How the NFL can solve a dozen problems with one bold move: ditch the draft

[Deus Irae]

This has to be some Aussie kinda code which unless I dally someone will decrypt for me

Cinderella story....

 

[Underoath]

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.

How the hell would that work? Who's deciding whether a player is a tier one or tier two. That's literally not even possible.

 

[ausbacker]

This has to be some Aussie kinda code which unless I dally someone will decrypt for me

Like the Lama's words in Caddyshack, our Lama is sprouting bull****....

 

[BradyFTW!]

As a potential solution to a lot of NFL issues, I love the idea. To be honest, though, I think that this would get far more resistance from the owners than the players. More of the players than not, I think, want to see guys getting paid based on actual production, rather than pre-draft hype and potential.

As far as this clearing the way for the best teams to sweep up the best talent, that obviously couldn't happen under a salary cap. Entering the league, players most players don't have a whole ton of money to fall back on, and they know that their career could end in a second. It really just wouldn't make sense for any rookie to accept significantly under his market value.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

This idea grew on me as I thought about it a bit. While such a huge change would be extremely interesting to watch - I think it'd be still a system with too many rough patches compared to the relative simplicity of the draft (though I too am in agreement with those who suggest that the salary structure of the first round is bad for the league.)

Some thoughts I had about the OP idea:

-If you could manage to organize the signing day so that you had rookies making announcements in a similar fashion to college recruits, that would be great TV. You'd have hype fests galore -- How high will the bidding on Curry go? Did the Broncos bid on Stafford, and if so, does that mean that Cutler is on his way out of town? Imagine the excitement of waves of signings all crashing in moment by moment. etc.

-I don't think this would be a bad thing for competitive balance at all - though I do think the Patriots could have really had some monstrous off seasons if they'd had the chance to at least make offers to some of the top talent (on defense especially) that has been drafted in recent years before the Patriots picked. In general though, I think in the Not For Long league, players would take $ when it was presented to them... If teams couldn't improve themselves by spending their cap space on rookies with the whole pool available for them to bid on - that's their problem.

The main negative aspect that this brings to mind is that it makes agents an even bigger player in the process. At least the draft occurs relatively free from agent influence... this event/system would be entirely predicated on agents getting their rookies signed/egos stroked.

Neat and provoking thought experiment though.

 

[SoonerPatriot]

1. It will never happen.

2. Your screed overlooks the obvious. The draft has become a cash cow for the NFL. The NFL is in business to make money, and loads of it.

 

[PatBandwagonFans]

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.

worst idea ever

 

[Lloyd_Christmas]

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.

The difference between what the OP suggested and your MLB comparison is that the NFL has a salary cap, which prevents the Yankees/Red Sox equivilents of trying to by a SB. Of course, that doesn't stop Snider from trying

 

[Lloyd_Christmas]

I commend the OP for bringing a unique, thought-provoking idea in an otherwise slow time of the offseason. (We signed pretty much all the FA's we are going to and the draft isn't here yet).

Here are my issues with the OP's suggested change:

1) The salary cap would HAVE to be retained if the draft is ditched
2) The draft is a money maker, so the NFL won't ditch it even if it were BETTER for the league to ditch it.
3) This biggest problem with the draft is the outragious salaries of the very few top draft picks. Seems like this could be solved without eliminating the entire draft.
4) If you set a date where teams cannot negotiate with the players before then, the tampering that goes on now with RFA's and future UFA's will only worsen. Teams cheat when it comes to meddling with such players (Branch, Milloy, etc). If you don't set a date, teams will be contacting players in their freshmen year of college and the advanced scouting will just get ridiculous.
5) Many college players will look for a contender to sign with. The opposing force is their desire to be a starter, which would favor the crappier teams, but I think the net force pushes towards the better teams.

Additional point FOR the OP's idea:
1) This is basically how the Undrafted Rookie Free Agents are handled, but extends to all players, not just the undrafted ones.

Overall, I think the idea is interesting and might work, but if I were the NFL, I would stick with the draft and fix the salaries of top players.

 

[lot11vet]

I love the draft. It needs to be fixed where the rookies don't make gazillions of dollars. That's it. Please don't bring up Curt Flood type problematic issues. If you did not have a draft it would be similar to the NHL of years ago where the Montreal Canadians would receive the first pick, even though they had just been crowned "World" Champions.
Correct the financial salaries of the rookies and it will open up a whole new way of life.

