Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago

Undrafted players get screwed in the new deal
 

Posted by Mike Florio on July 25, 2011, 3:48 PM EDT

Undrafted players sign contracts for the minimum annual salaries. The only thing that distinguishes one team’s offer from another team’s offer is the signing bonus.

The decision to cap each team’s signing bonuses for undrafted free agents to [an aggregate total of] $75,000 hurts these players who have been waiting patiently for work in a way far more significant than the dollars and cents of the signing bonus. As a league source explained it to me earlier today (and as I ranted a bit on PFT Live), it will now be harder for agents to know which teams are serious about the chances of an undrafted player to make the team.

Every team says it. But then when the team offers a signing bonus of only $2,500, the agent knows that it’s just talk. When $20,000 is offered, the agent knows that the team has real interest.

Per the source, one team was ready to offer $20,000 to six different undrafted players. Another team budgeted $150,000 for undrafted rookie signing bonuses.

None of that will happen now, and it will be even harder for undrafted players to know which teams truly have high regard for them, especially in a year that will include 90 players going to training camp. As a result, it’ll be even harder for the next Kurt Warner to separate from the scout team and become a Super Bowl hero.



I added the words in brackets because some people have been misreading this article to mean that UDFA rookie bonuses are capped to $75,000 per player, when it is actually per team.

I disagree that UDFAs are getting screwed by this provision. I think it may end up benefiting the more sensible players with quality agents. Instead of just chasing the highest signing bonus, running the risk they will be cut before the season begins and never collect a single game check, players and their agents will be forced to conscientiously evaluate team rosters to determine where they have the greatest chance of making an immediate impact. They can then focus their efforts on pursuing legitimate opportunities for landing a rookie minimum contract. Given that the rookie minimum has gone up by $55,000 this year, the average UDFA who makes a roster will still come out ahead, even if his signing bonus is lower.

On the other hand, in previous years, UDFAs have not been privy to what teams' budgets were, so they couldn't possibly know for sure what level of seriousness their signing bonuses represented. Now that bonuses are capped leaguewide at $75,000, a rookie will be able to evaluate how serious a team is about him by what proportion of its rookie budget it is allotting him. A team offering him $25,000 (33%) is probably a lot more serious than a team offering him $7,500 (10%). Under the old system, he couldn't know whether his $20,000 signing bonus was actually exceptional or whether it was the same bonus being offered to six other rookies.
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mi_keys
14 years ago

I added the words in brackets because some people have been misreading this article to mean that UDFA rookie bonuses are capped to $75,000 per player, when it is actually per team.

I disagree that UDFAs are getting screwed by this provision. I think it may end up benefiting the more sensible players with quality agents. Instead of just chasing the highest signing bonus, running the risk they will be cut before the season begins and never collect a single game check, players and their agents will be forced to conscientiously evaluate team rosters to determine where they have the greatest chance of making an immediate impact. They can then focus their efforts on pursuing legitimate opportunities for landing a rookie minimum contract. Given that the rookie minimum has gone up by $55,000 this year, the average UDFA who makes a roster will still come out ahead, even if his signing bonus is lower.

On the other hand, in previous years, UDFAs have not been privy to what teams' budgets were, so they couldn't possibly know for sure what level of seriousness their signing bonuses represented. Now that bonuses are capped leaguewide at $75,000, a rookie will be able to evaluate how serious a team is about him by what proportion of its rookie budget it is allotting him. A team offering him $25,000 (33%) is probably a lot more serious than a team offering him $7,500 (10%). Under the old system, he couldn't know whether his $20,000 signing bonus was actually exceptional or whether it was the same bonus being offered to six other rookies.

Originally Posted by: Nonstopdrivel 



I think you make a great point. The other thing that made me question his logic was the rosters moving to 90 players. Please correct me if I'm wrong but that's more players on the roster, right? As far as I know they haven't expanded the draft so those extra spots aren't being filled by those players. Granted we might get more players sticking around longer looking for one last shot but I'm guessing this means more UDFAs making the training camp roster to start, which should only help the number that make the final day roster with more getting a chance.

I also disagree with the implication that an UDFA has to get more money up front to increase their chances of making the roster. Even if a team favored one UDFA to another going into camp, if the initially unfavored guy impresses at camp odds are he'll make the team or the practice squad (or some other team will sign him). If teams made up their mind about a player based on the initial contract they offered rookies, you wouldn't have UDFAs beating out guys drafted in the 5th-7th rounds or even earlier in some cases.
Born and bred a cheesehead
Greg C.
14 years ago
It's a dumb article. I guess Florio has to write something every day. You guys have already explained some of the flaws in his thinking. I look at it even more simply: There are the same number of teams as before, and the same number of undrafted free agents. Therefore, these players' chances of sticking and making a difference are exactly the same as before--or maybe even a little better, with the expanded training camp rosters, as mi_keys points out. It sounds like they will miss out on some much-needed cash, though.
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wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member
14 years ago
It's the price that must be paid to allow more players the opportunity to make the team. Instead of looking at the individual player getting less money they should look at more players are getting some kind of a chance. There are an extra 10 guys now on the TC roster.
To me that means the chances of a UDFA making a team just got more difficult as he has more competition for those last 3-4 spots on the roster.
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Pack93z
14 years ago
Opportunity indeed is the name of the game.. if anything affects these players is reps in practice and lack of two-a-days. The former this season really will hurt IMO.


