How the NFL can solve a dozen problems with one bold move: ditch the draft - New England Patriots Forums

lamafist · 03-27-2009, 04:03 PM

Since the advent of the salary cap era, the NFL draft has been at best redundant and, presently, actually counterproductive as a tool to help instill competitive balance among the teams in the NFL.

When teams had no spending limit, the league needed the draft to prevent successful teams from going out and buying all of the best players coming out of college. The salary cap was (putatively) installed to serve the same purpose for free agents, and would not only continue to function in that regard, but would actually function BETTER if you treated all players coming out of college as UFAs. I say better, because at this point, the escalation of the 1st round rookie contract structure: a) ensures that the early picks will be grossly over-payed at the expense of the middle-round guys and the veterans., and b) punishes the teams the draft is supposed to help by forcing them to wager way too much money on their picks working out.

When the conventional wisdom says nobody ever wants the #1 pick, you know the system is broken. Many suggest tinkering with the rookie pay scale, but that's going to be a non-starter with the NFLPA and the agents for a host of reasons. It also would result in dramatic increase in
general animosity between the young players and their franchises, and lead to even more nasty contract disputes, holdouts, and all the general ugliness that makes rooting for your team less fun.

No, the only solution that makes sense is to entirely abolish the draft. You can keep the combine, Mel Kiper, and all of the over-analysis if you want, only replace the actual draft days with a "rookie signing convention." Teams can talk all they want with the rookie free agents before then, but no arrangements can be binding until noon on Day 1 of the signing convention. There's no limit or floor on the contracts offered, no artificial restrictions on contract structure or length, and teams are free to sign as many or as few players for as much or as little money as they want.

Here's a list of problems this will solve:

* Teams like the Lions, who would be better suited in their rebuilding effort by acquiring a bunch of mid-priced guys instead of paying one college star a ridiculous amount of money, would be able to do so.
* You no longer have to worry about having the most promising college players' careers ruined by ending up stuck with lousy franchises.
* With players no longer being forced to negotiate with just one franchise, there's no need for the protective limits on contract structure that the agents can then turn to their advantage, at the expense of the functionality of the system.
* Consequently, rookie salaries will no longer vary independently of the overall quality of the draft pool.
* A rookies' first experience in the league isn't being jerked around, told where you're going to play, for whom, and for approximately how much, and how long before you can go somewhere else. Do not underestimate the long-term benefits of this. The draft is THE reason that so many players end up with a huge chip on their shoulders after a few years in the NFL.
* If you fell in the draft because of an injury or rumors about your character, too bad -- you're making 4th round pick money for the first 4-5 years of your career. Without a draft, if you think your value is artificially low coming out of school, find someone willing to offer you a 1 year "prove it" deal with a big roser-bonus in year $2, if the team wants to keep you.
* Employees like to be treated like valued assets, not prizes or cattle. Players will behave much, much better in bad situations that they chose themselves of their own free will than they will in situations in which they were told to pack their bags and move to Buffalo. Graduates of med, law, and business school often have to move to undesirable places to get the job they want, but they stick it out because they made that choice.
* Veteran players will be happy, as they'll likely get a bigger piece of the pie when teams aren't forced to keep a rookie pool. Meanwhile, most of the rookies will be getting a bigger piece of the pie, too -- the only ones who will be unhappy are the would-be-early-1st-rounders, whose price tags have been artificially inflated.
* Without the draft-induced chip on their players' shoulders, teams will find it easier to resign their players. This will do more to defray the losses a team suffers in free agency than the Franchise Tag, which was a huge miscalculation, and has caused way more problems than its fixed.
* If a player wants to play where he grew up or went to college, he can make it happen by offering a hometown discount. Having more players playing in places they have pre-existing fanbases and support structures can only be a good thing.

Seriously, I could go on all day. I mean, I know that at this point in history, many of us are less than convinced of the sustaining power of free-market forces, but in a controlled system like the NFL creates with its salary cap, it really should work as well in practice as it does in theory. It would be a win-win-win situation for the owners, players, and fans.

