Schefter says "No", per the report I just saw on NFL Network, but they're close. Going through a 40-page contract, so 2-3 AM at the earliest. A deal should be in place that lets Russell be there when the Raiders go to practice on Weds.

Russell will be signed in a few hrs. Going to be great Qb. Rest of league- get on notice now.

So...

Exactly how much does he get paid for a year of not playing?

Will the NFL reach an agreement on a fixed rookie salary structure because of this?

Exactly how much does he get paid for a year of not playing?

As much as the Raiders agreed to pay him.

While I don't agree with a rookie wage scale, I see what you're saying- it was the Raiders that had the leverage. As it became obvious that 2007 was a lost season for Russell the price should have been going down, not up.

Stupid Raiders.

Bout time

re6

Not stupid.
Raiders know he is franchise Qb and rewarded him for having to wait. Russell going to be great in 08.
Raiders make smart decisions now. 2003-2006 was blip on radar screen, team going back to winning ways of 1960s to 2002. Maybe you toom young to remember whne Raiders were best team in league. Only 5 years ago they were tops

Re: 5

Granted, he'll make what the Raiders agree to. It's still stunning to me that he could make that much for a) not having played in the NFL, and b) not actually playing in the games in the NFL. I do grant that b) is an assumption, but it seems reasonable at the moment.

I am not high on a rookie wage scale either, but I can see the trend of increasing rookie salaries and holdout as becoming problematic. It's a little odd to me that the current players don't push for a cap on rookie salaries in some fashion - they can't be hurt by it since they're no longer rookies, and it only leaves more money for them.

Re: 7
The Buccaneers won the Super Bowl that year. The Raiders lost. I'm sorry to break the
news to you, Raiderjoe.

Re: 8
Uncle Jase is all for a rookie salary scale. Russell should have to prove himself before getting a deal like this one.

Read in Borat voice:
Rookie scale wage bad idea. Pause.........

NOT!

8- Want to reduce rookie salries? Get rid of the NFL Draft.

Yes, I'm serious.

Would the Raiders have spent as much if they could negotiate with Russell, Quinn, Beck, and Kolb?

Before anyone says "competitive balance", no way. That's what the salary cap is allegedly for. And, a bad team could go after two top-ten players instead of just one.

I would think the owners would be doing themselves a huge favor if they could cut rookie pay at the top end in half. It so often seems completely unjustified. Aren't they all pretty much wildly overpaid given the risk vs reward, compared to FAs?

Re: 10

Interesting idea - I've honestly never thought of that.

My first impulse is that sucky teams would have a very hard time negotiating players to come over to them. I mean, obviously a QB would have an easier time landing that starting job with the Raiders or the Browns than with the Seahawks or Cowboys, but would it still cost the Raiders a lot more to get a QB to sign, given the matador O-line?

I think it'd be very similar to college recruitment, though that's without doing some long-time thinking over it. Fill in more details, if you've thought of it. This sounds like a good hypothetical, and I'd like your opinion.

12- At some point money talks. After all, Edgerrin James went to Arizona.

REmuldag

I meant Raiders all time winning percnetage was best at five years ago. I think the Raiders were #1 at that time. The Cowboys may have passed them since 2003.

"
#

8- Want to reduce rookie salries? Get rid of the NFL Draft. "

The problem with that is, the teams in the best cap shape are teams like Indy, NE, Philly, Etc. Atleast with the draft, Detroit, etc, have a chance of aquiring some talent.

did Russell sign yet? Cardinals-48ers game still playbing. Havent heard update on Russell. You think espn put scroll on screen for this.

Russell has a great chance to repeat the great Silver & Black tradition of top 5 picks who get moved to guard.

There is no way eliminating the draft would lower wages for the top rookies. The draft isn't an instrument to increase competitive balance, it's an instrument to limit the leverage drafted players have in negotiations. Sure the Raiders gain some leverage because they can negotiate with other QBs but there is no way that balances out against the leverage Russell gains when he has the chance to negotiate with all of the other NFL teams that see him as a franchise QB in a year or two. Do you really think Russell gets more money in the current system than he would if he could negotiate with the Raiders, Dolphins, Browns, Bucs, Bears, etc.?

