Commissioner has his say on Rookie contracts

With the NFL on collision course with the NFL Players Association over... well over pretty much everything, Commissioner Roger Goodell has spoken out on a few issues during a symposium at the Chautauqua Institution, N.Y.

Goodell calls the current C.B.A "financially unworkable", and says that he hopes a new deal will be reached by next March. One group of young men who should follow the negotiations closely, are those College students intending to declare for next year's draft in April. Today Goodell spoke at length on the spiralling contracts being handed out to high draft picks:

"There's something wrong about the system... The money should go to people who perform. (A First Round pick) doesn't have to play a down in the NFL and he already has his money, now, with the economics where they are, the consequences if you don't evaluate that player, you can lose a significant amount of money.

- Commissioner Roger Goodell

Goodell's words echo that of NFLPA president Kevin Mawae, who called rookie deals such as the $72m deal Matt Ryan signed with Atlanta 'disheartening'. Dolphins kicker Jay Feely concurred, and said that '90% of current players' are against the current system. With this in mind, surely this is one issue that will be easily resolved when the CBA talks start? Well, no actually.

You see, the NFLPA Union is represented by Gene Upshaw, who (providing Matt Stover hasn't had him replaced) will be the man in charge of negotiations with the owners. Unfortunately, Upshaw is dead against a rookie wage scale, and made this clear during the furore over Ryan's deal:

"we're dealing with such short careers with our rookies and with our players that if you entered into some type of scale or some type of structure for a rookie, it wouldn't make any sense in our business."
- NFLPA Chief Gene Upshaw

Upshaw seems to want to drive a hard bargain, securing not only rookie deals, but also veteran contracts at the current inflation-busting momentum. This makes no sense, as despite the 'rookie pool' that Upshaw uses to support his argument (Each team has a limited amount of the salary cap to spend on rookies per year), veterans are still being short changed compared to the top 10 guys coming into the league each year, many of whom will prove to be completely unworthy of such money.

We think that this could be a big issue when the NFLPA decides what it is doing with Upshaw. 49ers representative Walt Harris declares that he thinks Upshaw "...has done an exceptional job", and cites the current C.B.A as proof. Hold on a second Walt, you're suggesting that Upshaw did a good job on that? The league opted out of the agreement at the earliest possible opportunity, less than two years after the agreement was signed. All Upshaw did was give the owners every reason to hold out for a better deal this time around. The fact that when Matt Stover made public his desire to see Upshaw replaced, the idea was not completely rejected, suggests that there may be those within the NFLPA who are open to the idea of having Upshaw replaced before negotiations start.

And if you were a veteran who's union boss seemed intent on keeping your salary down at the expense of untested Rookies, wouldn't you feel the same?