Actually NHL teams, as recent as the late 1960's, would negotiate with a talented teenage players parents. Milt Schmidt went to Pary Sound, ONT and knocked on Bobby Orr's parents door in the early 60's. NHL teams would sponsor their youth hockey team and that earned them the right to that player professionally. They signed him when he was 12. The Bruins owned junior hockey teams, like the Oshowa Generals. They sent Orr there to play when he was 14. He stayed there until he was 18. The B's brought him up and skated right out on the Garden ice. The rest is history. I think Orr's rookie year was 1966. Acutally it's a lot like what MLB does in the Dominican today.

 

[Rob0729]

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.

I give you credit for trying to come up with a new idea, but I think it is doomed for failure. Here are a number of points I have:

1.) The draft was implemented to level the playing field. It allows bad teams first access at the best players in every round. If you let every college player be a free agent entering the NFL, many of the best players won't even consider the bad teams because they might fear that their second contract will suffer quite a bit because they will not play to their maximum potential with a bad team around them.
2.) An open system like this also favors large marketing and winning franchises since players out of college are looking to make a name for themselves to get endorsements. It will be hard to get Reebok, Gatorade, etc. interested in you if you are not showcased in nationally televised games. That would disuade a lot of free agents from wanting to go to places like Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincy, etc.
3.) As others have pointed out, contracts are too complex in the NFL to get deals negotiated in a day or even a week. This would be one big cluster f&%k.
4.) I don't buy the chip on their shoulder argument you throw out there. There are plenty of veterans with chips on their shoulder because of how their free agency turned out and it has nothing to do with the draft. I think any player who suffers because they are pulled down by the mental aspect of either not being drafted high enough or the fans upset that they don't meet expectations or whatever chip could be on their shoulder, they don't deserve to play in the NFL.
5.) The NFL draft is a money maker for the NFL. Make no bones about it. Other than the Super Bowl and the playoffs, this is the biggest event in the NFL all year. The NFL makes tons of money off of the TV rights, licensing through draft publications, etc. There is no way the NFL is giving this up.
6.) It is good entertainment for the fans. Let's face it. The draft is pretty boring process, but there are millions of Americans who watch every minute of at least the first round every year. Everyone wants to play armchair GMs on draft day.
7.) Allowing players to choose to play for the team they grew up on favors the Texas, California, and Florida teams quite a bit. A large majority of players come from those three states because those are the states where high school football is still king on Friday nights.
8.) The league can fix the system where the rookies don't get paid so much without actually having to do away with the draft. A rookie salary cap and stronger slotting of salaries can fix that without doing away with the draft all together.

The draft is never going away. It is a huge event and money maker for the NFL.

 

[Pats726]

I think the theoretical arguments are interesting....but the actual nuts and bolts part of it really has not been talked about and could very easily ruin teh college game. Great discussion for a down time.

 

[NYCPatsFan]

I give you credit for trying to come up with a new idea, but I think it is doomed for failure. Here are a number of points I have:

1.) The draft was implemented to level the playing field. It allows bad teams first access at the best players in every round. If you let every college player be a free agent entering the NFL, many of the best players won't even consider the bad teams because they might fear that their second contract will suffer quite a bit because they will not play to their maximum potential with a bad team around them.
2.) An open system like this also favors large marketing and winning franchises since players out of college are looking to make a name for themselves to get endorsements. It will be hard to get Reebok, Gatorade, etc. interested in you if you are not showcased in nationally televised games. That would disuade a lot of free agents from wanting to go to places like Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincy, etc.
3.) As others have pointed out, contracts are too complex in the NFL to get deals negotiated in a day or even a week. This would be one big cluster f&%k.
4.) I don't buy the chip on their shoulder argument you throw out there. There are plenty of veterans with chips on their shoulder because of how their free agency turned out and it has nothing to do with the draft. I think any player who suffers because they are pulled down by the mental aspect of either not being drafted high enough or the fans upset that they don't meet expectations or whatever chip could be on their shoulder, they don't deserve to play in the NFL.
5.) The NFL draft is a money maker for the NFL. Make no bones about it. Other than the Super Bowl and the playoffs, this is the biggest event in the NFL all year. The NFL makes tons of money off of the TV rights, licensing through draft publications, etc. There is no way the NFL is giving this up.
6.) It is good entertainment for the fans. Let's face it. The draft is pretty boring process, but there are millions of Americans who watch every minute of at least the first round every year. Everyone wants to play armchair GMs on draft day.
7.) Allowing players to choose to play for the team they grew up on favors the Texas, California, and Florida teams quite a bit. A large majority of players come from those three states because those are the states where high school football is still king on Friday nights.
8.) The league can fix the system where the rookies don't get paid so much without actually having to do away with the draft. A rookie salary cap and stronger slotting of salaries can fix that without doing away with the draft all together.

