Also, you mention you went to Howard…are you from the DC area?

Again, thanks for sharing your story with us.

Throughout the years one of the only protections any of us has had against these risks has been the singular area of guaranteed benefit we knew we would receive upon signing our “contracts:” that being whatever signing bonuses or guaranteed money we were able to negotiate on our initial contract. Nothing else is promised to us within the mythical “contracts” that we signed to play in the National Football League. I use the term mythical because we do not have bilaterally guaranteed contracts as the other professional sports leagues do. The papers we agree to sign as National Football League players would be termed better as “Agreements IF!” In other words, you will receive whatever you were able to negotiate IF the team feels you have performed up to the potential of your draft position; IF you don’t get hurt; IF your skills don’t wane too quickly; IF you don’t engage in conduct deemed detrimental to the league (from as simple as taking weight-loss pills to as controversial as dog-fighting); IF no one comes along whom the team evaluates as better than you are at your job; IF you’re still considered worthy of your weekly check each Tuesday at 4PM EST during the season; etc. These unilateral deals are heavily loaded in the favor of NFL teams for the exact purpose for which the current Rookie Salary Cap proposal is purposed: To mitigate the potential economic damages of a mistake with a player signing thus making funds available to distribute amongst those more deserving.

As a player who left the game having suffered several of the injuries for which I knew I was at risk when I first donned the shoulder pads and helmet as a bright-eyed 5 year old, I’m here to say that a Rookie Salary cap is NOT the answer to the failure of the NFL owners to take care of their past employees. For these are the men who set the groundwork to make the industry what it is today… During my NFL career I persevered through a knee reconstruction (ACL, MCL, and meniscus); a broken leg; many ankle sprains; chronic hamstring pulls; several (unreported) concussions; and finally a fracture to my C5 & C6 vertebrae that forced me to retire under the ridiculously inferior “Line-of-duty” disability benefit. My signing bonus as a 6th Round draft pick (#156 overall) in the 1993 draft was $36,000. The salaries that followed for the next four years were $100,000; $135,000; $178,000; and $215,000 respectively. Therein, besides my share of playoff money during my rookie year in which I was able to enjoy a trip with the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC Championship game, that signing bonus was the largest single check that I received. In the 2009 NFL Rookie Draft the equivalent pick (#156) signed a deal for 4-years that totaled $1.93Million; with a $180,600 signing bonus. This increase would amount to about a 10.5% APY over the 16-year period. Now, with the increases in league revenue being exponential I’d venture to say that this rise in bonus money is appropriate.

There are a number of factors that went into why I didn’t get MY big payday. But the primary one that makes the biggest difference is that I suffered that knee injury requiring reconstruction during my second year in the league. Prior to that injury I had prototypical athleticism, speed, and explosion; to go along with my unique 6’3” and 220lb. frame. Prior to the draft I had some of the best college production and measurables for the safety position. But choosing to go to Howard University instead of a football powerhouse was enough to raise doubts; or at least provide excuses. That is until of course I got on the football fields in the NFL and proved to be quite the talent. So much so that just prior to the injury I had taken over the starting Strong Safety duties going into the first game of the 1994 season. However, wouldn’t you know that the career changing play occurred on the opening kickoff and I never got to enjoy the fruits of the labor that had earned me that starting job. This, my friends, gives me perspective that the young men who are able to get larger contracts up front HAVE earned the rights to them just as we did; because they have the same intrinsic risk of it all ending any day on any play that we did as well. I was able to play on as a journeyman for several more seasons and observe guys careers end before mine who were drafted higher than me; while watching some others drafted lower than me go on to play extended careers while enjoying the rewards of a “Big” contract or two. I applaud the men who were able to set themselves up to be drafted higher than me; as well as the ones who were able to overcome the odds from lower entry levels. To me this speaks of how the chips fall in such a dangerous sport. Not whether or not someone is more deserving.

