Misunderstanding about players big paydays

[kskboys]

But then you come full circle. If you feel the player should get fairly rewarded for his performance, Demarco got screwed big time.

I know there are some escalators for performance in contracts but IMO there are plenty of metrics that could be used to more fairly compensate a player at the end of each year. Ie, reducing base salaries and having a significant portion of their earnings tied to performance. Thus eliminating (or at least reducing) either side getting completely screwed over. But that delves into a much deeper & controversial subject.

The salary system in the NFL is not a great system.

 

[atlantacowboy]

But then you come full circle. If you feel the player should get fairly rewarded for his performance, Demarco got screwed big time.

I know there are some escalators for performance in contracts but IMO there are plenty of metrics that could be used to more fairly compensate a player at the end of each year. Ie, reducing base salaries and having a significant portion of their earnings tied to performance. Thus eliminating (or at least reducing) either side getting completely screwed over. But that delves into a much deeper & controversial subject.

I do not feel players should be rewarded for past performance and I don't think that's how the league works. At most, past performance can serve as a sort of bench mark for a new contract. In Murrays case, Philly gave him a better contract than he would have gotten had he not been coming off a great season.

Now, I do think there is a debate to made on how the players split the cap money. This is a team sport not golf. One guy should not be making 20% of the team's cap money.

I agree there should be less guaranteed salary and more performance incentive bonuses.............but the agents will never let that happen.

 

[blueblood70]

It will be the ultimate litmus test for KM. To figure out how to blend this highly publicized pass happy 3 wr offense along with power and smash mouth run principles that Zeke thrives under.
I am skeptical as to Moore's ability to properly achieve the balance that is needed.
In fact, they could steal a page out of the old New England play book and actually be a smash mouth offense one week and Kurt Warner's Rams the next depending on the opponent if they wanted to. The pieces are there.

Whether I agree with your previous post history or not I try to judge each post one at a time based on its own merit if applicable.

I think this post accurately describes what happened to the offense, the current running game and the pressure filled expectations of the young OC.

Imo, Moore needs to somehow learn how to achieve the proper balance with the running game when it's working because this whole PR machine, high flying big 12 style offense that Jerry created and Couch Coach covered in detail on a previous post is destined for failure.

It's up to Moore to figure this thing out the right way and call it accordingly using the proper and balanced run/pass mixture.

We'll see if he's up to the challenge.

My opinion.

Again, excellent post.

 

[John813]

It's a pet peeve of mind, and I'm guilty of it when being lazy, when people use AAV when talking about a cap hit for a certain year.

For example.

"How can we build a team now when Dak is a 40mil QB"

Dak's cap hit for 2021 is 22.2mil this year.
It doesn't go above 40mil till year 3.

anyone who follows this team in any detail knows the Cowboys restructure players they want to keep.

Dak may not hit the 40mil threshold, cap hit wise, till year 4 of his deal.

 

[CowboyFrog]

It's a pet peeve of mind, and I'm guilty of it when being lazy, when people use AAV when talking about a cap hit for a certain year.

For example.

"How can we build a team now when Dak is a 40mil QB"

Dak's cap hit for 2021 is 22.2mil this year.
It doesn't go above 40mil till year 3.

anyone who follows this team in any detail knows the Cowboys restructure players they want to keep.

Dak may not hit the 40mil threshold, cap hit wise, till year 4 of his deal.

Correct and they may not need to restructure depending on what the cap does after the new TV deal.

 

[JD_KaPow]

You think employees are the same as bosses/managers? Why? That really doesn't make sense. Kinda sounds as if you're arguing semantics.

The one arguing semantics is you. Managers are employees. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. A middle manager or VP at, say, General Electric, is an at-will employee, a very well-compensated one, sure, but that person doesn't sit on the board of directors or anything like that.

Plus, professional sports is a job like no other. Nothing even close.

