* THIS RULE HAS PASSED *
Now that we have successfully agreed on having the same cap number for every season, it’s high time we discussed the rookie wage scale.
The issue that we seemed to have last year with the draft was that picks made in rounds 3-5 were essentially worthless, because they cost too much to sign. Normally, those rounds would be prime real estate for getting defensive studs, but the rookie wages were way higher than the average salaries for those positions.
So, I am proposing the following scale. The first round is similar to last year’s scale, but then there is a dramatic fall-off in terms of salary. Round 2 is now much cheaper. Round 3 players will only cost $5 each (instead of anywhere from $7 to $8.50 last year.) All round 4 players will cost $4, and then each round decreases by $1, with round 7 picks costing the new league minimum of one American dollar.
I think with this new scale, owners would feel comfortable drafting defensive players in the third round (hell, maybe even the late 2nd round, depending on the player.)
Furthermore, there is less of a total outlay to sign all of your draft picks. If you had a top-3 pick in each round, it will now cost you $40 to sign all of your picks, instead of $45.60. People with picks near the bottom will top out at $34 instead of $39.10.
The scale I propose is below. You can click on the tabs near the bottom to compare the new version with the old. If you don’t like dealing with the embedded page, you can open up a new link here.
This is by no means our only option. But I do feel like it addresses the concerns that we had from last year’s draft. It’s also another win for management over the player’s union. Please let me know if you have other ideas.
Are you good with a $400 salary cap in 2021 and beyond?
- Yes (100%, 7 Votes)
- No (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 7
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We talked about this scale and I’m still not sure how I feel. For one, I think we should drop rounds 4 and 6 and go with a 5 round “rookie” draft. That’s in line with Enright’s observation that there really isn’t the talent in the draft to justify 7 rounds. Rounds 6 and 7 last year were a flier-fest at best.
I would boldy say that we start the 5 round routine in 2013 even though some of us have already traded picks in that draft. I’m willing to eat the extra 6th I’ve picked up to make it happen.
Per the pay-scale, I think I’d really start highly valuing all of the picks if it were:
Round 1 Picks 1-4 = $13; 5-8 = $12; 9-12 = $11
Round 2 Picks 1-6 = $8; 7-12 =$7
Round 3 All picks = $5
Round 4 All picks = $3
Round 5 All picks = $1
For this year’s draft, you’d just wedge in a $4 round and a $2 to make it 7 total, if that makes sense.
Getting those top first round picks under $20 for that 20% tender level would really reward teams for picking wisely in the 1st round whilst not severely handicapping owners whose picks didn’t pan out.
Maybe I’m way off on this. I can’t tell if I’m making the picks worth gold or nothing at all…
I still think that there should be SOME pain involved with missing on a first round draft pick. I mean, that’s how it is in real life (though much less so now with the new CBA.)
$15 is a steal for a good QB/RB/WR. So I don’t think that is unreasonable. However, I think there should be a little risk with drafting in the top 3 or 4 so that those positions become meaningful. If you’re not sure about the talent, you try to trade out of that pick. If you really want to draft Andrew Luck, you trade up to do it, assuming the risk for the potential reward.
As far as your other rounds go in a 5-round draft, I think they are fine. I still want the first round to be the domain of people with the balls to pull the trigger, John Elway style.
“$15 is a steal for a good QB/RB/WR”
Is it?
Last season, of the top 15 players in scoring at each position, 9 QBs, 6 RBs, and 10 WR’s made LESS than $15.
Interesting metric. The average salary of the top 15 quarterbacks was $19.80. But forget about the top 15. If you draft a QB in the first 3 picks you’re hoping for top-10 production. Note the salaries:
1. Rodgers: $51.70
2. Brees: $40.00
3. Brady: $28.60
4. Newton: $13.00
5. Stafford: $2.20
6. Romo: $19.80
7. Ryan: $35.00
8. Manning: $7.00
9. Sanchez: $6.60
10. Rivers: $27.50
The average salary of a top-10 QB was $23.14. In 2010 the average salary of a top-10 QB was $20.00.
“Is it?”
Yes. $15 is a steal for a top-flight QB. If you don’t have the acumen to draft correctly, then perhaps you should trade out of the spot instead of whining about the price.
Top-10 RBs:
1. Rice: $54.00
2. McCoy: $45.60
3. Sproles: $6.60
4. Foster: $45.60
5. Jones-Drew: $48.40
6. Lynch: $4.40
7. Turner: $33.00
8. Tolbert: $4.00
9. Peterson: $55.00
10. Mathews: $28.60
The average salary for a top-10 RB was $32.52. Which is twice what it would cost to draft a top-flight RB in the top-3.
I mean, it is noteworthy that Daniel Thomas didn’t make the list. Is that the reason for the boo-hooing about paying $15? OH SNAP!
I see what you’re going for here and reject it completely – which is why it wasn’t my original metric.
By including the average numbers, you’re saying that more money = more production and that’s a complete falsehood. Otherwise, Stafford wouldn’t be the 5th QB. And Rodgers should have nearly doubled Brady’s production. Further, Vick and Cassel would be in the top 5.