Too bad it'll never, ever happen. There's no way any commissioner would go far enough out on a limb to actually see it through.

CampPen33 · 03-27-2009, 04:13 PM

You think things are complicated NOW?

This will just make everything extremely difficult. If the rookies were allowed to choose who they played for, the most attractive, lucrative teams would have a huge advantage. There would have to be some restrictions you don't mention, like the a single team can only sign a certain number of rookies in a certain class.

Assign a tier level or something. Where a team can only sign two tier one, two tier two etc.

what you think?

Interesting perspective though.

Grizzafted · 03-27-2009, 04:19 PM

Yeah it would be a totally great idea for the NFL to ditch their hype-generating headline event, where the sports world spends an entire offseason weekend watching and discussing the league, and which builds substantial excitement for the coming season.

***KontradictioN*** · 03-27-2009, 04:36 PM

It is an interesting perspective but I think the NFL would be better served putting pay restrictions or limits on picks. First round would make the highest, of course, but they wouldn't make anywhere near the deals that we're seeing now.

kurtinelson · 03-27-2009, 04:37 PM

Just kidding. You make a very compelling case. Great post.

AzPatsFan · 03-27-2009, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamafist

Since the advent of the salary cap era, the NFL draft has been at best redundant and, presently, actually counterproductive as a tool to help instill competitive balance among the teams in the NFL.

When teams had no spending limit, the league needed the draft to prevent successful teams from going out and buying all of the best players coming out of college. The salary cap was (putatively) installed to serve the same purpose for free agents, and would not only continue to function in that regard, but would actually function BETTER if you treated all players coming out of college as UFAs. I say better, because at this point, the escalation of the 1st round rookie contract structure: a) ensures that the early picks will be grossly over-payed at the expense of the middle-round guys and the veterans., and b) punishes the teams the draft is supposed to help by forcing them to wager way too much money on their picks working out.

When the conventional wisdom says nobody ever wants the #1 pick, you know the system is broken. Many suggest tinkering with the rookie pay scale, but that's going to be a non-starter with the NFLPA and the agents for a host of reasons. It also would result in dramatic increase in
general animosity between the young players and their franchises, and lead to even more nasty contract disputes, holdouts, and all the general ugliness that makes rooting for your team less fun.

No, the only solution that makes sense is to entirely abolish the draft. You can keep the combine, Mel Kiper, and all of the over-analysis if you want, only replace the actual draft days with a "rookie signing convention." Teams can talk all they want with the rookie free agents before then, but no arrangements can be binding until noon on Day 1 of the signing convention. There's no limit or floor on the contracts offered, no artificial restrictions on contract structure or length, and teams are free to sign as many or as few players for as much or as little money as they want.

Here's a list of problems this will solve:

* Teams like the Lions, who would be better suited in their rebuilding effort by acquiring a bunch of mid-priced guys instead of paying one college star a ridiculous amount of money, would be able to do so.
* You no longer have to worry about having the most promising college players' careers ruined by ending up stuck with lousy franchises.
* With players no longer being forced to negotiate with just one franchise, there's no need for the protective limits on contract structure that the agents can then turn to their advantage, at the expense of the functionality of the system.
* Consequently, rookie salaries will no longer vary independently of the overall quality of the draft pool.
* A rookies' first experience in the league isn't being jerked around, told where you're going to play, for whom, and for approximately how much, and how long before you can go somewhere else. Do not underestimate the long-term benefits of this. The draft is THE reason that so many players end up with a huge chip on their shoulders after a few years in the NFL.
* If you fell in the draft because of an injury or rumors about your character, too bad -- you're making 4th round pick money for the first 4-5 years of your career. Without a draft, if you think your value is artificially low coming out of school, find someone willing to offer you a 1 year "prove it" deal with a big roser-bonus in year $2, if the team wants to keep you.
* Employees like to be treated like valued assets, not prizes or cattle. Players will behave much, much better in bad situations that they chose themselves of their own free will than they will in situations in which they were told to pack their bags and move to Buffalo. Graduates of med, law, and business school often have to move to undesirable places to get the job they want, but they stick it out because they made that choice.
* Veteran players will be happy, as they'll likely get a bigger piece of the pie when teams aren't forced to keep a rookie pool. Meanwhile, most of the rookies will be getting a bigger piece of the pie, too -- the only ones who will be unhappy are the would-be-early-1st-rounders, whose price tags have been artificially inflated.
* Without the draft-induced chip on their players' shoulders, teams will find it easier to resign their players. This will do more to defray the losses a team suffers in free agency than the Franchise Tag, which was a huge miscalculation, and has caused way more problems than its fixed.
* If a player wants to play where he grew up or went to college, he can make it happen by offering a hometown discount. Having more players playing in places they have pre-existing fan bases and support structures can only be a good thing.

