Another proposed rookie salary cap system

After I read Ron from NM's post on a new system for rookie contracts, and sorry Ron but I didn't like yours all that much, I post my own proposed system in the comments.  Then I thought, why not make a fanpost out of it, with a few revisions of course.

Now I'll come right out and say that I took a lot of the principals of this system from the NHL's current rookie cap system, but with much larger numbers of course.  I just think that the NHL's rookie cap system is the best in all of pro sports and that it could translate to the NFL rather easily.

So without further delay, here it is:

Right now an NHL rookie cannot make more than 950K per year in his first 3 years (that’s base salary, they can make much more with bonuses). I see a 4M cap (probably with bonuses) for the first 3 years of a rookie’s contract as a good number to start with for the NFL to start with.  I also think that it would be a good idea to put a max amount of years that a rookie contract would be allowed to have. In the NHL it’s 3 years; I say that’s also a good number for the NFL as well.  This means that the maximum rookie contract would be a very respectable 3 year, 12 million dollar deal.

After the end of that initial contract all players would become restricted free agents. The teams would have the option of signing the player long term, or give him an RFA tender. Now to counter the short initial rookie contracts a team would have the chance to put hand a player two 1 year RFA tender offers. Now to NFL fans this may look strange, but for hockey fans this is a well known system that works… I’m just putting a few NFL friendly and player friendly tweaks to it.

The first RFA tender, which would be at the end of a rookie’s 3rd year in the league, would be a 1 year tender with a minimum of 750 thousand, or a raise of 15% over the average salary of his rookie contract if said player earned more than 750K.  A modest raise for any player, but it beats the current RFA system.  That player will remain an RFA after his fourth year in the league. Here the team would once again have the option of signing the player long term, or hand him a second RFA tender.  Now this second RFA tender would come with a guaranteed 1.5M, or a 30% raise over his first RFA tender if said player earned more than 1.5M, making it more beneficial to the player then the team as far as money goes.  At the end of that second RFA year, the player becomes a UFA, meaning that he can go anywhere he wants.  Now if you think that these numbers are still low, please keep in mind that in 2009 the NFL’s median salary was 770K and that the NFL average salary was 1.1M, so the difference is not astounding.

Now I know what you’re thinking: What keeps a player from being low balled by his team for his first 5 years of his career?  The NFL could do like every other cap system and establish both a maximum, and a minimum for player salaries.  Now we could very easily establish the minimum salary for a player by the round that he was drafted in.  I suggest the numbers that Ron put up in his post for rookie salaries as the minimum.  Therefore 1st rounders would get a minimum of 1 million, 2nd rounders 800 thousand, 3rd rounders 600 thousand, 4th rounders 400 thousand, and everyone else the rookie minimum.  And for everyone that thinks that rookies would still be stuck with low contracts, please remember that in the vast majority of cases teams do upgrade contracts when the players are deserving and there is nothing that would stop teams from restructuring contracts or handing out extensions to deserving players.

This RFA system is actually more beneficial to the player then the team because it encourages teams to sign their rookies to long term deals at the end of their third year or the possibly have to pay large sums of money to keep them as RFA’s.  It also guarantees that a player can become a UFA by the end of his 5th year if not signed to a long term contract by the team that drafted him.

Here’s what a 5 year rookie contract would look like (with both RFA years):

So in short, a 3 year, 4M max per year rookie contract cap. At which point every rookie becomes a RFA. The team can chose to give you a big contract, negating any future RFA status, or sign you to a 1 year RFA tender at 750K or a 15% raise, at the end of which they can sign you to an extension or to a second 1 year RFA tender at 1.5M or a 30% raise.  Upon Completion of this second RFA year, the player becomes a UFA and can go wherever he wants.

I honestly think that this would work a lot better than rookie system (or lack thereof) that pays outrageous amounts of money to players that have never played a single pro game.  It also prevents rookie salaries to go up exponentially each year.  It would also allow the rookie to get substantial raises if not signed to a long term contract by the team that drafted them, and would also protect teams from having to pay huge amounts of money to players that turn out to be duds and it’s something that both the NFL and the NFLPA could probably live with.