In the sense that our society is engaged in money and earning a decent amount, we are shortsighted by committing fraud, armed robberies, extorting the system, and handing unproven athletes ridiculous paychecks.
As you probably know by now, Sam Bradford, the highly-regarded No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, finally agreed to terms on a rookie contract with the St. Louis Rams.
But $50 million in guaranteed money isn’t only a risk, but preposterous for an unproven quarterback who hasn’t even taken his first snap or engineered the substandard Rams to meaningful accomplishments. So now he’s the main attraction, not an ordinary student who adored the campus lifestyle and declared an effulgent image at Oklahoma during an astonishing regime as the Sooners starting quarterback, when scouts were able to evaluate a talented gunslinger.
He is possibly the best rookie quarterback with stellar mechanics and precision, yet it’s very dubious to assume he’s worth a six-year, $78 million deal, uncertain his shaky health status and inabilities are harmful within a lackluster franchise and whether he’s ready to withstand tremendous pressure. By assuming that he’s not a bust waiting to materialize in the first season or even close to becoming the next Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, David Carr, Joey Harrington or the pathetic JaMarcus Russell, he may excel under all expectations and prove worthy of a well-deserving salary.
In reality, the consensus selection in grabbing Bradford with the No. 1 pick in the draft was worth a gamble and the most courageous, smartest move in building a winning franchise and uplifting a rebirth in football. It’s always dangerous for a team to outrageously give a massive deal to an unidentified player, but in this situation, Bradford is the centerpiece of rebuilding a productive foundation.
The perspective of paying a rookie millions makes absolutely no sense, when he hasn’t suited up or played in one regular season game, let alone the history of injuries that can mitigate many capabilities at exposing his strengths and weaknesses. This allows the Rams to diagnose all the struggles, which normally inhibits sturdiness and consistency for an inexperienced quarterback.
But the entire concept in the league, more than the maturity and improvement of a rookie enriching a dormant franchise, is rectifying an insulting and disoriented system by installing a rookie salary-cap. The transformational difference recently is unbearable and affects the financial balance in the upcoming seasons. And we thought the NCAA was screwed up, with all the fraud as well as infractions ruining the integrity of collegiate sports, smearing the trustworthiness of an unscrupulous system for its deceptiveness and insensitivity of erasing sanctions and infringements at universities.
In some ways, professional football has similarities with hypocrisy in a greedy enterprise concerned about magnifying revenue. Rather fascinating, is that the NFL isn’t even more concerned to adopt a rookie salary-cap, brainwashing the minds of young and indecisive athletes and limiting franchises of spending massively on veteran players.
Something is wrong with the NFL, an unbalanced business that refuses to prioritize and regulate a strategy by stemming nepotism and corruption for awarding overexposed rookies with excessive riches.
But the everlasting debates to why the development of a rookie salary-cap scale regarding draft picks, suddenly becomes the hottest take oddly enough with the perception of the NFL establishing itself as a charity league, donating enormous wages to first-year rookies.
But this is definitely turning into a crisis, hearing the near-painful labor issues, potential lockouts and now the purgatory because of nonsensical salaries in football, a league bearing controversy and financial complications.
Where the league stands is ultimately a guess, as the highest-paid players are unproven and sustain injuries before showcasing their talents in the season-openers.
But as it stood long ago, players weren’t nearly earning a wealthy share in profit and worked second jobs in the off season for another source of income nevertheless of course, rookies are hitting the jackpot without needing to produce in a fruitful contest. In fact, back then, free agency was non-existing and teammates built a social bond together within the same organization.
This time, though, we live in a modern era of sports when players are enabled to accept mega deals and sign elsewhere once contracts expires with their former franchises, or even hijack television in an one-hour special to announce the toughest decision ever. If all this seems overly dramatic and egotistic, it’s because LeBron James took over airwaves to reveal that he was taken his talents to South Beach.
The timing of the NFL salary-cap disputes couldn’t have been worse, considering that veterans are imploring for long-term, massive contracts as Matthew Stafford, a No. 1 pick of the Detroit Lions in the NFL Draft a year ago, agreed to a deal that included a 6-year, $41.7 million guaranteed.
If any player were to fail, he would ruin and waste the franchise’s payroll for his poor performance, especially when a team has available money under the salary cap to presumably spend wisely.
The long-awaited pledge of implementing a rookie salary cup is envisioned in the future, but perhaps the NFL is lagging in the process of essentially actualizing a palatable system, equivalent to the system currently employed by the NBA.
It has become a causal league for travesty and absurdity, ranking and worshipping rookies as if they are climbing above expectations with a superior impact on an undermined franchise.
How can we believe the NFL wants a proposal to institute an NBA-type system? Expect it to happen, but not anytime soon. Expect rookies to become less wealthy, and veterans to become richer in a league filled with derision, until it launches a formula where players are paid a fixed amount, depending upon their draft selection.
But considering that the league tries greatly to sugarcoat a national blowup, it’s really amazing that awful salary-caps has created a ruckus in sports and tarnished integrity in recent memory.
In theory, the unfortunate standpoint is that rookies make too much damn money, seemingly without even proving to be worthy. All that matters is that an unproven player cannot vindicate the pedigree of exaltation and promise before trotting from the tunnels in the season-opener and contributing in a legitimate regular-season game. No, preseason doesn’t count.
If any player is worth millions, then he’s the paradigm of a well-rounded and talented player. Meanwhile, the NFLPA was hopeful of the brilliant idea at the beginning of the 2010 NFL draft, but with the current labor disputes, it delayed the approval of the deal after labor deals weren’t extended in exchange.
But as long as the league advances without a useful system, a hellish story of inability to cut back on spending or reprehensible stumbles in saving money, it will always be endangered of a potential lockout and mired in financial dysfunction.
Each season, it seems as if the huge paychecks are slightly contemptible, a current issue the union is facing. No one knows if Bradford will be the franchise bust. But everyone, that is, knows that Jacksonville Jaguars handing David Garrard $60 million after one season was a poor signing, or the Cleveland Browns giving an incompetent Derek Anderson an outrageous deal.
It was shocking that Oakland’s overrated quarterback Russell was giving a massive deal, but was labeled as a lazy, apathetic bust and failed miserably.
And now, Bradford is worth more than Drew Brees and Tom Brady. If he hasn’t even played a single game, how is he worth more than two high-profile quarterbacks with Super Bowl success?
That’s a good question.
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