Seriously, I could go on all day. I mean, I know that at this point in history, many of us are less than convinced of the sustaining power of free-market forces, but in a controlled system like the NFL creates with its salary cap, it really should work as well in practice as it does in theory. It would be a win-win-win situation for the owners, players, and fans.

Too bad it'll never, ever happen. There's no way any commissioner would go far enough out on a limb to actually see it through.

What you are describing is an analogue to an already existing system if you know it or not. It is the the baseball system. There the baseball draft is largely insignificant. Judging by the number of work stoppages, and the unwieldy and frankly precarious distortion of the MLB. I don't think there was an improvment in employee attitude. I hardly think an actual test case by the NFL is needed to see what results. The MLB baseball commissioner was actually calling for a League contraction and killing several franchises.

Just look at mess that is MLB. Bleeach!

Your Free Enterprise Analogy is all wrong. Sports leagues are not multiple business environments, even as they may be superficially organized to appear that way. They are a single business enterprise with multiple divisions competing in a closed environment.

Think of them as Stores owned by a single business an they compete to sell the same product available nowhere else, to others. A single store "wins" or "loses" but that is at the expense of the other company Stores in the neighborhood. McDonald's sells Hamburgers. The only place you can buy a "Big Mac" is at a McDonald's store. Nowhere else. Store "A" wins if it sells 1001 Big Macs and Store "B" loses if it sells only 999. Big Deal.

If you don't like Big Macs (football), you can go buy a Whopper (basketball) from another business enterprise.

anotherbruschi · 03-27-2009, 04:53 PM

the draft should have been ended years ago.

The draft was always more about avoiding a bidding war for players than it was about maintaining competitive balance.

Not only are college players restricted to one team if they want to play pro football in this country, but their salary is predetermined by their draft selection.

The NFLPA is happy to further restrict the salaries of draftees if it means more money available for veteran players.

So a college player is faced with the proposition of having their team chosen for them and their salary determined by their draft slot and by a union where they have no representation.

Don't be afraid of ending the draft, the best organizations will do fine.

Pats726 · 03-27-2009, 05:00 PM

I am sure you could go on with this all day...but I do not see it as win win situations at all. And I do not think colleges would be at all pleased by the intrusion on pro agents grabbing their players even more so than they do now. If one thinks of tampering with free agents as it is now, it would be even more rampant with college kids who are under the NCAA rules. A LOT goes on now, but that would exponentially increase.
By the way I do not worry at all about millionaire first year players playing with lousy franchises.not do I truly believe it solves a ton of problems. AND in fact I do think as many new problems will appear as old ones.

hyperpat · 03-27-2009, 05:01 PM

Intriguing, thoughtful and controversial post. Hard to get a better mix than that.

Not sure it work as well as you suggest, but it would be interesting as hell to follow the signing convention horse-trading. I think Belichick would excel in the type of system you describe.

Of course, he is excelling in this one, too.

JSn · 03-27-2009, 05:09 PM

Rookie Maximums.