Suppose we take out overpaid QBs like Rodgers, Brees, and Ryan. The average of the remaining 7 players is $15.
So, is $15 a “steal” for a rookie QB? Of course not. Fair? Perhaps. Do I want to pay Top 7 money to a QB for 3 years hoping that he instantly rivals other Top 7 contributors? Perhaps not.
As for RB’s, where exactly are those “Top Flight” rookie RB’s?
In 2011, the top rookie RB finished 30th (Helu).
In 2010, Javid Best hit 20th in scoring.
In 2009, Moreno finished 21st.
You have to go back to 2008, when Forte, Slaton, and CJ2K all finished top 10 as rookies.
2007 – AP finished 5th (Lynch 16th)
2006 – MJD 16th
2005 – None in the top 20
Would $15 be a steal for a Top 10 RB? Sure. Good luck with that.
I don’t know if Jairus Byrd and his 165 points would agree with your assessment of the 7th round. What I’m saying is that I’m amazing at drafting in the 7th round.
I suppose we could consider something like that…though I do love the draft.
If there is a groundswell of support for shortening the draft, then it might make sense to do it in 2014 to coincide with our first year of restricted free agency, which is yet another way to acquire players (and it would be fair to any owners NOT willing to eat their draft picks they’ve traded for.)
If we did that, I could even see shortening the draft to 3 or 4 rounds.
Players selected in the 6ht ad 7th rounds:
Hasselbeck (19), Mallet, Paul, Carter, Benn, Jenkins (19), Austin, Cotchery, Miller, Clements, Marshall (14), Grossman, Hester, Trent, Owens, LeShoure, Moeaki, White, Sanders, Green, Mason, Rodgers, and Wilson COMBINED for 3 players in the top 20 at their respective position. Byrd, the last guy picked, was 1 at his position.
Let’s not have the exception prove the rule.
P.S. Your amazing 7th round: Leshoure (DNP), Wilson (195th LB), Byrd (1st at SS).
P.P.S. The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th highest scoring SSs went undrafted.
P.P.P.S. Just sayin’
So by that logic, the Patriots 6th round in 2000 was equally “amazing:”
CB Antwan Harris (failure), QB Tom Brady (HOF, likely), DT David Nugent (failure).
Leshoure is going to light your shit up this year.
1) If four other future HOF QB’s went undrafted in 2006*, AND Byrd retains his status as a top 3 Safety for the next decade, then your analogy holds true**.
2) One out of 24 guys panning out is what I mean by flier-fest.
3) I would be thrilled if Leshoure “[lit] up [my] shit this year” since I have him in the DyNasty.
*No, Hammond and Enright, Tim Rattay is NOT HOF worthy. Ha!
**Interestingly, HOF Guard Brian Waters DID go undrafted that year, which sorta helps your case. Or does it help my case? I don’t even know. But I still think we could drop a couple of rounds.
Who are you even arguing with, you clown? I already said I’d be fine with shortening the draft in a couple of seasons.
Still, you feel the need to hate on my 7th round draft picks? Well, I’ve got something you’ll never have – an Immersion championship. *
* Upon further research, you may in fact have an Immersion championship.
I think Adam is on to something with shortening the rookie draft. I could be wrong, as I didn’t go back and re-read them (possibly due to protesting the fact that the reviewer skipped the Chitons!), but from the draft grades it seemed that fewer than 5 drafted players stuck with each team. I’d be up for that, but agree that it should not happen while traded picks are still in play.
How painful would it be to have the rookie pay scale be position dependent? What if it was set based on the top 10 for each position and then revisited/revised in say 2014, after big contracts come off the books and restricted free agency has happened? I really feel that if I think a DT is the player with the best chance to be a fantasy success, I should be able to draft him in the first round—but I don’t think I should have to pay first round QB and RB type money for him.
Just a thought.
Hey Tom, I do intend to get to your division at some point. You’ll get your grade!
Yeah, I’m not adamantly opposed to shortening the draft (as I noted above.)
As far as the position dependent rookie wage scale – I don’t think that it would be all that painful to implement. It’s an interesting idea. I feel like there might be some unintended consequences, and I’m not sure how it would affect trades, but it’s worth considering.
I dont really know what my opinion is, since I seem to keep trading out of the draft every year, but I’m not against the idea of shortening the draft (next year). However, the longer draft gives you more opportunities to reach for some players (fliers) and stash them with high risk/low reward – plus they’re easy enough to cut if you hate them. Either way we go, it seems that Round 2 is going to be that bastard in between round where the draftee would be getting starter money, but will you be drafting a starter at that point? You might pay too much because the players aren’t good enough for Round 1, but you feel they’re worth more like Round 3 money. I feel this problem is due to having free agency right before the draft – we’re essentially signing all the players we’d probably be drafting in Round 2 (or so). I dont know what to do to fix it though. Maybe its fine.
The salaries between Adam and Josh’s proposals are pretty similar, so I think we are close there. It looks like Round 3 and below is basically settled, barring someone else proposing something different. So we just need to decide on who’s Round 1-2 salaries work best for everyone.
