Pie chart

Rookies' share is too much of the salary cap

Every June, without fail, we hear about how difficult it will be for teams to sign their rookies, particularly those selected in the top half of the first round. Agents, who always are the source for this buzz, want significant increases compared to those negotiated for last year's draftees. I think they believe the threat of a long holdout will get a deal done.

But history shows that these players most likely will sign for an increase that matches the growth of the salary cap. Some will sign early, most will report the day camp starts and a few stragglers will show up in mid-August. After all, there's no other place for them to go, no other league to turn to and absolutely no other profession that will pay these kids this kind of money.

For the life of me, I don't know why the NFL pays rookies so much. They haven't proven a thing, every high-priced rookie contract usually causes two veterans to lose their jobs and the whole shakedown causes a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress on the cap.

Agents are judged by their peers and the recruitment of college players as future clients is based largely on the size of today's rookie contracts. Hence, agents are driven to turn the biggest deals possible. For instance, some agents are licking their chops over the fact that contracts can now be amortized over seven years (the past limit had been six years).

It used to cost a club $166,000 of cap space per year if a player received a $1 million bonus. Now, with seven years to amortize, that hit will just be $142,857 a season. But here's the agent's logic: The club was already paying $166,000 per year -- take that same number apply it to the new seven-year span. That equals $1,162,000. Then add a 10 percent increase to eclipse last year's rookie number. An agent would conclude that the old $1 million bonus should now be $1,282,600. It sounds absurd, but I promise you, it will happen.

Any club that lets an agent dictate those kinds of terms deserves what it gets. Now consider that most of these players will never see seven years of NFL action -- the club will get stuck again at the back end with unamortized signing bonuses to pay off. That all adds up to some really bad business practices for the teams.

As it turns out, the overall rookie pool was not increased but the minimum rookie salary was upped $16,000 per player (from $209,000 to $225,000). The Buffalo Bills, for example, have 10 draft picks to sign; at the very least that's $160,000 of extra cap space to make up. Half the teams in the league have more money in their rookie pools than they do space under the cap. Here are the four clubs with the least amount of cap space. It will be a tight fit to get the youngsters all under the cap:

That accounting "give back" is the margin of space about half the teams need to order to fit in their rookies. Teams that need more than $2 million of cap space to sign their rookies -- clubs like Carolina and San Diego -- still need to cut veterans or renegotiate contracts. Remember, this is just an accounting procedure to stay under the cap with a team's top 51 salaries right now. Real salaries are not paid until after the first week of the season.

Don't get me wrong, players deserve their fair share of the pie. I just don't believe much of the just desserts should go to the rookies.

Pat Kirwan, who spent 12 years as a pro football coach, scout and personnel administrator, is an NFL analyst for CNNSI.com.

 

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