http://www.sportsonearth.com/articl...s-and-the-game-would-be-better-off-without-it
Maybe you're a Jacksonville fan. You want the draft, because you want your team to have a chance. Go back to Luck. Imagine a draft-free world, with NFL teams free to bid for his services. Would the Cowboys have been able to sign him? Maybe. But they would have had to clear a lot of cap room to do so, cutting proven players. Would they end up as better team? It's hard to say. And what about the Indianapolis Colts? Would they be, well, screwed? Not necessarily. They could have bid for Robert Griffin III. Or for Russell Wilson. They could have picked up some of those Cowboys cut in free agency -- including, mostly likely, Tony Romo, because it's doubtful that the cap-constrained Cowboys could have afforded two in-demand quarterbacks.
Speaking of which: Getting rid of the draft would actually make it harder for teams to hoard great players who play the same position. A few years ago, the Green Bay Packers selected Aaron Rodgers when they already had Brett Favre. Think Rodgers was happy about that? Think quarterback-starved teams that would have liked to outbid the Packers for Rodgers were happy about that?
Put yourself in Rodgers' shoes. You're coming out of college. There is no draft. You can sign with anyone. Is Green Bay your first choice? New England? The Peyton Manning-era Colts? Do you aspire to hold a clipboard? Is that even what fans around the country want to watch? Players want money, for sure. They want to play in particular cities for a variety of reasons (weather, nightlife, team tradition, proximity to family). But mostly, they want a chance to play -- and crummy teams can almost always offer that.
Fact: The draft was not primarily created to help the league's dregs. It was created to prevent costly bidding wars over incoming college talent. In 1934, the Philadelphia Eagles and Brookyln Dodgers competed to sign college All-America Stan Kosta, driving his salary up to an eye-popping $5,000 -- as high as that of Bronko Nagurski, then the NFL's best player. At a subsequent league meeting, Eagles owner Bert Bell proposed a incoming player rights draft, with a worst-chooses-first order that -- totally coincidentally -- would benefit his last-place team. Wary of another Kosta, cost-conscious clubs adopted the system, which has been robbing leverage-lacking rookies of market value ever since.
Over at footballperspective.com, writer Chase Stuart calculates that NFL players in the first three years of their contracts produce between 30 and 38 percent of the total value on any given team's roster, but only receive 16 to 20 percent of team spending under the salary cap. In other words, they're getting the short end, particularly when the average league career only lasts about three years. Moreover, the players' union is happy to sign off on preserving the draft during collective bargaining negotiations, because less money for future rookies means more money for current veteran free agents enjoying an actual competitive market for their services. (In the 1970s, Washington Redskins draft pick Yazoo Smith lost a lawsuit against the team asserting that the draft constituted illegal restraint of trade. Ryan Rodenberg, a Florida State University sports management professor who specializes in sports law, says that the outcome of the Smith case suggests that "the next high school or college athlete looking to play a professional sport but has no interest in submitting to the draft should look to sue the respective union, not the league.")
"Andrew Luck probably would have been given a $100 million contract if he was on the free market last year," Stuart says. "That's not an exaggeration. If he was a [free agent] tomorrow, he'd easily sign for something in excess of $20 million a year due to his age and skill level."
Maybe you're a Jacksonville fan. You want the draft, because you want your team to have a chance. Go back to Luck. Imagine a draft-free world, with NFL teams free to bid for his services. Would the Cowboys have been able to sign him? Maybe. But they would have had to clear a lot of cap room to do so, cutting proven players. Would they end up as better team? It's hard to say. And what about the Indianapolis Colts? Would they be, well, screwed? Not necessarily. They could have bid for Robert Griffin III. Or for Russell Wilson. They could have picked up some of those Cowboys cut in free agency -- including, mostly likely, Tony Romo, because it's doubtful that the cap-constrained Cowboys could have afforded two in-demand quarterbacks.
Speaking of which: Getting rid of the draft would actually make it harder for teams to hoard great players who play the same position. A few years ago, the Green Bay Packers selected Aaron Rodgers when they already had Brett Favre. Think Rodgers was happy about that? Think quarterback-starved teams that would have liked to outbid the Packers for Rodgers were happy about that?
Put yourself in Rodgers' shoes. You're coming out of college. There is no draft. You can sign with anyone. Is Green Bay your first choice? New England? The Peyton Manning-era Colts? Do you aspire to hold a clipboard? Is that even what fans around the country want to watch? Players want money, for sure. They want to play in particular cities for a variety of reasons (weather, nightlife, team tradition, proximity to family). But mostly, they want a chance to play -- and crummy teams can almost always offer that.
Fact: The draft was not primarily created to help the league's dregs. It was created to prevent costly bidding wars over incoming college talent. In 1934, the Philadelphia Eagles and Brookyln Dodgers competed to sign college All-America Stan Kosta, driving his salary up to an eye-popping $5,000 -- as high as that of Bronko Nagurski, then the NFL's best player. At a subsequent league meeting, Eagles owner Bert Bell proposed a incoming player rights draft, with a worst-chooses-first order that -- totally coincidentally -- would benefit his last-place team. Wary of another Kosta, cost-conscious clubs adopted the system, which has been robbing leverage-lacking rookies of market value ever since.
Over at footballperspective.com, writer Chase Stuart calculates that NFL players in the first three years of their contracts produce between 30 and 38 percent of the total value on any given team's roster, but only receive 16 to 20 percent of team spending under the salary cap. In other words, they're getting the short end, particularly when the average league career only lasts about three years. Moreover, the players' union is happy to sign off on preserving the draft during collective bargaining negotiations, because less money for future rookies means more money for current veteran free agents enjoying an actual competitive market for their services. (In the 1970s, Washington Redskins draft pick Yazoo Smith lost a lawsuit against the team asserting that the draft constituted illegal restraint of trade. Ryan Rodenberg, a Florida State University sports management professor who specializes in sports law, says that the outcome of the Smith case suggests that "the next high school or college athlete looking to play a professional sport but has no interest in submitting to the draft should look to sue the respective union, not the league.")
"Andrew Luck probably would have been given a $100 million contract if he was on the free market last year," Stuart says. "That's not an exaggeration. If he was a [free agent] tomorrow, he'd easily sign for something in excess of $20 million a year due to his age and skill level."
