Is because of the salary cap because it limits the overall pool of available money. With a hard salary cap each year, you have to clearly prioritize who gets the better contracts. The superstars and top starters (proven performers who will likely continue at a high level) represent the top tier and they’ll almost always get paid. Your best rookies (guys who are projected to compete for starting slots, usually based on where they were drafted) and coveted free agents are the second tier because they represent a possible major upgrade to your lineup. 2nd day draft picks (who are longshots, but might still turn out to be great players), journeymen, scrubs, and UDFAs are in the third tier for contracts, pretty much in that order…and when talking about guys who rookies are “taking” money from, this is the group people are generally referring to, because they represent the “low-chance of payoff” end of the talent spectrum so they get the scraps.

In a situation that allows free agency without the salary cap, you’ll probably see the third tier contracts increase a bit because there’s not a hard limit on what each team can spend (although the first and second tier guys’ contracts will probably rise too), so the third tier guys’ will be better off in terms of absolute wealth (what everyone makes). But as far as relative wealth (what you make in relation to someone else) goes they’re still not going to earn as much as the rookies because they’re simply not as valuable to their teams as the rookies are. The veterans in this group are usually just old guys and hangers-on who aren’t superstars and who probably never will be and they’re easily replaceable, so there’s no reason to give them big contracts.

I don’t agree that they’re out of control at all. The rookies get paid a lot because they’re worth a lot to the teams. Plus, if Goodell actually feels that the rookies are being paid too much based on their unproven performance the first thing he should be discussing is abolishing the draft (which gives the players artificial value based on draft position), not trying to cap rookie salaries. The draft restricts how new talent coming into the league can be acquired and creates scarcity…cutting your supply usually leads to higher prices. The most promising rookies, of course, will always be paid a lot, simply because they have the most potential and NFL careers are short, but I suspect the mega-contracts for rookies would become a little more rare.

Actually, if a new CBA isn’t agreed to, the draft disappears in 2011 anyway, so we may get a chance to see if I’m right. :)

No disputing that. And I’ll admit that I wrote some harsh things about him on my old blog a couple of years ago when the concussion story was just starting to break. But I also found after awhile that many of my criticisms of him were unfounded and that if you dig into the details of the work he did, he was probably the best head the NFLPA ever had. Before Upshaw the NFLPA was run by people who were more interested in either just having a job or getting into screaming matches with the NFL than with getting things accomplished, and the players weren’t very well represented. Upshaw got a lot done for the players and he did so without needing to strike continuously (which is an often pointless and counterproductive endeavor) or to demonize the NFL in the press to make himself look good (which usually insures continued problems). You could make the argument that sometimes he was too cozy with the NFL, but much of that’s just a factor of the NFLPA’s inherent conflict of interest (the NFLPA isn’t a union and Upshaw’s paid by the league) and when it came to most of the important issues (although certainly not all) Upshaw stood up to the league and represented the players competently.

The key question to ask is this…if I’m handing out a six year contract with a lot of guaranteed money in it and I have a 30 year old player and a 22 year old player of comparable skill sets to choose between, who should I reasonably assume is going to be the better player 3-4 years years into that contract?

Because the third-tier guys want to be overpaid for what they produce, the free agents continue to want the lion’s share of the revenue, and the superstars worry about what they’ll earn if they become third-tier guys. Their complaints aren’t about earning money on merit, it’s about gouging the next generation for themselves, and in the long-run it’s a bad strategy for the players because it will allow the NFL to downward adjust all salaries.

There’s a reason that so many pro athletes end up broke after their careers are over…a lot of them are economically ignorant, short-sighted, and think their skills are worth more to their employers than they are.

The only people for whom a non-rookie pay scale works is the rookies – who don’t even have a vote in the matter.

Rookies take the same risks as any other player and most players don’t even make it to their second contract before their careers are over. Every time I hear a five or six year veteran complain that he should be paid more because he’s been around longer, I just remember that most of the rookies will be incredibly fortunate if they’re able to make it to six years, and that the vet who’s complaining didn’t have those salary restrictions he was demanding when he was a rookie, and probably isn’t willing to give back the money he was “overpaid” to the veterans he “took” it from.

I should probably mention that I have a pet peeve about hypocrites :)

After news of Gene Upshaw’s death Thursday morning, the NFL Players Association’s executive committee met by conference call at noon and unanimously decided to appoint general counsel Richard Berthelsen as acting executive director, the union announced in a statement. Berthelsen has been the longtime general counsel of the NFLPA and served as an active member of the union’s negotiating committee for the past 37 years.

Source: Sporting News