The draft is never going away. It is a huge event and money maker for the NFL.

Great thread and excellent insights!

 

[lamafist]

I give you credit for trying to come up with a new idea, but I think it is doomed for failure. Here are a number of points I have:

1.) The draft was implemented to level the playing field. It allows bad teams first access at the best players in every round. If you let every college player be a free agent entering the NFL, many of the best players won't even consider the bad teams because they might fear that their second contract will suffer quite a bit because they will not play to their maximum potential with a bad team around them.

You really think? I suppose it's possible, but to me, if there's one lesson to be learned from the way Free Agency has worked so far, it's that most players are more than capable of convincing themselves that whichever team offers them the most money and/or the best chance of starting also gives them the best chance to win. I mean, it's really only when a guy's been stuck on a seriously dysfunctional team that we've seen them take less than market value to play for a winner.

And think about it this way: when the draft was created to level the playing field, players didn't make a ton of money and there was no salary cap or free agency. Not only did the bad teams not need to worry about paying for their early picks, but they also knew they had the rights to the guy for pretty much as long as they wanted. Nowadays, an early pick earns you the right to overpay a rookie, probably to lose him in FA just when he's reaching his peak.

Thus, if the draft really leveled the playing field pre-cap and FA, since then, it should actually be making it worse for the bad teams. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the only thing the draft has going for it is the fact that it's a system already in place. Under the present labor circumstances, I think it's actually hard to make a strong argument that the draft really helps anyone that much.

2.) An open system like this also favors large marketing and winning franchises since players out of college are looking to make a name for themselves to get endorsements. It will be hard to get Reebok, Gatorade, etc. interested in you if you are not showcased in nationally televised games. That would disuade a lot of free agents from wanting to go to places like Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincy, etc.

See, again, I would suggest that the way free agency has played out, all signs would suggest otherwise.

Also, unlike the other sports, there are no local TV rights to worry about, and market size tends not to be that big a factor for national exposure. I mean, Indianapolis is hardly a large market, yet they get as many primetime games as anyone. So did Green Bay.

3.) As others have pointed out, contracts are too complex in the NFL to get deals negotiated in a day or even a week. This would be one big cluster f&%k.

And yet, it always seems like teams are able to sign a bunch of FA's mere hours after FA begins each season. Sans draft, teams could be allowed to do all the working-out of players they do now, as well as talk potential numbers and such for a few months before anything was allowed to be made binding. And since teams and players really only need reach an agreement in principle in order to announce anything, not only do I think you'd see most of the high-profile players signed fairly early, it also sets the stage for a lot of interesting intrigue. Did QB X have something worked out with Team Y, only to bolt for a last-minute better offer by Team Z? That type of thing.

4.) I don't buy the chip on their shoulder argument you throw out there. There are plenty of veterans with chips on their shoulder because of how their free agency turned out and it has nothing to do with the draft. I think any player who suffers because they are pulled down by the mental aspect of either not being drafted high enough or the fans upset that they don't meet expectations or whatever chip could be on their shoulder, they don't deserve to play in the NFL.

In our country, whether you "deserve" to have a job or not is determined by your ability to get somebody to agree you to pay you to do it. Why should NFL players be any different?

You don't think the relationship between the league and its players wouldn't improve night-and-day if the league started treating its incoming employees as the skilled professionals they are, and not as a heard of cattle you can send wherever you want? Why should an NFL player be treated differently than any other exceptionally talented and highly trained entrant entrant into the workplace?

I think the entire atmosphere of the league would improve, and since I no longer see a compelling reason for a draft, given the equalizing force of the salery cap, I think the league isn't giving anything major up in return.

5.) The NFL draft is a money maker for the NFL. Make no bones about it. Other than the Super Bowl and the playoffs, this is the biggest event in the NFL all year. The NFL makes tons of money off of the TV rights, licensing through draft publications, etc. There is no way the NFL is giving this up.

6.) It is good entertainment for the fans. Let's face it. The draft is pretty boring process, but there are millions of Americans who watch every minute of at least the first round every year. Everyone wants to play armchair GMs on draft day.

