Blue 42: NFL wants to cut rookie salaries
Apr 14, 2011, 2:14 PM | Updated: 2:21 pm
710Sports.com staff
The Associated Press reports that among the changes the NFL wants to make to rookie salaries is a 60 percent decrease in the guaranteed pay for first-round draft picks.
Brock Huard offered his take in Thursday’s Blue 42.
Huard: “In the rookie wage scale, I think you’re going find consensus from many of those veterans as well as the owners, that this thing needs to be brought back down to something that makes sense. Between 2000 and 2010 you saw a 233 percent increase in guaranteed money paid to these guys coming into the draft. It’s going to change.
“Now, is it going to be what the owners proposed? The news that came out yesterday, a cut of $300 million a year, $1.5 billion over five years? I don’t know if it’s going to be that excessive, but these contracts are going to come way down for the rookies. That money is going to go to veterans, that money is going to go to retirees and going other places. That’s the only way the NFL Players Association is going to agree to it; they’re not just going to put it back in the owners’ wallets. The rookies right now, not a lot of leverage in this deal.”
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