This trick will allow you to sign any player, no matter how big their default salary is, to a three year low-salary contract. You must do this before starting a franchise. First, edit the player's attributes from whatever they are currently down so that their overall rating is exactly 75. Depending on the position, you should be able to achieve this by simply lowering one or sometimes two of their attributes. Make sure to make a note what the original rating was so you can store the value later. Once all players you are editing are at an overall rating of 75, release the players to free agency. After releasing each player (you may have to sign some 'no-name' players to your roster to maintain roster requirements, but you can release those temporary players later), back out of the roster management screen to the main menu. Choose the option to 'Continue without saving' (this may not be necessary). Reenter the roster management screen and select 'Free Agents.' Go to whichever team you want to sign the players to and start looking for your players. You should notice that their new requested salaries and contract lengths will be for three years at a very low salary (depending on the position). Once you have signed all of your players back (and released the temporary players), go back to editing the players and return them to the original ratings. According to the manual, your players will become upset if they feel they are being underpaid for how good they are performing -- you will more than likely have to re-sign some contracts throughout the year, but with the cap room you will save.