TallySaint

First-round signings could be slow in developing

By Hub Arkush
Pro Football Weekly, July 24, 2006



The only thing worse than devoting a significant piece of your being to the Chicago Cubs and having to spend your entire summer, day by day, living the embarrassment of knowing they’re one of the worst teams in baseball is having to live it and admit the White Sox may be one of the best. Sisyphus, you know no pain like mine.

Thank God training camps are now opening around the NFL, and the games that really matter are just a short hop up the road. Meaningful free agency is behind us, the 2006 draft is a distant memory, labor peace is at hand, and there’s another T.O. autobiography on the shelves in which he allegedly misquoted himself. What more could a long-suffering Cubs fanatic ask for? Well, I would kind of like to know if any of the top draft choices are going to show up for work any time soon?



As of this writing, No. 1 overall pick Mario Williams of the Texans and Kamerion Wimbley (No. 13) were the only first-round draft choices to have signed contracts. That in itself is not remarkable, considering that as of July 23, 2005, not a single No. 1 pick had inked a deal. But between July 25 and July 31 of last year, exactly half of last year’s golden boys had signed their deals, and I’ve got a hunch that just isn’t going to happen this year.

The first signing in ’05 was No. 1 overall pick Alex Smith on July 25. Luis Castillo (No. 28.) signed on July 26, and Marlin Jackson (No. 29) and Heath Miller (No. 30) signed July 27. The logjam actually broke when Cadillac Williams (No. 5) signed his deal on July 29 along with Jammal Brown (No. 13) and Thomas Davis (No. 14), and then nine more players signed in the next two days. Far and away the last to sign was the Bears’ Cedric Benson, the No. 4 overall pick, who didn’t finalize his contract until Aug. 28 and missed a month of training camp. Many Bears fans will tell you it cost Benson his rookie season.



That said, why do I think things will be so much worse this year? There are actually two reasons: the new Collective Bargaining Agreement and slotting.

There’s absolutely nothing bad about the NFL’s new CBA as it relates to rookie contracts, but it does pose a couple of interesting questions. The deal is only a few months old, and there’s not a single general manager or “capologist� in the league who has any real feel or understanding for all of its nuances. How will rookie and free-agent contracts structured and signed this year affect a team two or three years down the road? Right now that’s uncharted territory. The one thing every agent and player does know, though, is that each team got a roughly $17 million, 20 percent bump in its salary cap. Blank checks all around, right?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with slotting, it’s really how the overwhelming majority of rookie deals get done. Each player’s eventual worth in his first deal is dictated by where he was selected in a round and what round it was and how much the players directly in front of and behind him get, with some consideration for the position he plays.

Here are the facts about positional value in the NFL in ’06. Based on the average contracts of the 10 highest-paid players at each position (the transition tag value), quarterbacks are the highest-paid, followed in order by defensive ends, offensive linemen, linebackers, wide receivers, running backs, cornerbacks, defensive tackles, safeties, tight ends and kickers.

Even though he was the second player taken, Reggie Bush wants to be the highest-paid. But the fact is, Williams and the three players selected after Bush (Vince Young, D’Brickashaw Ferguson and A.J. Hawk) all play more “expensive� positions.

Williams got $54 million with $26.5 million guaranteed, an 11 percent bump over QB Smith last year. Coincidentally, last year’s No. 2, Ronnie Brown, was also a RB, and he got $33.67 million and $19.58 million guaranteed. An 11 percent bump for Bush would result in $37.37 million and $21.75 million guaranteed, not even in Williams’ ballpark. Short of a complete change of character by Bush, or a leap of complete frivolity from penurious Saints owner Tom Benson, Bush could be this year’s Cedric Benson. And based on their positional value, it might be viewed as less than wise for Young, Ferguson, Hawk and others like Ernie Sims, Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler to make a move before Bush does.

One mitigating factor could be the Wimbley deal with Cleveland, which is worth substantially more in total dollars than what last year’s No. 13 (Brown) got, but the guaranteed dollars ($9.3 million) represent just a 9.5 percent bump. There are two ways to look at that. With the two done deals representing 9.5 to 11 percent increases over last year’s comparable figures, does that simply mean that figure will be the going rate as the dominoes start to fall?

Or will there be enough agents and young players out there asking, “If the cap went up 20 percent, then why should my contract value only go up 11 percent?�

It says here we’re in for a long haul.


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My Guardian Angel wears a hard hat.