Signing rookie free agents isn't just about money

Rookie free agents isn't just about money

Opportunity is the name of the game. Greg Gabriel (link) 

With the lockout ending yesterday, there were endless stories and posts on many different subjects. One that caught my eye was on profootballtalk.com about how the rookie free agents got screwed by the new CBA. I like the profootballtalk.com website and I respect Mike Florio — he does a great job — but in this case I have to respectfully disagree because he didn’t have all the facts when he wrote his article.

Florio wrote that this year there is a $75,000 limit per team on total rookie free agent signing bonuses. Because of this teams won’t be able to have enough money to really go after the free agents they like with high bonuses. This is actually not the case, as I will explain.

I was involved with signing rookie free agents for over 25 years. It is a crazy time and the signing period usually lasts only about three hours after the draft. The undrafted players had very little time to make up their mind and their agents were probably fielding offers from up to a dozen teams.

Some people are under the assumption that a player signs with the highest bidder. That is not true. First off, all rookie free agent contracts are very similar. They are usually three years in length and are for the minimum salaries each year. The only thing that is different from one contract to the next is the signing bonus. The signing bonus can be anywhere from nothing to in some cases $25,000. The high number is very rare. In fact few teams spend that much money on signing bonuses for rookie free agents. In past years the norm has been in the $25,000 to $45,000 area in total money spent on free agent bonuses. There have been a few teams that spend more than that but it isn’t more than a handful of teams. Why? Because under the old cap rules every dollar spent on a signing bonus went against the rookie cap. So if a team spent $75,000 or even $100,000 (and there were a few) on free agent signing bonuses then they had that much less to give their draft choices who deserve the money because of course they were drafted!

Remember, the rookie pool each club was assigned was different from club to club. The amount of money in the pool was determined by how many draft picks a club had and how high the first pick was. Free agent money didn’t figure into the equation, so when you spent signing bonus money on a free agent it gave you less to use for the draft picks

Many clubs would give most of their undrafted free agents a signing bonus in the area of $2,500-$5,000 and maybe they would give a top free agent 7,500 to 10,000. There are many consistently winning teams that only pay $1,500–2,500 to any free agent. Why? Because they do an excellent job before the draft selling opportunity to the player when they recruit him. If you are serious about wanting to sign an undrafted free agent, you start recruiting the player weeks before the draft not after the draft is over! The good agents know and understand this philosophy and will usually advise their client that even though team A may be offering more money, team B is the best opportunity for you to make the club. In the end it is about making the club and earning $375,000 or getting on the practice squad, not getting a few extra grand in a signing bonus.

Getting back to the profootballtalk post, the rookie free agents weren’t screwed this year. They were winners — big time! The majority of NFL clubs spent nowhere near $75,000 in rookie free agent money in the past so this year the total money pool is much larger than in past years, which of course means more money for most free agents. Yes, there are a few clubs that won’t be able to spend $100,000, but in reality that is only a few clubs.

The other thing that I found faulty with that article was that it presumed that if a club spent a lot of money on a rookie free agent they must really like him. That’s false. Over the last few years, there has been only an 80-man roster limit for training camp. Many of these “high priced” free agents never made it to training camp because were cut after the OTA’s. I have seen this happen year after year, which is why recruiting the player on opportunity is so important.

Today, clubs can begin to sign college free agents and I would be willing to bet that most of the signings will be done before the close of business today. Earlier I wrote that the signing frenzy lasted for about three hours after the draft ended but because there were no signings after the draft this year the players who didn’t get drafted have had three months to “research” where the best place for them is. Yes, it will be more difficult for these players to make a team because their time to impress the coaches is limited. So in my opinion OPPORTUNITY means even more.

If a player knows the rosters of the teams that are trying to sign him then he and his agent should be able to make a very educated decision on where to sign. For example, as of today, the Bears have only two veteran linebackers under contract and they drafted a linebacker late, so if a college free agent linebacker is getting a call from the Bears he should listen because there is an excellent opportunity there. There will be situations like that all over the league, all the player and agent has to do is the proper research and that research should have been done weeks ago because now it’s too late…today is signing day!


"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"
Greg C.
14 years ago

It's the price that must be paid to allow more players the opportunity to make the team. Instead of looking at the individual player getting less money they should look at more players are getting some kind of a chance. There are an extra 10 guys now on the TC roster.
To me that means the chances of a UDFA making a team just got more difficult as he has more competition for those last 3-4 spots on the roster.

Originally Posted by: wpr 



Well yes, but that is balanced out by the fact that the UDFA has more chance of making the TC roster in the first place. These players are just getting weeded out later in the process, rather than sooner.
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