Whatever system the NFL uses to allocate college players to their pro teams could be a huge cash cow for the NFL. Any non-random system would allow players to play armchair GM.

And think about it: players stepping up to a podium and announcing themselves who they've chosen to sign with makes MUCH better television than what you get from the draft.

7.) Allowing players to choose to play for the team they grew up on favors the Texas, California, and Florida teams quite a bit. A large majority of players come from those three states because those are the states where high school football is still king on Friday nights.

Again, this doesn't really seem to play out in FA to any major degree. Players will go where they get the best money and chance to play.

8.) The league can fix the system where the rookies don't get paid so much without actually having to do away with the draft. A rookie salary cap and stronger slotting of salaries can fix that without doing away with the draft all together.

Can it really? The league can't just dictate a rookie salary cap, or alter the way salaries are structured, without reaching a new CBA with the NFLPA. And the union isn't going to let the league limit the amount of money going to rookies without strong guarantees that every cent of these savings on rookie contracts for the teams will go into other players' salaries.

And you'll never get the smaller market owners to agree to the raising of any salary expenditure minimums. Especially not in this economy.

The draft is never going away. It is a huge event and money maker for the NFL.

I agree the draft is never going away, but it's because it's an institution with too much inertia to change.

 

[Pats726]

I agree the draft is never going away, but it's because it's an institution with too much inertia to change.

And it will create many more problems...especially with college football. MAny things that have been overlooked.

 

[Synovia]

* 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. .

They can already do that. THey just have to trade down and not get their 3000 points according to the chart. They're too poorly run to realize that 2000 points of not 1.1 are worth more than 1.1

The lions don't suck because of the draft, they suck because they're poorly managed.


Seriously, do you think any top talent would go play for the lions (or the raiders) if they weren't forced to? They'd have to overpay for every player on their roster.

 

[Synovia]

Can it really? The league can't just dictate a rookie salary cap,.

There already is a rookie salary cap.

 

[Rob0729]

You really think? I suppose it's possible, but to me, if there's one lesson to be learned from the way Free Agency has worked so far, it's that most players are more than capable of convincing themselves that whichever team offers them the most money and/or the best chance of starting also gives them the best chance to win. I mean, it's really only when a guy's been stuck on a seriously dysfunctional team that we've seen them take less than market value to play for a winner.

And think about it this way: when the draft was created to level the playing field, players didn't make a ton of money and there was no salary cap or free agency. Not only did the bad teams not need to worry about paying for their early picks, but they also knew they had the rights to the guy for pretty much as long as they wanted. Nowadays, an early pick earns you the right to overpay a rookie, probably to lose him in FA just when he's reaching his peak.

Thus, if the draft really leveled the playing field pre-cap and FA, since then, it should actually be making it worse for the bad teams. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the only thing the draft has going for it is the fact that it's a system already in place. Under the present labor circumstances, I think it's actually hard to make a strong argument that the draft really helps anyone that much.



See, again, I would suggest that the way free agency has played out, all signs would suggest otherwise.

Also, unlike the other sports, there are no local TV rights to worry about, and market size tends not to be that big a factor for national exposure. I mean, Indianapolis is hardly a large market, yet they get as many primetime games as anyone. So did Green Bay.



And yet, it always seems like teams are able to sign a bunch of FA's mere hours after FA begins each season. Sans draft, teams could be allowed to do all the working-out of players they do now, as well as talk potential numbers and such for a few months before anything was allowed to be made binding. And since teams and players really only need reach an agreement in principle in order to announce anything, not only do I think you'd see most of the high-profile players signed fairly early, it also sets the stage for a lot of interesting intrigue. Did QB X have something worked out with Team Y, only to bolt for a last-minute better offer by Team Z? That type of thing.



In our country, whether you "deserve" to have a job or not is determined by your ability to get somebody to agree you to pay you to do it. Why should NFL players be any different?

You don't think the relationship between the league and its players wouldn't improve night-and-day if the league started treating its incoming employees as the skilled professionals they are, and not as a heard of cattle you can send wherever you want? Why should an NFL player be treated differently than any other exceptionally talented and highly trained entrant entrant into the workplace?

I think the entire atmosphere of the league would improve, and since I no longer see a compelling reason for a draft, given the equalizing force of the salery cap, I think the league isn't giving anything major up in return.



