QB Sam Bradford
The year was 1984 and the Dallas Cowboys organization was on the market. H.R. “Bum” Bright purchased the franchise for $84 million dollars from previous owner, Clint Murchison. Fast forward 25 years — in the coming weeks the NFL will see former University of Oklahoma quarterback, Sam Bradford receive about $50 million for the opportunity to play pro football. Bum Bright paid a total $84 million dollars for an entire franchise. With that he received stadium usage rights and a solid revenue stream by being the new owner of America’s Team. Sam Bradford will receive half that amount and might — might play quarterback for the St. Louis Rams.
Assuredly the economic landscape has undergone dramatic changes these past 25 years, but to that extent? The answer is an emphatic, NO! Rookie player salaries have spiraled out of control to the point that the highest paid player on many teams is a guy who has never played a single down in the NFL. Reality is, he may never play a down in the NFL. Teams that draft and subsequently pay these top draft picks are surely hoping they see the field of play. They further hope that these gentlemen will fill their multi-million dollar stadiums with fans, sell tons of jerseys, become the face of their franchise for a solid decade, and hopefully take them to the promised land of the Super Bowl.
History does not bode well for these high risk propositions. The reality of what becomes of these new extraordinarily wealthy young men is that they may never turn into serviceable NFL players. The danger is that these extraordinarily wealthy young men will behave like so many lottery winners and blow any chance for sustained success. The big single payday removes the motivation and drive to continue working hard. Love of the game drives many to greatness, but the desire to make a buck is also a significant motivator. When money ceases to be an issue, it takes an incredibly strong man to work as hard at his craft.
The difference between a lottery winner who throws it all away and a top draft pick is that the latter can take down with him an entire organization. It must be discouraging for a Pro-Bowler to find himself sharing a locker-room with a kid having never played a down in the NFL who happens to be making several times more money as the established star. The team having invested so much revenue into a Matt Leinart, JaMarcus Russell, or Ryan Leaf has significantly less money available to improve the organization through the acquisition of proven veterans via Free Agency. Teams that continue to have losing seasons continue to acquire top draft picks, further exacerbating the problem by bringing in more unproven players to be paid big bucks.
I am not begrudging, Sam Bradford his right to a big payday. He worked very hard for a long time to be in the position he now finds himself. His family sacrificed much money and time to get him to this level. I am simply questioning the wisdom of a system that puts so much cash in the hands of a young man who has yet to accomplish anything at the next level. Top draft picks should clearly be compensated well — the question is how well should they be compensated and what criteria would be best used to reach a reasonable dollar amount?
We don’t want to see a situation like the NBA has where some lower round picks opt to play in Europe for more money rather than settle for what the cap permits. We clearly do not want to create a system which would find players opting to become Toronto Argonauts. Veteran players who are unable to reach an agreement with their current club can receive the “franchise tag.” This arrangement pays them an average of the three highest paid players at their position. Though not ideal, it largely works. What about a rookie version of this system that looks at the compensation of the top 15 players who play their position with the dollar amounts decreasing as we move through the seven rounds of the draft. It would take into account the position played and where he is drafted.
The system was designed to bring competitive parity to the league. Teams with the worst records are rewarded top picks in the rookie draft. Unfortunately this system is quickly deteriorating to a place where the worst teams are ill-equipped to pay for their pick. Often the best decision for a team in this position would be to trade that pick to a good team who is likely in a better position to afford that top pick. Parity goes out the window when this happens and each year’s draft continues to underscore the need for a rookie salary cap.
I completely agree with this. It is a slap in the face to the veterans who have worked hard in the league to be successful at their positions, helping their team, to be outpaid by rookies who haven’t done a thing yet, just because they went high in the draft. We all know that greatness in college does not guarantee greatness in the pros. The notion that someone like Sam Bradford (who may end being a great one someday but we don’t know that yet) could make close to, equal to, or more in his first year than someone like Peyton Manning, who is clearly Hall of Fame bound, is absurd. Coming up with a system that takes into account the number of years in the league as well as performance to compensate sounds much more sensible…plus, by reining in the ridiculous salaries, it would free up money to be written into contracts as merit bonuses. The players who work hard and earn the bonuses would benefit and the owners would benefit by not wasting their money on draft busts. I like your idea of factoring in draft order when considering the rookie salaries as well. Well done, Jeff. This was a great post!