There is a rookie salary cap. Depending on how many picks, and how high they are each team is only allowed to spend a certain amount on their rookies.

I would think the owners would be doing themselves a huge favor if they could cut rookie pay at the top end in half. It so often seems completely unjustified. Aren’t they all pretty much wildly overpaid given the risk vs reward, compared to FAs?

Well, Brady earned around $300,000 in 2001.

Re: 20

True. Still, what reason did the Patriots have to think that there would be that kind of ROI on Brady? Given that he was the #199 pick, it seems that at least several QB-shopping teams never placed his value high enough to even draft by then.

That's just the thing. There is no guarantee on any of the players. Despite his greatest supporters, Russell may turn out to be Leaf 2.0. Despite his greatest doubters, Russell may make the irrational Brady/Manning debate moot. Entering the NFL as a rookie, there is a substantial amount of risk with any player, simply because they have no track record at the NFL level. Every team does their best to figure out those risks and to find the guys who are most likely to succeed (well, except for my Broncos picking Clarett...).

It all seems to come down to a predictive compensation vs. a retrodictive compensation system. Do you pay them for how you think they'll do, or do you pay them for how well they've done? Rookie salaries are based on the former, and many veteran/FA signings are based on the latter. In the end, the NFL can do whatever the heck they want, so long as they don't trip the "Congress-must-intervene-for-approval-ratings" alarm.

Just my take. Keep discussing, I love this thread.

I think we should keep the rookie salary pool, but instead of a draft have it run like an auction league. Each team gets a set amount of points, and whatever percentage of points a team spends on a player, that percentage of their rookie salary pool is that player's contract. Certain thresholds can be set for when a contract is over 3, 4, 5, or 6 years. If a team wants one particular player in the draft, they can spend all of their money on that one guy.

And it has to be an open, televised event.

Re: 18

Yeah, I don't think there's any way that eliminating the draft would reduce rookie salaries. Although it might result in lower $$ in a year like 2005 (Alex Smith, etc), as a rule, I think the money just gets more crazy as teams get desparate to obtain their 'savior'.

23: Which is exactly the problem that would lead to high salaries in a purely free-agent market. As Pat so frequently points out, even top-5 draft picks are not overpaid if they play a high-money position. Only the Reggie Bushes of the world get paid too much for their position, assuming they don't bust. But busts are not unique to the draft; free agents don't always work out as planned either. Just ask the Redskins.

Plus I doubt the NFLPA would be eager to reduce rookie salaries, since many players never get off their rookie contracts.

I agree. It's ridiculous that Russell would be guaranteed that much when he hasn't played a single NFL down.

Here's my opinion. Keep the draft, have rookie pay directed by draft slot, but contracts last only 3 years. At the end of the second year, the team that drafted the player has the exclusive ability to negotiate a longer term deal with the player, so that way the team that drafts the player has an advantage if they turn out to be a superstar. At the end of the third year, the player becomes an unrestricted free agent. This way, a rookie gets a paid, 2-3 year NFL audition to prove they can play.

The con of course is that a team has only 2 years to figure out if a player is a bust. Rookies and agents would hate it because it means no upfront payday. It would, however, mean more money for deserving veterans, and if the drafted rookie is any good, they will get paid 2-3 years down the line.

RE: 24. The current players should be in favor of it, in the same way that the NBA players were in favor of raising the minimum age. Less money spent on rookies = more money spent on veterans. So you're improving yourself by stealing from future players (who by definition aren't yet part of the union yet). Or as Gene Upshaw is so quick to point out when it comes to the retired players, his job is only to look out for the union members, the current players.

Christina, you'd have to change the free agency rules. Right now, you don't become an unrestricted free agent until after your 4th year.

#25: You're talking about the NBA method... I like it, except for the fact that the average NFL career is only 4 years, much less than the average NBA career. You'd need to adjust for that - maybe 2 years of a rookie deal, followed by an "exclusive rights" year.

