T BE THAT GUY. It isn’t important; what’s important is that everybody is on an even playing field with standard trade values. Everyone has to play by the same rules, so just go with the values given.
9. Whether the Jets might realistically execute your plan doesn’t matter as long as the plan itself can be considered realistic given the current free agent and trade markets. In other words, you don’t have to operate the same way Mike Maccagnan would operate. Just make your plan something that could in some world be seen as realistic.
10. Free agent salaries should be realistic. You may sign any unrestricted free agents you wish, INCLUDING ANY FREE AGENTS SIGNED BY OTHER TEAMS AFTER THE SIGNING PERIOD BEGINS, provided they have not been signed prior to the time you submit your entry, and provided they fit under the cap and the proposed salaries are realistic. You may not sign free agents who have already signed with another team (or who have been reported to have agreed to terms during the legal tampering period) and thus are off the market PRIOR to the time you submit your entry. You may NOT sign other teams’ restricted free agents. If you are proposing some backloading of contracts to fit better under the 2019 cap, that’s fine, so long as you then sketch out how the whole contract works so we can gauge how it impacts future years.
11. The contest begins now, a few days before the legal tampering period begins, and ends a few days after the start of the new league year. This schedule is by design, as it attempts to mimic as much as possible the experience of a real GM. Like a real GM free agents will be available to you only so long as they have not already agreed to terms with other teams. Waiting on the market will give you the advantage of gauging market prices better, thus making your proposed deals more realistic. However, waiting will also present the disadvantage of watching your priority free agents snapped up by other teams. Moving early keeps all the free agents in play, but may result in unrealistic contracts, which may hurt you. Like a real GM you will have to weigh going all in early versus letting the market come to you.
12. This year the Jets have an enormous amount of cap space. As such the Jets can afford to sign a bunch of the top free agents at many positions. However, in real life there will be 31 other teams bidding in the market. The Jets, despite their large amount of cap space, will not win every bid they submit. So, a word to the wise: don’t submit an AGOP where the Jets land every one of the top 6, 7 or more free agents on the market. That isn’t a realistic outcome, and it will hurt your chances in the contest. No harm in selecting a few of the top of the class free agents for the Jets, but taking every one you’re interested in just isn’t in the cards.

The finalists will be posted on or about Wednesday, March 27, 2018, with community voting to conclude on Wednesday, April 3, 2018. The winner will be posted on the front page of GGN shortly after the close of voting.

So get your minds working and try being Jets GM for a day. Let the Sixth Annual GGN Offseason Plan contest commence!

Editor’s note: Clarification on trades.

On the trading of draft picks, up to two trades involving draft picks for both teams involved in the trade are allowed. However, you may make as many trades involving picks for players, players for picks, or players for players as you wish. Any hybrid trades (i.e., my picks for your player and picks, or vice versa) will count as one of your two permitted picks for picks trades. I hope that clarifies all possible trade scenarios.

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