At least two factors are conspiring to turn a top N.F.L. draft pick into a liability rather than a prize.
“A No. 1 N.F.L. draft pick may be one of the most overvalued assets in our society.”
The first is the rotten economy, which means that a team with a top pick will be compelled to spend a huge chunk of its budget just to sign an unproven quantity.
While the signing bonuses of N.F.L. picks aren’t set in stone, there are firm precedents that make for a predictable payout. Here’s a paper on the tax implications of an N.F.L. signing bonus, by one Andre Smith — but not, to be sure, this Andre Smith, who will probably score a nice payday in this weekend’s N.F.L. draft.
The second is the fact that top draft picks don’t seem to be helping teams all that much — or, put another way, teams that were already good keep winning Super Bowls without the benefit of top picks.
In light of that, consider this very interesting exchange between Sports Illustrated‘s Peter King and a reader named Matt:
Matt of Atlanta: “I think all the bad teams are desperate to move down in the draft, especially this year — but who’s going to trade up, even if the player has a chance to be better, if it costs two, three, maybe four times as much as your current pick? I think the reason we’ve had such a disparity in the 2000′s within the N.F.L. (e.g. 2008 winless Lions, 2007 unbeaten Patriots) is because the teams that make the playoffs are rewarded with better-valued draft choices. It’s unfair, period. Why is this not the main story from the media during this year’s draft?”
King: Brilliant point, Matt. The league has appointed a committee — with interested parties Tom Lewand of the Lions and Scott Pioli of the Chiefs, both of whom have picks in the top three of the draft — to study the problem of bad teams being penalized by the highest picks making so much money that it’s actually a penalty to pick in the top 10. The solution, I believe, is to give the bad teams a choice where they want to pick. That sounds insane, but why wouldn’t you allow the worst team to analyze the talent in the draft, and if there’s no player the club feels is worth the top pick, allow that team to pick sixth or eighth, for example.
Doesn’t sound insane to me at all. A No. 1 N.F.L. draft pick may be one of the most overvalued assets in our society, since he comes saddled with a mandatory signing bonus that is millions of dollars more than a late-first-round pick or an early-second-round pick. If someone wants him, go ahead and pay him. But if the poor Lions think they can do better by picking, say, tenth — well, wouldn’t that make things interesting?
(Hat tip: Etan Bednarsh)
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Maybe I’m missing something. The draft pick is a pick. Meaning, you don’t have to pick the best player. Why couldn’t the teams pick the player that would have been their #8 choice instead of the #1 pick?
they could just put in a rookie salary cap similar to what the NBA does. this would not only stop the madness that is rookie contracts, but free up money to be paid to the proven vetrans who both deserve and have earned it.
I read the original post in King’s Tuesday morning QB mailbag. I am a bit ambivalent about this. If Matt Stafford, who is widely believed to be the #1 pick, will be drafted by the Lions, he would command at-least 30-35 million in guaranteed money, money that established players don’t make. This is grossly unfair. But you look at teams like the Houston Texans or the Tennessee titans and see that they have utilized the draft to get better. The draft does work, provided you draft well, like the colts/patriots/giants/steelers. But the $$$ that the kids make is simply unfair and frankly will be cut back with the new labor deal the league will sign next year.
I agree with the posters that a team could conceivably wait to draft. There are two issues that come up with that strategy:
1) Fans (in general) do not care about salary issues. From this perspective, they would interpret a pass as a bad thing because the team had an opportunity but chose not to take it (even though they had a logical strategy behind it).
2) Because this has never happened deliberately (the Vikings 2003 pass was inadvertent), a player’s representative may argue that the team should pay based on their original draft position, not where they eventually picked the player.
A great example of how contradictory thinking is beaten apart (especially amongst fans and media) was the Lions decision in 2002 to “take the wind” in an overtime game against the Bears. Fans and media raked head coach Marty Mornhinweg over the coals for that.
What puzzles me about the team with the #1 pick being forced to give an overvalued contract, is why more teams don’t utilize bargaining. I understand that there’s a PR factor at work, but now it’s common knowledge that the first pick is extremely risky. I just don’t understand why the team picking first doesn’t engage in more bargaining. The first overall pick is the only one where the team actually has bargaining power to look at the entire pool of prospects and find the best value. Even if the top 5 prospects hold out for ridiculous money, the team still has the option of effectively picking at a lower slot by choosing a less highly ranked player (say one projected to go 15th) based off of a deal approximating that value.
Maybe the solution is to change the “default option.” Now if you pick a player, your choices are to either sign him to a monster contract, or let him hold out for a year and basically waste your pick.
I suggest a system similar to that of franchise players. A drafted player automatically becomes a restricted free agent at some base + bonus that is calculated based on current league salaries for that position. The system seems to work for free agents… there is a balance between good players getting good contracts and teams maintaining rights to their players… why can’t it work for draft picks?
Why not just get rid of mandatory signing bonuses attached to draft pick spots? That seems like the anti-free-market elephant in the room no one is mentioning.
This is absurd. Look at the trades that routinely take place where one team moves up into the top 10 or top 3. There is a high draft pick premium that a team must pay to do so. If a team doesn’t like the number one pick, they will never have any trouble trading it away for any other team’s pick lower in the round. Moreover, they will be richly rewarded with additional picks or players to do so.