NFL rookies drafted in the first round make way too much money. It’s a fact. In no other profession does a largely inexperienced new hire make what the top performers in their company are making right away. A finance student wouldn’t go from graduating business school to making upper six-figures for an investment bank. They would pay their dues first, gain firsthand experience of their profession, and then eventually be compensated for good performance. In the NFL, this process is reversed.
With such an illogical system in place for compensating players who have proven nothing on Sundays, it’s no wonder the league is talking about a potential lockout right now. Rookies given that much cash so early are like children who are given cookies before finishing their chores. You can’t expect them to be fully motivated to earn their treat if you reward them before the work is done. As an added side effect, veterans who have earned the right to be paid top salaries find themselves underpaid compared to their young teammates, thus creating contract disputes over value.
The draft is supposed to help bad teams rebuild and become better. But in the NFL, the worst teams have to consistently gamble that the prospect they are overpaying is a franchise player. And when they are wrong, which is more often than not, they are stuck with paying their draftee a ridiculous amount of money.
In the NBA, the system in place is much more reasonable. Rookies are paid a set amount of money based on where they are drafted (first overall gets about four million, second pick gets a little less, and so on) for a set amount of years, usually three with a team option for a fourth season. If LeBron James, already anointed a superstar before entering the NBA, could live with making a rookie salary for four years, then how can Matthew Stafford claim he is worth more guaranteed money than anyone else in league history before taking one snap?
Thankfully, the out-of-control rookie salaries are one item that the new collective bargaining agreement is said to resolve. Frankly, it is about time. As a football fan, I don’t want to see the Detroit Lions shelling out a $72 million contract for an unproven quarterback. I don’t want to see them paying any rookie that much money, or even half of that much money. They, as a group, are just not worth it.
