Spoiled Rotten Rookies: The NFL Rookie Pay Scale Dilemma

As an avid sports fan, I, just like millions of others around the world, love to see a great competitive game whether I am rooting for a particular team or not.

Lately I have started to notice a trend in professional sports in which the viewership has steadily increased and revenue streams have skyrocketed for a lot of leagues. Along with revenue streams increasing, player salaries have naturally increased as well.

Now, I do not have a problem with athletes being compensated for their unique talents; however, I do have a problem with rookies regularly becoming the highest paid in their league from day one.

Rookies come into their respective leagues after completing in most cases a stellar collegiate career as the top players in the country. At this point they are considered to have potential to be as good in the pros as they were in college. The definition of potential is “having a latent possibility or likelihood of occurring, or of doing or becoming something.”

The key to this definition is the word “possibility”—that means nothing is guaranteed. However, team owners pay top dollar year after year for talented collegiate players, and every year the price tag goes up.

Last year former University of Georgia signal-caller Matthew Stafford was signed by the Detroit Lions and given $41.7 million in guaranteed money—the most lucrative guaranteed contract in NFL history—all before he ever took a snap from center. 

Through no fault of his own, Stafford instantly has enough money to buy his own franchise or a small country somewhere (OK, maybe not a country, but you get my point) without proving that he can transform his game to the NFL level.   

Again, I am not opposed to players getting compensated; heck, I believe elite players that produce should be heavily compensated without question. I just can't agree with the top-level pay going to unproven rookies.

Another result of overpaying rookies is the “JaMarcus Russell effect.” Rookies need to prove that they are worthy of the money that they are given. The way that the system is set up now, so much money is guaranteed upfront that the players no longer feel that they have anything to prove. When entering into the pros, your goal is to work to be the best in order to get the best salary; however, if the big pay is given up front, what else does the athlete have to work toward?

In the end, owners have the final say as to what they feel a player is worth. This separates the good franchises from the bad. Teams like the Eagles and Patriots choose their rookies very carefully, developing them into the types of players that they want. On the other hand, teams like the Lions and Raiders spend tons and tons of money on unproven talent, and, at the end of the day, have nothing to show for it.

There should be a mandatory rookie pay scale for the first year or two, and after that, if warranted, the contract could be renegotiated. Let’s keep the integrity of sport and not saturate it with overpaid unproven frat boys. That’s my opinion; what’s yours?