The NFL Rookie Pay Scale is Somehow Still Under-Discussed

Los Angeles Chargers running back Austin Ekeler is feeling a familiar squeeze for NFL players at his position. The top touchdown scorer in the league for the past two years, Ekeler is a talented pass catcher and shifty rusher. But like so many other running backs before him, Ekeler is finding it hard to secure a contract that he feels reflects his talents. The trouble for Ekeler, and for running backs in general, is that the position is seen as unusually fungible; while there’s still a spectrum of ability in rushing the football, and some rare stars might be sufficiently superior to warrant big contracts, advanced stats have demonstrated that most running backs are replaceable. And this problem is especially pronounced for two reasons: one, because running backs have the shortest careers in the league, meaning they’re taking immense physical punishment and leaving the game early with little chance for financial security; and two, because the NFL rookie pay scale has distorted the incentives for the whole league.

Once upon a time, NFL teams had much greater latitude to negotiate big contracts with draft picks. This resulted over time in an arms race that left players who had never played a down of professional football receiving contracts that were bigger than those of many seasoned veterans. Perhaps the most infamous of these contracts was that of notorious draft bust Jamarcus Russell, who signed a $62 million dollar deal (with $32 million guaranteed) with the Oakland Raiders in 2007. The experience of players like Russell signing such big deals straight out of college and then flaming out became a major point of contention for the NFL brass during labor negotiations with the players union. Eventually, a deal was hammered out that dramatically restricted rookie salaries, with assurances that the money would be recouped by veteran players. That the union agreed to this shouldn’t be surprising; it’s very common for labor unions to reward incumbency over the interests of new entrants. (See, for example, last in/first out rules for layoffs in collectively-bargained contracts.) And so for over a decade rookies have received artificially-low contracts. For comparison, the last first overall pick under the old pay scale was quarterback Sam Bradford, who received a $78 million contract ($50 million guaranteed) from the St. Louis Rams in 2010. Meanwhile 2021 first overall pick Trevor Lawrence, who plays the same position, received a contract worth $36.8 million with about $24 million guaranteed. That despite a dozen years of inflation and vast growth in the salary cap.

On the one hand, there’s a certain logic to this change. I once saw a graphic showing all the Pro Bowl-caliber players of his generation that nevertheless had earned less in career earnings than Russell, who played in 31 total NFL games. 11-year veteran and two-time All-Pro linebacker Demario Davis has earned just a few million more in career earnings than the amount of money guaranteed in Bradford’s rookie deal, which was signed in the first half of the first Obama administration. There’s plenty of absurdities to be found in the inflated contracts of the past era. But what the union may not have understood at the time of negotiations is how underpaying rookies actually hurts veteran players. Yes, there’s potentially more money floating around for veterans to capture when less of it is going to rookies. But under a salary cap system, systematically underpaid rookies become extremely attractive to teams looking for low-cost solutions. If you’re looking for a good guard or safety or halfback, the draft presents many possibilities each year that will cost less than established options. Those draft picks can and do go bust, but that risk is priced into the cheaper contracts.

That’s what Ekeler is dealing with now. What I find weird about the NFL discourse is how tied the rookie salary scale conversation is to the running back position. With the NFL now on a 24/7/365 news cycle, it’s hard to call any story under-discussed, and yet I think this conversation is oddly siloed and reductive. Because while running backs are the most glaring example of the perverse incentives at play, the overall dynamic applies to the whole league. The question is just how easily GMs think they can replace a given level of performance at a given position, and just how great the risk of choosing a bad replacement really would be. You’d think that the one position where this dynamic wouldn’t apply would be at quarterback, with star quarterbacks the most valuable resource in football and the hardest to come by. And yet I think we’re seeing the influence of the rookie pay scale in the never-ending saga of Lamar Jackson.

I laid out my basic feelings on Jackson recently - I think he’s an electric young player at a premium position who absolutely deserves a huge contract, but I also find it odd that there’s been so little discussion of the quality of his play the past three seasons, which has been disappointing. It’s been a weird omission in a very long news cycle. Still, I want to say that signing Jackson should be a slam dunk for all but six or seven teams in the league. He’s a special talent and great leader who’s become available under unique circumstances; a talent of his caliber at the quarterback position might not be accessible in this way in a very long time. But I can’t quite say that signing Jackson is 100%, unquestionably the best move for 24 or so teams. Why? Because of the rookie pay scale.

Look at the Carolina Panthers. They gave up some serious resources to move up from 9th overall pick to 1st. You don’t give up that much draft capital for any reason other than to go get a franchise quarterback. But it’s strange: why would you trade two first-round picks, two second-round picks, and the genuinely game-changing wide receiver DJ Moore for a draft pick that might turn out to be a top-10 QB when a 26-year-old former MVP was available to be signed for just the two first-round picks? (As a restricted free agent on the non-exclusive franchise tag Jackson can negotiate with other teams, and should the Ravens choose not to match their offer, the team signing him would send Baltimore two firsts.) The choice the Panthers made might make sense if Jackson were 32, but he’s not. He’s young, dynamic, and seasoned. So what gives? Yes, Jackson’s underperformed relative to his MVP year and has been injured the last two years. But he’s a much surer thing than Bryce Young or CJ Stroud or Anthony Richardson, and he’s absolutely good enough to win a Super Bowl. So isn’t this a weird move on the part of the Panthers?

Well, there’s the whole psychological element of the possibility that any of those players might end up being truly transcendent. As a known quantity, Jackson is a little less sexy than what a player like Richardson could be. More substantively, though, there’s the salary cap. Jackson’s contract demands are unknown and controversial, but there’s little doubt that he would be seeking something that exceeds 15% of the salary cap, in a league where you have to suit up 53 players for a game. Lawrence will count about $12 million against the cap for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2023; if Jackson were to sign the non-exclusive franchise tender that he clearly sees as insufficient, he’d count about $32 million against the cap for the Ravens. And this is where the behavior of a team like the Panthers starts to make a little more sense. When you factor in not just Jackson’s inconsistency and his durability issues but the salary-cap math, it becomes a more difficult call. I still think teams like the Colts or Falcons should take the plunge in a quarterback-dominated league. (There are always ways around the cap.) But the incentives the league has created make it all a little more complicated than it should be.

I’m not sure what the solution is. Just returning to hyper-inflated rookie contracts doesn’t seem sensible. Maybe the best thing to do is simply to rebalance the pay scale so that rookies are making somewhat more than they do now, and in doing so reduce the incentive to get rid of pricier veterans. Or maybe some sort of shenanigans where rookie contracts count differently against the cap than they do now can be worked out. But the NFLPA should do something. For the Austin Ekelers of the world, but also for everyone else.