It appears that you both have the salary drop off between Round 1 and 2. Personally, I think it should be midway thru Round 1. Lets be honest – there’s usually 3-5 high profile impact players that everyone wants and they’re usually on offense. (Luck, RG3, Richardson, Blackman, etc). So I’m thinking some sort of hybrid between your two proposals. For instance, use Josh’s for picks 1-6 ($15/$14), but then $11 for 7-9, $10 for 10-12, and then Adam’s for Round 2.
I’m also not against differing wage scales based on position, since that was what I was alluding to in the previous blog post, but I like the simplicity of keeping it the same. As I think Josh said (and I said above), you should be drafting high profile impact players (albeit, some will still be unknowns) in Round 1 anyway, so those salaries are just fine. If you bust, you bust, happens in real life.
So … I guess I’m voting for 7 rounds (I dont feel terribly strong about this stance), and a pick 1-6 heavy (universal) draft wage scale (at this point).
Also, I apologize for the huge rambling comment – I hope it was coherent.
So, I created a thought for a position-dependent wage scale. Basically, I took the average of the top-3 salaries at each position, and then divided that number by 3. I have it set up to be a 5-round draft, with all round 4 picks costing $2 and all round 5 picks costing $1.
Position-Dependent Wage Scale
I’m not sure if I like this at all, but a couple people asked about it, so here’s one way it could work.
I’m not sure I like it either. It would make drafting defense/WRs early more feasible (the point), but it almost seems too low on alot of them. I guess I’m specifically referring to snagging an Eric Berry type for sub $4 or Patrick Peterson for sub $3. Also, it seriously slams the RB position. Of which there were absolutely no RB rookies worthy of Round 1.
Yeah, I actually prefer the method where the slots are the slots and you pay whoever you draft in that slot…but now Patrick Peterson could be snagged for $5 in round 3.
Great job putting this together! I love the intrigue – with pick 1.01, do you take the top player in the draft (Richardson) or the top WR (Blackmon) because it will save you $10?
As Enright mentioned, it puts IDP back into the first two rounds and RBs to round 2 or 3. For the most part, though, the best players should get picked first.
I could get behind this if the vote goes that way. I could also deal with the modified “standard” wage scale, especially the compromise that Enright offered above.
I must admit – I am intrigued by the possibilities this presents and I can’t help but think it might actually work, maybe in the future when the positional wages start to even out a bit.
I’d totally take the wide receiver with this setup.
Okay guys, I took into consideration what Adam and Jason have been saying about the first 2 rounds, and I added a new tab to the spreadsheet called the Jason/Adam/Josh Compromise. It seems like you guys wanted more of a drop off in salary in the first round.
So instead of the high prices going to picks 1-6, as Jason suggested, I’m making picks 1 and 2 cost $15 and picks 3 and 4 cost $14. Then there is a pretty big $2 drop to pick 5, because the last couple of years it has seemed that there is a talent drop off after pick 4. So the rest of round 1 goes from $12 to $10.
Adam wanted $8-$7 in round 2. I would prefer $9-$7 in round 2, if he’s willing to compromise on that number.
Like Jason said, it seems like we are all pretty much in agreement for rounds 3-7.
I should say that I’ll be happy with whatever we decide on – strategy will adjust and we’ll figure out what’s best for our clubs.
The debate and discussion is the best part in the offseason for me…
I will also be happy with whatever we decide on as everyone will be adjusting accordingly.
All this discussion has made me want to reacquire some draft picks!
I would just say that you could take out the “underpaid” QBs and find the average as well as taking out the “overpaid” QBs as you suggest.
Also, I don’t believe that you need to have instant production in year 1 to be valuable. Ryan Mathews made the top-10 in season 2. I’m sure Giorgianni would have preferred paying him $16 instead of $28.
We have $350 to spend on 30 players. That comes out to $11.67 a player. If you’re not paying defensive players anything, then you’re going to have the spend the money somewhere. I think when the positions average out, you’re still going to see the big bucks being spent on QB/RB/WR and maybe DE.
So is $15 too much to pay for a RB in general, or just for rookie RBs? I would say that if it pans out and he’s a top-5 to top-10 guy by year 3, then you’ve really won, because I’m sure $20 for a top RB will still be much less than what people are paying by then.
I am happy with my first draft pick of Julio Jones, and I don’t mind paying him $16 or whatever this season.
I feel like we’re going around in circles here. It might help to hear from someone besides the standard 4 dudes that seem to care. But I think the Enright compromise that I outlined in the chart is fair.
There’s a big drop-off after pick 4, so if you’re not willing to pay $14 or $15 to your first pick, then just step aside and allow the people who are to draft them. You’ll get your bargains later in the first round.
Also, I feel like I’ve tried to do a lot to address the concerns presented. The rookie prices are WAY down from last year. I’ve also come around to lowering prices in both the first and second round. I think that making people pay something for the top 3 or 4 picks overall is fair.
So my vote will be for the Enright compromise.