I certainly don’t understand how we would use the other sports leagues as a barometer for instituting a Rookie Salary Cap; unless we’re going to seriously consider, and ask for, the other “benefits” of their contracts. The most important being that these ARE actually contracts that the owners must adhere to whether or not the player pans out to be whom/what they expected him to be. I share this facetiously; as I know it will never happen under the current “system.” The NFL is the ultimate “Good Ol’ Boy” network made up of many owners, administrators, coaches, and scouts who have never even put on a football uniform at a high level. Not to mention having a sense of relativity to the demands of doing it in the National Football League. So the current way of doing business with non-guaranteed contracts allows them to continue on without the level of practical expertise employed by the other sports leagues (i.e. the NBA, MLB, and NHL). It’s unlikely that you will find a coach or scout in either of these leagues who hasn’t played his relative sport at a high level. Conversely, in the NFL, it’s unlikely to find one who has. So in order for the NFL to continue the system of hiring brothers, sons, friends, and friends of friends, they need the contingency of the non-guaranteed contract to make up for their inability to evaluate and/or develop talent properly.

We have been hoodwinked into fighting our war on the wrong battle fields. A few years back I was commissioned to speak to football players at several colleges on the importance of taking advantage of their opportunity for an education; and how important it would be to their futures. There were statistics gathered during my research that opened my eyes to just how rare and special a place NFL veterans hold in the football annals. Additionally they serve as the catalysts for the passion with which I share this post. The information uncovered was as follows:

Of the 20+ million kids playing on the youth fields annually, only 1.2 million make it to high school football. Of this number, only 54,000 make it to college football. And from this group of athletes, only 1,800 grace the NFL fields annually. Though a startling sifting of the talent pool, these numbers were not the most enlightening to me. What stuck out the most was that of the 15,000 men who had played in the NFL over the past 20 years, only 631 did so for more than 3 seasons.

So it is extremely important that players are able to have guarantees in their first contracts, as chances are they won’t get another one. This whole situation appears to me like we (NFL players current and past) are once again being treated like “dumb jocks” and pitted against each other to fight on different sides of what should be the same argument: BETTER BENEFITS FOR US ALL. However, we are allowing wealthy businessmen who have made hundreds of millions of dollars (and in some cases billions) to defer the responsibility of taking care of their legacy employees by taking away from their current ones. Did anyone bother to ask how much of an increase the owners have enjoyed over those years? It is not the responsibility of rookies to give up the same opportunity we had to negotiate the best deals just because WE realize that we were represented poorly on the other side of the negotiating table (by past players association leadership). The deal we need to negotiate is between us and the billionaire owners; not with the current millionaire athletes. When we are able to gather all our troops on the appropriate side of this battle, I promise you that the scales will then be tilted to win the war.

God Bless,

Tim
Phil 4:13

Funny proposal. I have often wished our income taxes could be dolled out in a similar fashion. That is, if I owe say $5,000, then I could direct where I want that money to go: $3,000 to the armed forces, and $2,000 to NASA, for example. Would it not be a trip to see where citizens would put their money?

For those who feel rookies are over compensated compared to vets, I have an alternative proposal instead of a rookie salary cap.

1. Every game you watch on TV give $5 to your favourite NFL veteran.
2. Every ticket you buy give $50 to your favourite NFL veteran.
3. Every NFL product you buy, give 30% to your favourite NFL veteran.

This should help bring the veterans income in line with the first round rookie salaries. Because right now all your money is going to the league and owners for distribution. With this new system, you decide who gets your money.

I can’t figure how a rookie salary cap jives with Jeff’s Republican/conservative American politics. And the reason it bugs me is that I’m a registered Republican; I’m a “ditto-head”, in fact.

For myself, I’d rather allow men to make stupid decisions, like pay a rookie too much, than attempt to stop them from being stupid. As long as the stupidity doesn’t physically harm another, what gives us cause, what could be our reason to stop it?

Stupidity may be painful to witness, but it is not nearly as painful as living under the tyranny of a parent, or league, or government that prevents us from making what THEY consider stupid decisions. It is far better to have the freedom to learn from our mistakes, if we wish.

Nevertheless, a good piece, Jeff, if for no other reason it made me think. That’s a gift in and of itself.

Let’s just look at Florida State Tebow jerseys flew off the shelves yet how much did Tim make from this? We can talk about how the players get rewarded when the join the NFL, but lets look at Chris Leek helped the gators win the championship but not in any NFL team because he is not a pro type player.

