Rookie contracts

This has been really bothering me for a while, and I was wondering if someone could shed some light on it. Eli Manning just signed his 45 million dollar deal, just like Carson Palmer and David Carr before him. Why does the NFL let this happen, how is the players association (RE: veterans) ok with this?
In the NBA, first round picks are given 3 year deals that are scaled depending on where you are picked, and the money is reasonable. I dont understand why the NFL doesnt have something similar in place. It makes me not want the first pick, why would I want to shell out 50 million dollars for an unproven player? I think the Bengals were in that situation and kind of got stuck with Palmer (they were looking to trade the pick). I dont understand why this is allowed to happen, and further, why nobody else seems to care.

in FA, the best players get the most money... in the draft, the best prospects get the most money. They've seen these guys prove themselves in college and generally the higher picks are much safer... but the reason it happens is that the market demand is present.

Bergman14:

The NBA union sold the draftees down the river in the last collective bargaining in order to protect vets salaries. That was one of the things that they gave to managment in the negotiations as part of their attempt to keep the percentage of revenue going to salaries from falling. Remember, the union caved when David Stern gave them a deadline for an agreement or else he would cancel the season.

The NFL union wants labor peace more than anything else because there is a boatload of money going around for players and coaches and owners - - and the people who are running the union. Trust me on this; Gene Upshaw is not driving a 9 year old Geo Metro! So the union really does not care which of its members get the huge contracts. Remember, Eli Manning is just as much a member of the NFLPA as any random 10-year veteran. So, they are not going to risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg over some concern about which one of their members gets a $45M contract.

BTW, you are generally correct. Having the #1 overall pick in the draft locks you into a HUGE contract for a player unproven at the NFL level. Eli Manning may be as good or even better than his brother Peyton; time will tell. On the other hand, he might be as productive as Brian Bozworth or "Cryin'" Leaf. Imagine if you had a $20M bonus out to a kid that you would have to eat in a single year if you cut him and he turns out to be "Ryan Leaf Redux". Now that would be a Maalox moment!

these contracts are not guaranteed and it is rare for a player of this magnitude to play the contract til the end. In time, it will be re-worked if Manning pans out and becomes the stud we are hoping. If he flops, he will be cut and the Giants will take the cap hit.

The NFLPA doesnt want restrictions on rookie salaries, because that would persuade teams to sign more rookies at the reduced rate for the various back-up positions, rather than the veteran who could earn 1 more contract on a team that for example might need a reliable but not necessarily out of this world back-up LB, or QB, or whatever they might need.

plus another reason why rookie contracts r the way they r in the nba (only 1st round picks contracts r guaranteed) is too try and dissuade highschoolers and early college dropouts from declaring for the draft. it still doesn't work too well though,lol. Luckily the NFL doesn't have this problem at this time. Plus almost every contract in the NFL is over-inflated so why would rookie contracts be any different. and another way I look at it is that rookies in a way deserve the contracts because they're finally getting paid for a job they've been doing for as much as 7-8 years. Since signing bonus's r the only guaranteed money football players see, I don't have a problem with some of the sb's some rookies get but the rest of their contracts should be saturated with incentives to make it so they have to live up to expectations in order to achieve the big $$.

Manning's contract is incentive-heavy. Not like Ricky Williams's rookie contract, but to get the full dollar amount, he does have a lot of incentives he'd have to reach.

hell manning got a bigger signing bonus then any of the free agent didnt he? What did TO and Kearse get? was it more than 20? Portis only got 13. The thing with the rookie contracts is they get a ton of upfront money, and the rest is based on performance. So they get to live like football stars, and have the potential to acutally be one. I think the only reason people sign long deals anymore is to spread out the signing bonus, no one acutally plays out a contract anymore.

hell manning got a bigger signing bonus then any of the free agent didnt he? What did TO and Kearse get? was it more than 20? Portis only got 13. The thing with the rookie contracts is they get a ton of upfront money, and the rest is based on performance. So they get to live like football stars, and have the potential to acutally be one. I think the only reason people sign long deals anymore is to spread out the signing bonus, no one acutally plays out a contract anymore.
Eli got the second largest bonus in league history - second only to his brother. Since almost none of these rookie deals go the length of the contract, it's a semantic argument as to the length of the deal.

One of the reasons I think the Giants are willing to go that high is that they won't have to worry about signing a first round pick next year - they already gave it away.

One of the reasons I think the Giants are willing to go that high is that they won't have to worry about signing a first round pick next year - they already gave it away.[/QUOTE]
That's true, I didn't think about that angle.