I have always thought, in all sports, that there should be a basic wage dependant on the years you have played at a team, or perhaps in the league, or perhaps just a straight basic wage. The huge money should come from bonuses from either winning games or playing well in your position (or both). Salaries should be earned though good play, not because you happened to be drafted in the top few picks. Look at that joke the Raiders picked last year, DHB. He earned more than a lot of the recievers who actually performed well on the football field. I know ecconmics doesnt work like that but it pisses me off :)
Not to sound like I’m just repeating everyone else but….you’re completely right Jeff. No one who hasn’t played a down in the NFL is worth 47 million, to a team. The player association is on the wrong side of this one in fighting a cap on rookie salaries. It the players want the big paydays, negotiate a system that allows proven veterans to make more money without penalizing teams under the salary cap. Allow teams to afford to keep those players they’ve worked with from their rookie years to turn into them stars instead of forcing teams to trade veterans in order to sign unproven rookies they get in the draft.
The only thing I’d add would be to load the rookie contracts with incentives, to give them something else to work for. Maybe if JaMarcus had to do x amount in training and play to a certain standand to earn the big money, he might have tried a bit harder.
It’s not the rookies fault it works that way. For every Russell or Ryan Leaf there is a Peyton Manning, Troy Aikman, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning etc being picked. Calvin Johnson went second in Russells draft and he seems to be doing just fine, Peyton went number 1 in Leafs draft – nuff said.
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.
It’s more than paradoxical that so many Americans are clamouring for a monopolistic highly regulated system for their iconic sports league. Price controls, wealth redistribution, and incentives to fail.
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.
The other thing I will add is – consider the OTHER side of this coin. There are many rookies who make 350K and outperform players making 3M per year. Teams are essentially stealing from these people. The Arizona Cardinals robbed many millions from Anquan Boldin. There are also numerous examples of players who contributed far beyond their compensation.
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?
Less, LESS money guaranteed. A Lot MORE incentives (totally agree with D. Taylor) !. Maybe a system rewarding the personal investment of the rookie within the franchise would be sthg to explore… But that’s way too much money for unproven professional players. I don’t know… But i have a feeling this is gonna be a recurrent topic in this NFL RandR 6th season and Mr Bradford is gonna be under Jeff Elliscroscope for a while….
Time will tell, folks !…
(Pardon my english….. French Listener Here…. ;) )
Great article Jeff, but I am not convinced. @charhorfun just took the words out of my mouth. Nobody told the Rams to select Sam Bradford with the 1st pick overall, that was the decision they made. I remember 3 years ago, everybody was telling the Raiders NOT to draft JaMarcus Russell, heck, even head coach Lane Kiffin wanted to draft Calvin Johnson, but NOOOOO – Al wanted Russell, and he paid the price.
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!
Steven, I think you’re overlooking the what Jeff said about impact of having these huge contracts has on teams, because it really does put a strain on them when working under a salary cap. Usually, a bad team takes a few years to improve, and you can see that in where the Lions and Rams have picked the last few years. This means that every year they’re adding another enormous salary, which does put a strain on team finances, especially in small markets. Also, the cost of the picks makes it much harder to trade them away, because nobody wants to volunteer to take on a huge contract. You say that the Rams didnt have to take Bradford #1, but they had to take somebody, and whoever they took would still be an unproven player. Suh was probably a better choice, but if the Rams took him they still would be giving a huge contract to a player who could be a bust (I dont think he will be, but you can never tell).
As for the contract holdouts, CJ2K is doing it right now because he signed a five year contract, which I think is something Jeff missed out. Rookie contracts should be capped at 3 years maximum, to stop players spending a large chunk of their careers without getting a contract that reflects their actual skill.
If you add lots of incentives to short cheap contracts, you’d get something that could adapt to how players actually adapt to the NFL. ‘Randy Moss, think you can get 10 touchdowns as a rookie? Theres a $500,000 bonus if you do.’ ‘JaMarcus, you stay fit and put in extra time watching tape, we can up your wages by 1 or 2 %.’ The league already fines players for penalties and bad behaviour, so why not get players on the right path early by letting them earn wages that reflect their interest and ability, rather than trusting young kids with mountains of cash, and then keeping your fingers crossed.
I agree with bits of what pretty much everyone wrote.