A few things.
The person I was responding to claimed that the NFL pays way better than the corporate world. My point is that isn't true; the very top, the most in-demand people in the corporate world make as much or more than NFL players (who are the very top, most in-demand people in the football world). Think of the world's top AI/ML folks in Silicon Valley, say. The corporate world is generally structured so that the most highly-compensated folks are either in management roles or working as consultants/contractors (which is fairly similar to NFL players, who are contract employees).
There are a lot of jobs that are kind of like professional sports: "talent" work in the entertainment industry is in many ways similar. Where sports is weird is the restrictions on free agency (the draft, etc.), but other than that, it's not that different from independent contractors in a lot of industries.

 

[75boyz]

Yeah,
BullFlop did that 2021 Strategies post discussing his idea of integrating an effective run game which I and a few others supported.
But I think the forum majority opinions were how this offense has evolved now, yada, yada, yada into this pseudo run n shoot and that the high volume pass plan was the way to go.

My stance was and still is balance is key and if you wanted a full honest answer I'd just take the time warp and return it to 2016's offense.
With that RB and that oline and that passing game. But ya can't do that so...

Now here we are 5 yrs later and Boy Wonder Moore has the keys. Hope he drives well.

 

[glimmerman]

The way the NFL re-structured its pay system in the 2011 CBA, less money would be heaped on rookies, and more of the revenue pie would be shifted to veteran players who had earned a pay raise based on their play on the field, not their reputation coming out of college.

Before 2011, some first round rookies were getting paid a lot more money than some veteran starters who had proven to be valuable assets. So since 2011, the focus on how players were paid changed, and I think it was for the better.

But IMO, many fans see the big dollar second contracts that many veteran players get as an indication that the player then has to play even better than in the past to “justify” their pay raise. But actually the second contract is seen by both the owners and players as both a reward for good play and a way to retain that talent in the future at market value.

Here are some points on why I believe the big second contract is misunderstood:

• Most players who play very well on their rookie contracts are producing at a high level while also being paid well below market value. This is especially true of players drafted in the middle to late rounds who play very well on rookie deals.
• The second contract is an adjustment of pay to better fit the players perceived value, not necessarily their actual value.
• Most second contracts have “parachutes” built in for the owners to get out of the deal in the long term if certain conditions warrant. In other words, it gives the owners flexibility to not pay all of the original proposed amount.

I mention “fan misunderstandings about second contracts” because sometimes I think fans are unduly harsh on some players after getting a second deal. DeMarcus Lawrence is a good example of this.

IMO, DLaw has continued to play at a very high level. Fans tend to judge a player based solely on certain stats like sacks. Across the league, DLaw is a very respected player by offensive coordinators and is usually ranked in the top ten of defensive lineman by both players and pundits.

That’s not to say every second contract player continues to play well. Jay Ratliff, Miles Austin, Doug Free, Tyrone Crawford, and Zeke are IMO some examples of guys who were paid more than their long term value. Some of the good second contracts recently include Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, DLaw, and perhaps La’el Collins. We will see about Dak.

Bottom line for me is, a bigger paycheck for a pro football player is more complex than it used to be. Judging a player on stats vs dollars is not always accurate.

And it’s really about that guaranteed money. Many look at the big amount and the player usually only gets guaranteed portion and then the team either extends him or reconstructs it. Some get to play it out. But better players are now demanding it be redone or a new contract before it’s due. Elliot had 2 years left or maybe 3 with the team option. He started something players will likely take advantage of. JJ took the bait.

 

[Bobhaze]

Excellent thread and opening post, Bullet.

I think we are so far on the outside looking in on how these teams allocate their contracts/salaries. We focus on the parts while they look at the whole.

Every team has X dollars they are going to have to spend and every team has overpaid players and bargain players just as they know they're going to be paying players that can't even take the field.

We focus on the contracts for Lawrence, Elliott, Cooper and now, Prescott just as we did on players before them. The fact is Dak Prescott, in his rookie season, was the most affordable starting QB in league history and continued to overperform his salary during his 1st contract but the bill was coming due as it should have.

Want to be fair about attaching these values to players, which I think is absurd to begin with, then take the entire life of that contract with that player. Take Elliott's, Lawrence's and especially, Prescott's, total contracts over their Cowboys careers and divide that by the years. In Prescott's case, by 2024, he will have averaged 21,666,667 per year over his Cowboys career. It's not fair not to include the bargain years over the life of the entire contract. And at the end of 2024, where do you think his contract will rank?