However, I still like eliminating the draft best of all - whether or not it would reduce rookie salaries, it would make them market-efficient. That would eliminate the pissing contest that is currently rookie contracts - each one needs to be slotted, and more than the previous year.

I would guess that in a free market, Russell wouldn't get $32M guaranteed, no matter how savior-esque he might seem.

I'm still kind of baffled how Russell was drafted first overall.

Another example of teams overemphasizing physical ability and underemphasizing accuracy and reading defenses. The Drew Brees' will always be more successful than the Jeff Georges.

Every coach thinks he can teach accuracy and defense reads, but you can't teach five inches of extra height.

Of course, they're generally wrong about the first part, but nobody ever seems to learn that,

I love, love, love the idea in #22. The worst team gets 100 points to work with, the second gets 95, all the way down to th Patriots, who get 30 or so. And then we televise the "NFL Amateur Auction".

Re: 31

That'd be a lot of fun. The point system would take a lot of study to balance out (100 to 30 might be a bit extreme), but we'll take the concept for now. It opens up some possibilities:

1) Stock market style. Open up all players at once, with their bid prices. At the end of a time period, close the numbers and settle the sales. If desired, a second round could commence for teams that got stuck with extra points.

2) Auctioneer style. How fast can Goodell talk?

3) Silent auction. Boring, but simple.

4) Open auction. The worst team in the league last year (for sake of argument, we'll call them "Raiders") gets to say who's auctioned first. Then there's a 10-12 minute window to bid and negotiate. At the end, the highest bid wins. Disallow a team from tying the highest bid already offered (e.g., if "Raiders" already bid 80, then "Lions" would not be able to place a bid of 80, they'd have to bid higher).

Beyond that, consider the trade implications. Rather than trade draft picks, teams would trade draft points. Trades could even commence during the auction rounds. For example, "Raiders" could have bought half of "Patriots" points this year, in exchange for all of "Raiders" points next year. That would ensure that "Raiders" would get their beloved "Russell" and perhaps a place kicker.

Delightful chaos. It's at least fun to consider, even if it'll never happen.

Double post. Sorry.

I meant to add that the rookie salaries could then be based on the points spent. That would have the added effect of tying a known financial value to the points and to the draft.

That’s just the thing. There is no guarantee on any of the players.

Correct. However, if you want to be a Super Bowl contender, you have to strike it lucky on some top draft picks, in order to leverage the low-cost of most rookies. That allows you more bang for your salary-cap buck. There may be greater risk than with a free agent (though FAs have risk, as noted), but the chance of tremendous upside potential (sorry) means you have to roll the dice. Otherwise you're the Redskins.

I'm a little surprised that folks think the Raiders will be so patient with Russell. If they only have a few wins after the first ten games, it will be very difficult for them to justify not playing the guy.

I love the various ideas surrounding alternatives to the draft. It does make me think however about whether or not some of the scenarios discussed already happen to some extent. If you look at trades that happen during the draft they almost always correspond to the values on one of the trade charts. That kind of makes the draft about having a number of points to spend already. The problem with that is few teams want to trade up to near the top of the draft due to the massive salaries it requires to sign the top picks. If rookie salaries were brought under control it would probably make a top 5 pick more valuable. Over the last few years teams have shown increasing willingness to be flexible in how they shape their trade terms, moving up and down in order to arrive at an adequate points compensation level.

Watch highlights of the final 2 minutes of the 4th quarter of last year's LSU-Auburn game and tell me how anyone in his right mind could think Russell will be any good at all.

I'm a little surprised that players don't make big contract demands before the draft so they can slip to teams willing to pay them what they want like what happens in the baseball draft. Other than possibly Mario Williams, we don't hear too much about "signability" picks either. I'm not sure if this is a case of underreporting or if the salary cap/draft structure prevents it.

I heard on WFAN that Russell could actually see some action this week. Is that possible? It seems insane to me.

I heard on WFAN that Russell could actually see some action this week. Is that possible? It seems insane to me.

I don't know. He seems to have that "take a knee and throw 60 yards" play down pretty well...

What is that study on diminishing returns? the one where the Economists state that the most valuable (worth/cost) pick in the draft is approx 29?