NFL Front Office

Real rosters. Real cap math. Your calls. Build a dynasty one season at a time.

Take over a front office

Real 2026 roster snapshot, with original simulation ratings using 2023 to 2025 performance, playing time and draft priors. Limited evidence is marked. The whole club too: men on the 53 and the practice squad (kickers, punters and long snappers sit this one out). Manage the cap, sign free agents, swing trades, survive the injury report, draft the future, and chase a dynasty across as many seasons as you can. Saves automatically.

NFL Front Office: Football GM Simulator

Take over an NFL franchise using a 2026 roster snapshot. New franchises use original simulation ratings from 2023 to 2025 performance, playing time and draft priors, with limited evidence marked. Manage fictional contracts under the salary cap, negotiate trades, handle injuries, scout the draft and build a saved dynasty.

Somebody has to make the hard calls, and here that somebody is you. Take over any of the 32 clubs and run it all: the cap, free agency, trades, the draft.

The league moves around you: rivals sign players, stars get hurt in December, dynasties get built one contract at a time.

How to play NFL Front Office, a free online NFL GM simulation game

Picking a franchise under the salary cap

Pick a franchise and you get the whole club: every man on its real 53 (kickers, punters and long snappers sit out for now) plus its practice squad. Every player carries a fictional contract, and all 53 fit under a 301.2 million dollar cap that rises 5 percent each season.

Reading your ownership mandate

Read the ownership mandate. A loaded roster is told to win the Super Bowl, a mid one to make the playoffs, a bare one to hit an honest win number. It resets every offseason from where your roster really stands.

Shaping the roster with cuts, signings and trades

Shape the roster: cut bloated deals, sign free agents, and take trades to the phone: the other GM counters like a person, asking for a pick, offering a lesser man, or hanging up.

Playing weeks with a live pace read

Play week by week as scores, injuries, and rival moves roll in, with a live read on whether you are on pace for the mandate.

Setting the depth chart from the roster

Open the depth chart from the Roster box: 8 position groups (QB, RB, WR, TE, OL, DL, LB, DB), each in the order the sim reads. Tap a man, then tap the one to swap him with. The men marked starts are the ones team strength counts, so benching a better man costs you and promoting a hidden gem pays. Injured men are skipped and the next man steps up. Anyone who joins later (a signing, a pick, a trade) slots in by his rating, so a better newcomer starts right away, and Sort by rating hands a group back to the sim.

Working a 53 man roster and the practice squad

The Roster box opens on one tile per position group plus one for the practice squad, so fifty men never turn into one long list. The men at the top of each group's depth chart start, the bench steps in when a starter gets hurt, and the practice squad sits off the cap until you call a man up. A call-up needs a roster spot and room for his displayed fictional salary, including dead money. The roster holds 53: at the limit you cut or trade before you can sign anybody.

Drafting rookies after the Super Bowl

After the Super Bowl, use the draft picks your team still owns. Trading a pick away costs a selection in your next draft. If you traded them all away, decide the franchise tag, then run the league draft and offseason. Scout grades can lie. Defensive picks join your roster like every other selection.

Using the franchise tag before free agency

On the draft screen, before your last pick opens free agency, tag one man whose deal is up. The card shows every expiring contract with its tag price, and the button says why when a tag is refused.

Running the GM desk: a coach, a contract and a deadline deal

Under the hub's own boxes sit four more: Staff, Re-sign desk, Draft picks and Trade desk. A new franchise opens with them on, and an older save plays on as it did until you open one. Say you hire a level 7 offensive coordinator off the Staff shortlist: his points land on the offense, which is 72 percent of how this game rates a team, so the club gets a little stronger every week. The computer clubs have no staff edge, so even the staff you start with is a step up on them. Your first round pick's rookie deal runs out this spring, so the Re-sign desk offers his fifth year option: one guaranteed season, priced off his rating. Pick it up, or keep him at his ask, push once with your own number, or let him go. At Week 8 you call a club that is well out of the playoff places, which makes it a seller: it marks its veterans down and wants picks and young players. So you send a young depth receiver and a third rounder for its veteran corner. Where you sit in the standings changes nothing in the price, only where they sit does. The receiver's contract goes with him, and 15 percent of his salary for every season he had left stays on your cap this year as dead money, never more than cutting him would have left. Wait until Week 10 is played and the deadline has shut every deal until the season is over. The money is this game's own, never a real contract.

Running the offseason between titles

Run the offseason, where young players grow and veterans fade, then chase the next title. Seasons are unlimited, as long as ownership keeps you.

NFL Front Office rules: the cap, the mandate and the draft

The 17 week regular season

The season runs 17 weeks: home and away against your division rivals plus 11 crossover games.