That is an excellent point Coach. Look at the entire career of a player and how much he earned rather than just the big second contract. Never thought of it that way but that’s a really good way of looking at a player’s overall value to the team.

 

[MyFairLady]

They could get paid a trillion dollars per game for all I care. If their contract hurts the chances of the team winning games on Sunday then they suck and should be cast off like pond scum.

 

[MyFairLady]

Good teams get the better of players then send then packing. Bad teams reward players for what they have done in the past and pay them big bucks to do nothing moving forward.

 

[Bobhaze]

What a lot of fans forget is the owners are always making more and more money, and unlike the players, their “career earnings” are for a lifetime as opposed to maybe a decade.

I often hear fans say, “Yeah but the owners take the business risk by owning the team”. That would be true if it were a normal business. These NFL owners have an extremely low risk of losing money. Win or lose. The value of each team has risen exponentially over the last two decades. Owning an NFL franchise is almost financially bullet proof. Being an NFL player who puts their body at risk literally every play, makes their attempts to make as much money as possible more acceptable to me.

As crazy as it sounds to many fans, the NFL players are the labor. They are the “little guys” vs the owners. Players come and go. Owners are forever. Good or bad.

 

[RS12]

Players careers are short. They should get everything they can. Unfortunately, ownership can be waaaaay too long.

 

[JD_KaPow]

But then you come full circle. If you feel the player should get fairly rewarded for his performance, Demarco got screwed big time.

I know there are some escalators for performance in contracts but IMO there are plenty of metrics that could be used to more fairly compensate a player at the end of each year. Ie, reducing base salaries and having a significant portion of their earnings tied to performance. Thus eliminating (or at least reducing) either side getting completely screwed over. But that delves into a much deeper & controversial subject.

Or you could just have a free market.

You're right, RBs fare terribly in the current system. More than any other position, their value is almost entirely found in their first few seasons, when they're laboring under artificially low rookie contracts. They usually decline rapidly after that, and that decline is a function of usage. So teams have really strong incentives to burn out their rookie-contract RBs and then dump them before they see a second contract.

That's what the Cowboys did with DeMarco. He was lucky that the Eagles were dumb enough to sign him.

 

[Brax]

There’s always other options. Which could include a total rebuild or retooling , etc.

We knew two years ago Prescott was going to demand top dollar. We’ve had a couple years we could have drafted or pursued other options if we truly weren’t all on in on him.

As Jerry said back then Daks our QB of the future, no surprise there Jerry wasn’t letting his “QB” leave.

 

[75boyz]

That is an excellent point Coach. Look at the entire career of a player and how much he earned rather than just the big second contract. Never thought of it that way but that’s a really good way of looking at a player’s overall value to the team.

A total hypothetical, but if ALL contracts were one year deals with only in season escalators based on performance being earned, maybe a year to year type NFL could expose the transparency of who truly is over or under paid and ultimately better solve the pay based on production formula.

Kinda like the draft slot...
But in this case the RB in the previous year who exceeded 1300 yds, had a 4.6 ypc avg and 9 rushing tds had his own contractual slot.

From year to year.
For each position. If they exceeded those escalators from the previous year by so much they get more on that years salary. And even more so the better the year they had.

The following year's contracts for that position group(RB in this case) has veteran incentive clauses based on how close you came to last year's top and lowest producers.

The top guy from the year before would be rewarded handsomely as the standard setter of his position group for the following year but it would also serve as incentive for him to maintain his previous years performance since all contracts would only be one year.

Some kinda standard middle ground contract speak on years of service and such would be needed, but I even like the idea of penalizing players if not meeting minimum criteria...Say 3.5 ypc for all rbs.

Just an idea I thought that brought into play Real Time pay for play vice the current rookie and vet CBA pay scale that both over and under pays a lot of guys.

Earn what you produce. Yearly. Period.

My opinion.

 

[Brax]

We can’t look at as if Dak held us up for ransom. We had other choices. In the end we were more than happy to pay him and hope can build around him. Ultimately our front office is held accountable not the players for contracts.

