RULE 4 Rosters / Developmental Taxi-Squad

4.1) In the OaT each franchise has a total roster of 40-55 players. Main roster is 40-45 players with up to 10 rookies or 2nd year players on the taxi squad that are taxi eligible. Any player on the roster from 46-55 must eligible for, and placed on the developmental taxi-squad. (See rule 4.2a)

4.2a) The developmental taxi-squad (TS) allows each team to place up to ten (10) eligible rookies on the squad. These players will not count against the salary or contract cap. Any 2nd year player on the developmental taxi-squad can be acquired by another team at a specified time in the offseason. Teams will be allowed to protect 4 of the 2nd year player’s during this period. Teams will be allowed to put claims on the unprotected players during the RFA auction. Any bidding on taxi squad players will have to be done via the message board. A message board topic will be started and any owners who wish to bid on other teams taxi squad players will have to post their offers on the message board. Bids must be a minimum 500K more than the current salary of the player, and all bids must be in 100K increments. Players are allowed to be on the taxi squad a max two years. Any rookie is allowed to be put on the taxi squad until week 13 as long as he hasn’t started a game for your team. After week 13 rookies are no longer allowed to be demoted. They can still be promoted. They also can't be demoted back down in season 2 if they are left up after week 13 of season 1.

4.2b) Compensation is needed to allow the developmental taxi-squad to actually work. The whole idea of the TS is to keep players that you draft that aren’t going to play for a year or two. This allows the 40-45 man active roster from carrying dead weight. (You wouldn’t want to draft a QB or whatever in the 1st round knowing he’s not supposed to start in his rookie year, and then lose him without getting any compensation in return.)

Compensation will be easy. Once bidding is over owners will have one week to decide to match the offer and place the player on the active squad. EX: Team A drafted Joe Smith in the 4th round the year before and has him unprotected on his taxi squad spot for $300K/3 yr, Team B makes a bid on Joe Smith on the message board for $800K - Team A will now have one week to match that $800K offer and if he chooses to do so, then Joe Smith will be immediately put on Team A's active roster at $800K/3 yr. If Team A does not wish to match his offer then Joe Smith goes to Team B's active roster at $800K/3 yr. Team B will now need to compensate Team A with a pick that is equal to the round that Team A used to draft Joe Smith, which would be a 4th round pick in the upcoming draft. If Joe Smith was undrafted and Team B signed him away from Team, then Team B would need to give Team A his lowest round draft pick available.

Once a claim for a TS player has officially been made, the claim cannot be rescinded by the claimer. So make sure it's what you want to do. If the correct compensation can’t be offered up, the player cannot be claimed from a TS.