Rookies’ big cash doesn’t add up
Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:
When it comes to the drafting of collegiate players into the realm of professional football, the NFL could learn a thing or two from the CFL about the appraisal and economic valuation of its prospective athletes.
While we are still 12 days away from the 2008 NFL Draft, you can probably already hear the meshing sound of teeth clenching together of countless veteran players on both the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams — the teams who currently hold the top two picks for draft day on April 26, and who are soon to be handing out record-breaking amounts of cash.
Whether the unrelated Longs — Chris, defensive end out of Virginia, and Jake, an offensive tackle out of Michigan, go No. 1 and No. 2 or two and one on the first day of the draft, it really won’t matter to the players. What will draw their ire and consternation for years to come, however, is the fact that the odds are which ever two players go to Miami and St. Louis on this fabled day will both most likely receive guaranteed signing bonus payments in the neighbourhood of $30 million respectively. And nothing makes a transition to your first and newest professional football team more difficult and awkward than having to fit into the locker-room with 30 million bucks stuck in your back pocket when you have yet to earn your stripes.
Of course, a lot of the resentment that is directed toward players selected in the first round of the NFL draft is obviously chalked up to little more than jealousy. As long as football is being played at a professional level, you can be assured that its veteran players are going to grumble that they wish they were entering the league now instead of 10 years ago, or, ‘what has this rookie done in the NFL to get paid more than I have in my entire career?!’ But that is the quintessential question that never gets answered or addressed in pro ball in the NFL: Why do these spit-shined newbies get so much money for what they did in college and have not or may not ever do in the pros?
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