The real 14 team playoff format

Playoffs use the real 14 team format: 7 seeds per conference, byes for the 1 seeds, four knockout rounds.

How trade grades favor quarterbacks

Trades are judged on rating, age, and position, with quarterbacks at a premium. The AI only accepts a clear win.

Grade misses, injuries and the roster floor

Grades can miss by up to 4 points either way, injuries cost players 1 to 4 weeks, and rosters cannot drop below six players.

Cutting a player and the dead money

A cut is not free. Half the man's salary stays on this season's cap as dead money, a quarter lands on next season's if he had years left, and you cannot sign him back until the offseason. A tagged man is fully guaranteed, so cutting him puts his whole salary on the cap.

Tagged stars and who walks

One franchise tag per offseason, built on the real NFL rule: a one year, fully guaranteed deal at the average of the 5 largest salaries at his position across the league or 120 percent of his current salary, whichever is more. A man tagged two years running costs at least 120 percent of the first tag. A tagged man cannot leave in free agency. Rival clubs tag too, roughly a third of them each offseason. Untagged men whose deals are up can walk: role players rated under 76 half the time, stars 15 percent of the time.

How your starters set team strength

Team strength reads starters off the depth chart. Each group puts up the men at the top of its order (1 quarterback, 2 backs, 3 receivers, 1 tight end, 2 linemen, and 2 each of DL, LB and DB), and the sim counts the quarterback, the best 5 of those 6 skill men, both linemen and all 6 defenders. Rating decides how many of the skill slots each group gets; your order decides who fills them. A chart you have not touched is the order by rating. The bench only plays when a starter is hurt or you move a backup up the chart, so carrying the whole 53 changes nobody's strength. A five man line and real formations are still to come.

A save started before full rosters keeps its fifteen men and reads every healthy lineman, exactly as it always did. It is never topped up: start a new front office to get the whole club.

The 53 man limit and the offseason refill

Every offseason each position group is refilled to its real size. The club calls up its own practice squad first and only signs a generated depth man when the squad has nobody left at that spot. A computer club the draft takes over 53 releases its lowest rated men who do not start, dead money and all, never a starter. Your club is never cut behind your back: if your picks take you over 53, the board tells you how many you owe and Play waits until you have cut down yourself. The Giants open at 54, because a starter on injured reserve still counts, so a Giants GM owes one cut before Week 1.

Trust upstairs and getting fired

Trust upstairs runs 0 to 100. Beating the mandate raises it, missing it drops it, a championship fixes almost anything, and at zero you are fired and the save ends. A fresh GM always survives one bad year, never three.

NFL Front Office walkthrough: a rebuild that reaches the one seed

Rebuilding a bad roster from scratch

You inherit a 6-11 roster with no cap room, cut an aging receiver, and sign the best lineman available. When your quarterback goes down, you flip a backup and a pick for a veteran starter.

Riding a late blooming pick to the one seed

You sneak in as a 7 seed, lose the Wild Card game, then watch a 90 grade tackle turn out an 84 while the round 3 receiver you almost skipped blooms into an 86. Two years on, you are the 1 seed.

NFL Front Office tips for building a roster that contends

Building the roster around your quarterback

Build around the quarterback. Team strength leans on that slot more than anything else.

Betting on upside over aging veterans

Young players with hidden upside beat expensive 31 year olds, because decline starts there and never stops.

Knowing when you hold trade leverage

In trade talks, stand firm only when you hold leverage: a young piece, or a partner thin at his position. Push a weak hand and the price goes up.

NFL Front Office FAQ: trades, firing and real rosters

Are the players real?

The opening names and roster places come from a dated 2026 snapshot. New franchise OVRs are original simulation estimates, not official ratings or historical statistics. One position-specific method covers starters, backups and practice players using 2023 to 2025 evidence, recent seasons weighted more heavily. Passing efficiency, receiving and rushing production, playing time and limited defensive measures inform the estimate; small samples have less weight and missing metrics are not zeros. Linemen use participation and draft priors, which cannot measure blocking. An e marks limited evidence, and a player's row explains his opening basis. Later development belongs to your saved simulation. Existing franchises keep their own ratings and contracts. Salaries, trades, future prospects and game outcomes are fictional.

Can I get fired?

Yes. Ownership sets a mandate from your roster's honest strength, grades it every season, and tracks trust from 0 to 100. Miss badly enough for long enough and the seat goes, the save ends, and you take another front office.

Does my franchise save?

Automatically, in your browser, after every move. The abandon button wipes it for a fresh start.

Is NFL Front Office free to play?

Yes. NFL Front Office is free to play on DoUKnowBall, right in your browser. No download and no signup needed.

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NFL playoff format history and the rules this game uses