Whatever system the NFL uses to allocate college players to their pro teams could be a huge cash cow for the NFL. Any non-random system would allow players to play armchair GM.

And think about it: players stepping up to a podium and announcing themselves who they've chosen to sign with makes MUCH better television than what you get from the draft.



Again, this doesn't really seem to play out in FA to any major degree. Players will go where they get the best money and chance to play.



Can it really? The league can't just dictate a rookie salary cap, or alter the way salaries are structured, without reaching a new CBA with the NFLPA. And the union isn't going to let the league limit the amount of money going to rookies without strong guarantees that every cent of these savings on rookie contracts for the teams will go into other players' salaries.

And you'll never get the smaller market owners to agree to the raising of any salary expenditure minimums. Especially not in this economy.



I agree the draft is never going away, but it's because it's an institution with too much inertia to change.

I don't think I can answer all your points, but I will address a few.

1.) You seem to be confusing rookies and free agents. A rookie is more concerned about making a name for himself about getting in the spotlight to get the endorsement dollars. Do you really think a Terrell Owens has the same concerns in that nature as say Michael Crabtree. TO going to Buffalo isn't going to affect his endorsement dollars, but it may for Crabtree. Same could be compared with Jason Taylor and say Adam Curry.

As for free agents going to their hometown teams, there are plenty that do like Zach Thomas last year. There are just so many free agents every year and so many teams that have interests in free agents that might be from that area. There are what about 100 free agents every year and many stay with the team they are already on either because they are tagged or they already have a life there. There are about 300 rookies drafted every year with no roots. But do you think if Tom Brady was a draft prospect right now without the history he has in New England and he had a choice between the 49ers and the Pats, he would choose the Pats?

Also, free agents can afford to go to the highest bidder more because they have money in most cases because of their rookie deals and made a name for themselves. Other than players taken in the top 10 picks, most players cash in on their first contract after their rookie deal. If a player goes to a bad team, they might not reach their full potential and get that big money deal. Look at Wes Welker. He had a good career in Miami, but nothing special. Luckily the Pats did see the value in him, but then going with a very good Patriots offense his production exploded. If Welker was finishing his rookie deal now than 2 years ago, he would have made millions more. His stock value going to a good offense has exploded.

2.) A rookie slotting system/salary cap is far more realistic scenario that the abolishment of the draft for a rookie free agency. That would have to be agreed to in a CBA. I think the league will push hard to get a rookie cap in the next CBA and I don't see that being unrealistic. The union will fight it, but it will probably be one of their concessions to avoid the league fighting to take away more of the overall percentage of revenues from them.

3.) I don't think the relationship between the league and players would change one bit if they did away with the draft. Look at the biggest problems between the league and players, next to none of them have to do with the draft. The only one is the fact that teams pay the players at the top of the draft too much. Most of the problem child players are the ones who are coddled by teams to get overinflated egos and then the team hits their breaking point and the player feels slighted because the team starts to hold the player accountable for his actions. See TO, Jay Cutler, to a lesser extent LaDamien Tomlinson, Plaxico Burress, etc.

4.) Don't kid yourself, free agent deals that are signed the first day of free agency are negotiated weeks in advance. The combine has more free agent action than rookie action at this point. Many teams go there to start negotiating contracts for highly sought after free agents because they know if they don't start working on a deal before free agency starts and when they are supposed to wait until they can actually start negotiating they will lose out. Hell, the Redskins signing Haynesworth was leaked days before free agency started.

Besides, how many players actually sign the first few days of free agency? A dozen at most. You are talking signing over 300 rookies in a two day period.

5.) I don't think a player stepping up to the podium announcing who they signed with is a much better TV draw. How do they do it? Who cares if some guy who would have been drafted in the sixth round makes his annoucement before say a Adam Curry because it will take much longer to sign Curry. How will the NFL keep contract signings from the media especially if they wait until most of the players are signed so they can announce players in order of importance?

Would you have watched last year's draft if the Pats didn't announce they signed Jerod Mayo until 8PM on the last day of the signing period? Obviously it would have taken much longer for the Pats to sign him than say Matthew Slater last year.

How would ESPN and the NFL Network do their film packages and analysis without some kind system to create intrigue? How could they recreate some of the best and compelling draft stories of the last ten years like Minnesota missing their pick and teams scrambling to get to the podium or Aaron Rodgers sliding down the draft boards or a team jumping up in the draft to steal a player from someone else? Even if such drama happens, it would all be done off camera.