im not complaining. i dont care who gets what.... im just saying that people complaining about rookies that play great and are way underpaid cant have it both ways.....rookies have rookie deals.... it doesnt say 4 year deal with a 5th year option......... unless the rookie kicks arse. in that case, teams must tear up the original deal after 2-3 years and redo that rookie deal.
I understand your point. I mean, to me it's not as if these younger guys are really being taken advantage of though. I mean, lets assume you are a first round pick and you tear it up as a rookie. Are you out playing your contract? Possibly but the truth is that most of these rookies aren't out playing their contracts. Most of them are learning the Pro Game and probably being over paid for what they do. If you are in the very small minority, like Zeke perhaps, you also have to understand that there are a lot of guys who are under paid who are also towing the line for you. As example, I would say that Joe Looney making 825K as the starting Center on a Division Champion is severely under paid but hey, that's the contract he had. 'If Looney doesn't play well last year, Zeke never comes close to leading the league in Rushing and Dak doesn't have the year he had etc. But, because of his play and because he's a vet, he will get paid by somebody. Teams are full of vet guys who are playing well and deserve to get paid. Looney is never going to make the money Zeke will but it doesn't mean that he doesn't deserve to get paid and that's what the design of the current wage scale system does.
Lets say you are not a 1st round pick but a 2nd round pick or lower. You play well and you see a new contract probably after your 3rd season because there is no 5th year option. That's a lot more money a lot earlier. If you are a lower round pick then that it's even better. Lets say you are undrafted, you can pick the best possible situation to sign with and if you ball out, you are making bank in your 2nd year.
I honestly think the NFL Players got it right with how they set up the wage scale for the younger guys and not just for nothing but, it's not actually a great thing to have all of these really young players walking around with all this money in their pockets. I mean, the money is going to be there for these guys and it's not as if they are poor to begin with. A lot of these young guys get ruined by all the money. I mean, think about it, would you rather be in a situation Zeke and the Cowboys are in right now or would you rather be in a situation like Detroit is in with Stafford? I actually think Stafford is better then most fans do but his contract situation is and has been prohibitive to the improvement of the team in Detroit in my opinion, because he got one of those contracts where they paid him too much, to young and before the current salary structure was in place.
I just feel like the NFL is fair to the Rookies and it's the right thing to do to pay the Vets, rather then invest stupid amounts of money on unproven players. For every Zeke, there is a Trent Richardson and probably 20 of those guys. Those guys are making money too and not panning out. I get it that the point here, is about a player who has already shown something over three seasons but the reality is that if you were to go to paying players, off of Rookie contracts huge amounts of money early, it would eventually get to paying Rookies big dollars coming into the league and that's a terrible place to be in the NFL. Young players have to understand that they have to wait their turn and the money will be their for them. You go against that and you have a whole looker room full of guys that are grown men looking at you and thinking, you screwed me. That's not where you want to be.
Anyway, that's how I see it.