Goodell concerned about rookie salaries

[steelerfan513]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3463911

Goodell on rookie pay: 'There's something wrong'

Associated Press

CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said it's "ridiculous" to reward untested rookies with lucrative contracts, and wants the issue addressed in contract talks.

"There's something wrong about the system," Goodell said Friday. "The money should go to people who perform."

Goodell referred to Michigan tackle Jake Long's five-year, $57.75 million contract -- with $30 million guaranteed. Long was the first overall draft pick by the Miami Dolphins in April.

"He doesn't have to play a down in the NFL and he already has his money," Goodell said during a question-and-answer period at the end of a weeklong sports symposium at the Chautauqua Institution. "Now, with the economics where they are, the consequences if you don't evaluate that player, you can lose a significant amount of money.

"And that money is not going to players that are performing. It's going to a player that never makes it in the NFL. And I think that's ridiculous."

Goodell said he favors lowering salaries offered to rookies, but allowing a provision for those players to renegotiate their deals after proving themselves on the field.

His statement was greeted by a long round of applause from the estimated crowd of 2,000 inside the amphitheater.

I have just one word:

FINALLY!!!!

[treat24]

agreed, it's about time... now if the nflpa can get behind a plan on it

[aaawall91]

Go-Go-Goodell

[LS2throwed]

Almost everybody has been complaining about this for some time, its just time for a chance...A guy can be a bust, but he made his 30+ million so what does it even matter? He could stop working out for all it mattered him and his family are set for life...I understand its the #1 pick but that much guaranteed is ridiculous.

[JasonSeahorn]

This is one of the things I like about the NBA...rookie contracts for the most part are small and are much less than what proven veteran players are paid. The NBA isn't perfect but I think it's a step above how the NFL handles rookies.

[buffalobillsrul2002]

Would the possibility of the new football league that Mark Cuban and others are trying to create interfere with this plan though? I could see some of the top rookies going to the other league to play football, if they offered more guaranteed money than the NFL did..... 15-20 years down the road, this could possibly hurt the NFL's ratings, etc.

Nevertheless, something has to be done about these rookie contracts. Maybe the same type of deal, but with most of the deal being incentive-laden instead of guaranteed? Actually, I'd kind of like to see all sports move to more incentive-laden contracts (though players wouldn't necessarily want to accept them....)

Sorry for the rambling....

[dgan]

I would rather see rookie holdouts than veteran holdouts. I say if the player isn't willing to accept or the team isn't willing to pay, let him sit out until the next draft. The problem is that right now the rookies almost HAVE to get paid, and whatever is left over is used on the veterans. Should be the other way around. RBs shouldn't have to holdout after one good year because their career is so short. If they play out their 4 year contract as a stud RB, they'll be 'aging' by the time they can renegotiate.

The system is set up for rookies to get a predetermined amount (or an amount within a given range), yet veterans are asked to play beyond their contract or get cut. You can't blame veterans for holding out, because the system forces them to do it. Every team wants to find that 'value' player that they can ride until his contract is up. Yet every player that is underperforming is cut. The teams very rarely get stuck with 'bad' contracts these days except for rookie contracts. I don't see why rookies should get anywhere near the guaranteed money that veterans do or should. Teams would have a much less bias opinion of their rookies' progress if they weren't stuck in long-term guaranteed deals with them.

[Venom]

I think that rather than have guaranteed money rookie contracts should be incentive based.

Let the veterans that have already shown themselves have the guaranteed money.

[moochman]