If Dak turns out to not be enough or his contract doesn’t allow more supporting cast , then that’s on our front office.

You are correct it’s on the FO Dak is just another piece of the failure the last 25 years in their Jerry’s way of running it.

 

[Diehardblues]

You are correct it’s on the FO Dak is just another piece of the failure the last 25 years in their Jerry’s way of running it.

I don’t have a problem with that. I hold Jethro responsible for all of it. Ultimately it’s on him. And he’s never shied away from it.

But we must take into account how Jethro views it. He’s not bailing on Dak. Not after running Romo off. He’s all in . He’s going to do everything within his power to prop that up as we’ve seen making huge deal for Cooper and caving in on Elliott.

And Dak has provided a following with fans and sponsors not to mention his popularity. Dak is #1 selling jersey. Always follow the money trail too. Plus Dak has provided just enough success a couple years to build around. Jethro can certainly sell it. No one sells mediocrity and hope better.

We must always remember there’s more to running this franchise than just what transpires on the field. Jethro measures success and failure differently than we do.

 

[Brax]

I don’t have a problem with that. I hold Jethro responsible for all of it. Ultimately it’s on him. And he’s never shied away from it.

But we must take into account how Jethro views it. He’s not bailing on Dak. Not after running Romo off. He’s all in . He’s going to do everything within his power to prop that up as we’ve seen making huge deal for Cooper and caving in on Elliott.

And Dak has provided a similar following with fans and sponsors not to mention his popularity. Dak is #1 selling jersey. Always follow the money trail too. Plus Dak has provided just enough success a couple years to build around. Jethro can certainly sell it. No one sells mediocrity and hope better.

We must always remember there’s more to running this franchise than just what transpires on the field.

Most understand the dynamics of Jerry $$$$ first football second and yes Jerry will stick with Dak for at least the next 4 years.

 

[jterrell]

The way the NFL re-structured its pay system in the 2011 CBA, less money would be heaped on rookies, and more of the revenue pie would be shifted to veteran players who had earned a pay raise based on their play on the field, not their reputation coming out of college.

Before 2011, some first round rookies were getting paid a lot more money than some veteran starters who had proven to be valuable assets. So since 2011, the focus on how players were paid changed, and I think it was for the better.

But IMO, many fans see the big dollar second contracts that many veteran players get as an indication that the player then has to play even better than in the past to “justify” their pay raise. But actually the second contract is seen by both the owners and players as both a reward for good play and a way to retain that talent in the future at market value.

Here are some points on why I believe the big second contract is misunderstood:

• Most players who play very well on their rookie contracts are producing at a high level while also being paid well below market value. This is especially true of players drafted in the middle to late rounds who play very well on rookie deals.
• The second contract is an adjustment of pay to better fit the players perceived value, not necessarily their actual value.
• Most second contracts have “parachutes” built in for the owners to get out of the deal in the long term if certain conditions warrant. In other words, it gives the owners flexibility to not pay all of the original proposed amount.

I mention “fan misunderstandings about second contracts” because sometimes I think fans are unduly harsh on some players after getting a second deal. DeMarcus Lawrence is a good example of this.

IMO, DLaw has continued to play at a very high level. Fans tend to judge a player based solely on certain stats like sacks. Across the league, DLaw is a very respected player by offensive coordinators and is usually ranked in the top ten of defensive lineman by both players and pundits.

That’s not to say every second contract player continues to play well. Jay Ratliff, Miles Austin, Doug Free, Tyrone Crawford, and Zeke are IMO some examples of guys who were paid more than their long term value. Some of the good second contracts recently include Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, DLaw, and perhaps La’el Collins. We will see about Dak.

Bottom line for me is, a bigger paycheck for a pro football player is more complex than it used to be. Judging a player on stats vs dollars is not always accurate.

Excellent post and quite true.
The signing bonus has to match market but teams generally look at is a reward for past performance with large base salaries being much harder to ever collect and requiring current play level be correct.

If I were the head of the NFLPA the first thing I'd do is stipulate only money delivered to a player's bank account can be reported on or discussed and any contract leaks around future money would be subject to legal remedies.