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?
The only time in your travels as a professional athlete that you will be paid more on promise rather than production is in the time you are about to be drafted into the NFL. After your first day as a contract player at an NFL camp, potential is a word that is replaced with new ones like productivity and sayings like 'what have you done for me lately?' When existing players sign new deals in the NFL they are based on what they have already accomplished, which is an indicator of what they will continue to achieve or exceed. When players are signed out of college in the first round of the NFL draft, they are paid exorbitant sums of 'guaranteed never have to get a real job securities' on the promise, and more often the hope, that they will develop into much superior performers than what they have shown in college -- and that is what rankles every player in the pros from the two-year backups to the 11-year Pro Bowlers.
There is no denying that the NFL draft is the lifeblood of the league that is a necessary boon and vein of refurbishment that restocks the meat grinder that the league always has been and always will continue to be. And there is no discounting the fact that the sums of money these untested rookies are to be paid are a derivative of the supply-and-demand principles at work in the National Football League. But you will never convince any player that is playing or has played in the NFL that these collegiate prospects have earned their soon-to-be financial windfalls by what they have achieved in university.
In the CFL, our draft picks and rookie prospects are paid at levels commensurate with what they have achieved in the professional ranks -- which is absolutely nothing. For the most part, they make near or at the league minimum for their first contract and are compensated going forward at levels dependent upon how they have prospered or faltered on the fields in Canada. The NFL draft may hold within its ranks some of the best football prospects in the world, but it also holds some of the biggest busts and most, if not all, players would rather not have them pay these kinds of dollars, and such a high percentages of their salary caps, just to find out.
Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.
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