It isn't often that the NFL drafts an interior offensive lineman in the Top 20 picks of the 1st Round. In fact, as it goes, this almost violates a certain truth about the NFL on how you just don't do that in this league. It is considered wasteful to draft premium players at "non-premium" positions in most cases
Obviously the track record speaks for itself in terms of OG being one of the positions that teams don't take high but I wonder how much was actually based on the perception of these positions not being as valuable as the others or if teams were simply making value match the paycheck under the old rookie pay scale.
What I mean is, under the old pay scale teams were forced to pay ridiculous amounts for these guys and OGs can be had for way less on the free agent market.
JPP was drafted 15th in 2010, the last year of the old scale and he signed a contract of 5 years, $20M
Bruce Irvin was 15th in 2012 and he signed a 4 year, $9.3M contract.
When you look at what you would have to pay to get a great DE on the open market it's a hell of a lot more than what you would have to pay to get a great OG. If you are forced to pay a ton by drafting in the top 10 under the old system it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to pick a guy who would cost less on the open market than what you will have to pay him because you drafted him at #8 or #9.
If you're going to hand out $40M to a guy (Spiller: #9 overall, 6 years $39.3M), you might as well hand it out to a guy who if he reaches his peak would cost a hell of a lot more to acquire in free agency.
If that makes sense.....not sure I'm doing a great job of describing my thought process here.
Basically, teams had to pay ridiculously high dollar amounts so I think to some extent they tried to make their picks justify those costs. Picking a stud DE at least makes the contract somewhat justifiable whereas picking a stud OG is still likely paying way more than you would ever dream of having to pay for a stud at that position.
That said, I think the rookie scale makes these non-premium positions a little more worthwhile to the teams picking in the first half of the round. Teams no longer have to try to make their pick match up to the money that the player is going to get regardless of his position and picking a stud at any position is going to give you a bargain price compared to the FA market so you might as well pick the guy who's most likely to be a stud.