The collegiate system rewards players with scholarships, but some players earn far more then their scholarship but have to wait for an NFL club to select them highly in order for them to get paid.

Everybody had an opinion about Michael Crabtree’s holdout, yet his collegiate performance was far superior to Heward Bey, so he wanted compensation based on his college game.

In the UK players who sign a professional contract even at 16 are paid a salary for developmental purposes. And depending on the quality of the player their salaries rise fairly quickly.

So when it comes to Rookie salary caps lets look at the NCAA and let players earn money at the collegiate level, after all America is land of the free!!!!

Many questions come to mind.

1. Would it reduce the incentive for teams to have exceptional scouting programs?
2. Would it reduce the quality of the players available in the draft? Would the competition in the college ranks be as fierce as it is?
3. Would it be worse off for the players in general? Because teams without effective player development could just jettison non-NFL ready players rather than develop them for another year or two.
4. Would it encourage more freshman to enter the draft because teams may be willing to take a flyer on talent rather than gathering more data on the player before making a choice?
5. Would it lead to more holdouts, or players refusing to goto teams where the player won’t have a chance to play for the big contract that their talent level might qualify them for?
6. How would you make sure the teams are not cutting players for other reasons such as personal conduct, or say a conflict with the coach?
7. If CJ Spiller has poor stats this season, would that justify cutting his salary or cutting him from the roster? Or is he really a top flight RB in a crappy offense?

Percy Harvin was amazing value for the Vikes (8M G-money over 5 years).

Looking at some salary cap comparisons:
Matthew Stafford counted 3M, and Daunte Culpepper 5M. Derek Anderson was 8.7M, and Jake Delhomme 8.5M, and Kerry Collins 8.5M approximately.

Unfortunately for, Oakland Jamarcus Russel was well over 12M. Incidently, this puts him at roughly 10% of the allowable salary for a team. How they expected to build a 53 man team with 10% going to one rookie idk but it seems a little insane.

I feel bad for teams who get hung with these huge salaries, but they are the ones with all the rope. This is one of the things that makes the NFL great and adds an amazing dimension to the game. Without some big busts the draft wins wouldn’t be quite as sweet.

I can’t wait until Crab “Money” Tree is outperforming his contract by 6M a year. More fireworks to come!

For every bad player taken #1 overall that fails, there are 5 players taken #1 that succeed. These players should be compensated now, because as @charforfun stated, teams will discard this player without compensation when that player gets hurt.

This is 25 years later, where teams are now worth 1 BILLION DOLLARS and teams are making close to $200 million dollars per year, and that is after they pay about $150 million in player salaries. If you make rookies take a league mandated minimum salary, you are going to see more and more players holding out for a new contract after just 1 or 2 seasons if they have superstar years their 1st season. Players like Matt Ryan, Adrian Peterson, Patrick Willis, Randy Moss and Calvin Johnson would be holding out for new contracts after having HUGE rookie seasons.

Bottom line is teams can afford to pay the salaries because of the revenue sharing that is in place in the NFL, they have the money. The owners are being greedy and they need to play the players. We watch and go to the games to see the players play, not to put money in the owners pockets!

What if one of those 350K rookies plays like 6M per year for 2 years, then suffers a career ending injury? The teams don’t take care of these players. What about them?

This is part of the game. Teams with poor scouting, poor coaching, poor player development, and poor salary and roster management should pay for their mistakes.

No one is forcing the teams to pay these rookie salaries. Let the market take care of itself, and let those teams who misallocate their payroll sufffer.

It’s up to the teams to properly structure the players development to maximise the chances of getting a result. He did go to the Raiders and they hardly renowned for their management techniques are they? Of course there will be failures, and of course some young guys will let the $$’s and the bling go straight to their heads so it makes the system look bad. But try focussing on some of the successes of the system. The Mannings are Palmer have all resigned contracts with the teams which drafted them for serious bling, and they are all still doing the jobs they were paid for.

You can just as easily blame poor coaching, poor organisation and poor talent scouting as you can the players themselves, or the $$’s. One bad pick doesn’t prove the system is broken.