I am almost certainly to be on my own here, but I think this is total crap.
Looks like the owners’ pimp has thrown down the gauntlet yet again. First the owners fear of rich young athletes acting like rich young athletes instead of their silver-spoon fed community has Goodell levying a bounty on players’ behavior, now the owners want to take more revenue away from the people who create it.
I guess it should be expected that you would have the aristocratic owners who made their money elsewhere and simply bought their way into the most lucrative goldmine in sport, i.e.-they did nothing to earn the wealth the league bestows upon them, who now seem to be want to go to war against the athletes, who actually have the skills that dictate they earn the money they get from the sport. They act like Kings who send the Knights off to battle and expect more of the spoils. Odd in a free-enterprise system that so many people seem to favor the Kings.
Is it concern over the owners’ economic welfare?
It shouldn’t be since owning an NFL franchise is a license to print money. NO team loses money. Not one. They all rake in silly money by simply owning a team.
Is it that the league is in financial peril?
Nah. Even hockey seems to be making money. This league is golden.
Is it concern over the veterans’ economic welfare?
This is what Goodell is trying to sell you, but that is not their motive, methinks, nor is it anything the players and fans should rally around. There is one thing that should not be forgotten, and the tool heading the union had better bring this point home to the players: The vets would be earning far less money if the rookies didn’t get such large contracts. All players win when somebody signs a big contract.
That, my friends, is the crux of this issue. The owners understand, they do lots of studies on fan sentiment, that fans feel uneasy about the money that unproven rookies make and that we hate hold-outs. So they are trying to spin this so that players have to prove they are worth the money before paying them. Look at what that means. Instead of paying Jake Long $57.75 million to play for the next 5 years, lets make him play 3 years at say $3mil a year until he is in his 4th year then pay him what the market demands. So the league gets 3 years cheap service from a player who on average will only have a 4-5 year career. Do the math, the players earning potential goes down dramaticly while the owners get to keep more of the revenue. The people who have the football skill will make less, while the football ignorant owners will make more.
Nah, count me as being against this move. It is of no benefit to the game. I am for free enterprise, especially in entertainment business. Let the market set the scale. The rich will just have to try and survive somehow.

[curious casey]

I am almost certainly to be on my own here, but I think this is total crap.
Looks like the owners’ pimp has thrown down the gauntlet yet again. First the owners fear of rich young athletes acting like rich young athletes instead of their silver-spoon fed community has Goodell levying a bounty on players’ behavior, now the owners want to take more revenue away from the people who create it.
I guess it should be expected that you would have the aristocratic owners who made their money elsewhere and simply bought their way into the most lucrative goldmine in sport, i.e.-they did nothing to earn the wealth the league bestows upon them, who now seem to be want to go to war against the athletes, who actually have the skills that dictate they earn the money they get from the sport. They act like Kings who send the Knights off to battle and expect more of the spoils. Odd in a free-enterprise system that so many people seem to favor the Kings.
Is it concern over the owners’ economic welfare?
It shouldn’t be since owning an NFL franchise is a license to print money. NO team loses money. Not one. They all rake in silly money by simply owning a team.
Is it that the league is in financial peril?
Nah. Even hockey seems to be making money. This league is golden.
Is it concern over the veterans’ economic welfare?
This is what Goodell is trying to sell you, but that is not their motive, methinks, nor is it anything the players and fans should rally around. There is one thing that should not be forgotten, and the tool heading the union had better bring this point home to the players: The vets would be earning far less money if the rookies didn’t get such large contracts. All players win when somebody signs a big contract.
That, my friends, is the crux of this issue. The owners understand, they do lots of studies on fan sentiment, that fans feel uneasy about the money that unproven rookies make and that we hate hold-outs. So they are trying to spin this so that players have to prove they are worth the money before paying them. Look at what that means. Instead of paying Jake Long $57.75 million to play for the next 5 years, lets make him play 3 years at say $3mil a year until he is in his 4th year then pay him what the market demands. So the league gets 3 years cheap service from a player who on average will only have a 4-5 year career. Do the math, the players earning potential goes down dramaticly while the owners get to keep more of the revenue. The people who have the football skill will make less, while the football ignorant owners will make more.
Nah, count me as being against this move. It is of no benefit to the game. I am for free enterprise, especially in entertainment business. Let the market set the scale. The rich will just have to try and survive somehow.

good post. free enterprise advocate here but the problem i have is the effect that the cap has on it. as long as the cap is in place, will it not impact negatively the vets? just curious. i don't know. it seems like it would.

i would like to see rookie salaries be more incentive based. if they perform big, give them a big bonus. problem with this, though, is how would you gauge jake long's performance? what if the rest of the line sucked or he just had a very sucky QB back there (like david "deer caught in the headlights" carr)?

or, in the case of mcfadden....was coming into a system that had a horrible o-line and an OC that couldn't use him properly (which isn't the case for either situation, btw)?

i just don't know what the answer is.

i think that if the larry johnson's of the league get those huge contracts and giant guaranteed salaries only to never show up again it's the owners fault. for owners dealing with early first round picks....when it comes to a situation where a team is crippled financially because of the drain that one of these big potential players has on their cap, something needs to be done.