NFL Rookie Salaries Must Be Revamped—Here's How

With NFL commissioner Roger Goodell airing out his misgivings Friday over the exorbitant contracts needed to sign top rookies and that practice's impact on the economics of the league, I couldn't help but try to think of possible compromises.

I mean, there must be one out there. It's hard to believe this issue wasn't bandied about and compromised on years ago.

It's insane there are essentially no guidelines or restrictions on rookie salaries, and these young, unproven players can hold all the bargaining power over the franchises to which they should be thankful for drafting them.

David Stern took away that bargaining power in the NBA with a fair, regimented system. But it does make sense that the NFL is the one professional sports league that saw this situation get out of hand.

As with all leagues, while NFL teams would love to see young talent become cheap until proven valuable, the players' association wants to make sure its kind gets paid, of course. But in the NFL, you could be more easily injured and done with any time you take the field, with no new contracts coming for your newly crippled self.

So here's my compromise, from the standpoint of the league:

Stand for Concessions

First, we'll start by making concessions to the players. If we're going to take away their giant rookie contracts (most of the recent top picks have received giant contracts both in potential and guaranteed earnings), we've got to give them something in return.

That something is the restructuring of contract rules to restrict the use of unguaranteed deals for all players. There are a number of ways this can be done. We could alleviate salary-cap rules so that players can be waived, as far as the cap is concerned, while still giving them their money, or a higher percentage of it.

I'm no expert on the machinations of NFL salaries and how the current contract-landscape developed, but it doesn't exactly matter how it gets done, as long as it gets done.

If the players' association can bring more net guaranteed money into the fold, it should be willing to make some concessions of its own that will decrease rookie salaries. After all, that will also create a system that rewards players more for what they earn in NFL games rather than the hype they garnered from college games and Mel Kiper Jr.

Equal Rights

The first thing to change regarding rookie salaries is to adopt a system by which teams draft players' rights that last five years at a fixed, entry-level salary, specific to each round. Non-negotiable signing bonuses will be given to all first-day draftees, scaled down from draft position.

Since 2008's first-overall pick, Jake Long, received $30 million in guaranteed money over five years from the Dolphins, the No. 1 pick can receive to $5-6 million per season.

As stated, bonuses would incrementally decrease by the pick, or perhaps by tier, until the last player picked on the first day of the draft received whatever has been fair value for a player drafted at that position. The rest of the players drafted earn the entry-level salary set for their round, maybe along with a small signing bonus.

At some point in the process, the two sides should agree to what round becomes the cutoff for drafted players being guaranteed a contract. In the NBA, all first-rounders are guaranteed a contract, while second-rounders are not. It might be fair to go first day with this, too, but most players drafted in the first four rounds stick with their team for a while, so cutting off after the fourth could also work.

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