It is snowballing out of control, although it also true some players drafted on high positions (Megatron, Adrian Peterson, Matt Ryan, Percy Harvin…) do earn and live up with their big fat contracts.
My solution would be to cap ONLY the guaranteed money in the contract based on parameters such as field position and draft position. Want to pay Sam Bradford $45M? Cool. Go ahead. Just make sure a maximum of $4 or $5M is guaranteed per season and have the remaining cash given to him based on starts and performance (We can all agree that a minimum of $4M a year is a good enough reward for a kid who has worked hard in college for the past 3 or 4 years). That way you avoid the Jamarcus Russells of the world running away with $38M after two and a half pathetic seasons.
As a matter of fact this could be called the JMABGMCIR (JaMarcus Russell Anti-Bust Guaranteed Money Cap Insurance Rule) and here’s when I disagree with Steven. The fact that 1 out of 6 #1 drafted players fails miserably means that it DOES HAPPEN. In soccer, the off-side rule was put into place many years ago because some players would remain by the oponent’s goalkeeper at all times and wait for the ball to be thrown at them to score without oposition. That didn’t mean that everyone did it, but SOME DID it, hence it needed fixing. The off-side rule not only is still in force today, but is the cornerstone of the defensive strategy of teams.
The top 10 rookies last season were paid 2-7M / year in G-money.
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!
I think Nachisimo has got it right. 4/5 million(or even less) a year is not a pittance to be taken home. How do you explain to the veteran linemen earning 1 or 2 milllion a year ,playing through an extreme pain barrier, that this newbie, who has done zip, is getting 6 or 7 times(or more) their salary? And all the while it’s hampering the ability of the team to perform in a truly competitive manner. It’s not like we’re asking them to live on the breadline. Maybe if the incentive of a contract renegotiation for performance based outlays after the first year were on the table it would make more sense?
I’d be interested in discussing the possibility of some sort of cap or insurance for rookies.
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?
I believe in moderation rookies should earn some bling but not more then that of those who have earned their stripes. I believe the problem lies at the collegiate level. The NCAA are strict on players not making any more yet colleges and the like make millions from these players. And because of all the rewards colleges reap the NFL clubs have to pay for it.
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!!!!
I don’t want to get political, but Jeff is one to get a little, a little, political from time to time.
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.
Hear ye hear ye! Great post Greg.
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.
Thanks charhorfun.
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?
How about…
(1) Base minimum salary for all rookies
(2) signing bonus for No 1 Pick pre-set at (say) $10m, rest of the picks follow this using the draft pick value chart on a pro rata basis
(3) Contracts maximum 3 years or 4 years for Rounds 1 & 2
(4) Mechanisms to renegotiate a new contract on reaching levels of performance – say pro bowl selection or ‘x’ number of TDs in a year etc
(5) Non-negotiation by the team on achieving these performance levels makes the player an effective RFA and acquirable via draft picks
Just ideas…
As a retired NFL player,I am 100% behind the fight for the rights of players from years past being remunerated with appropriate benefits (including extended health insurance and increased pensions)… However, I don’t believe this is the way to get it done. We (retired and current veteran NFL players) were all rookies at one point in time. My question to everyone is “was there a rookie salary cap when you were drafted, or signed as a free agent?” The answer is an obvious NO! The other question is “did you and/or your agent negotiate the highest level contract you could get monetarily at that time?” Therein, I’m sure the answer is YES! Everyone who enters the NFL does so knowing that there are many inherent risks to playing the sport of football.
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
@Tim Watson, thank you for joining in the discussion. You just reaffirmed what I already believe. A rookie salary cap will not help anyone but the billionaire owners.
@Tim, I would like to echo Steven in thanking you for sharing your unique and firsthand perspective on this topic. It’s always fascinating for us fans to hear from those who have had these experiences. I def agree that something needs to be done in a multi-billion dollar industry, that by it’s very nature causes life changing physical ailments to it’s “workforce” and does little to compensate them once their on field usefulness is used up. I have the same philosophical opposition to the uncapped rookie salary range as Jeff, in that I don’t believe it’s right to reward unproven players, many times, more so, than established veterans. However, I do strongly feel that there needs to be a way to compensate players for their service to the league, and for their part in the success of the NFL.
Also, you mention you went to Howard…are you from the DC area?
Again, thanks for sharing your story with us.