I know I am VERY tired of hearing others do the same. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone complain about overpaid rookies in the NFL, I could pay Suh's contract out of my pocket with change left over to pay Shawn Kemp's child support, too. It's a BS argument that the owners use as a distraction to get people off the side of the players in negotiation. Let me clue you in on the biggest reason they want this rookie salary cap below the jump.

This is why.

 

The average MLB player plays for nearly 6 seasons. The average salary is $3 million dollars. During the course of his career, the average professional baseball player will earn $18 million dollars.

The average NBA player enjoys a career that spans 5 years. The average player will earn nearly $4 million dollars per year, providing average career earnings of $20 million.

The average NFL player plays only 3 years. He stands to make $770,000 a year, bringing the average career earnings of an NFL player to $2,310,000 – a mere 12% of the MLB player and 11% of an NBA player.

Football, as the article notes, is the most dangerous of the three 'big' sports by a long shot. As we all know, the players don't have a good postcareer protection suite in place - ask Mike Ditka about it some time. Their best chance to lock up significant money in their playing career is in that first three years - the exact time the owners would like to cap their income.

It's a seven billion dollar a year  frigging industry. For the owners, it's essentially a license to print money. 19 of the 32 teams in the NFL are worth north of a billion dollars. Heck, if the owners need money, they have a credit center that the league runs with over a billion dollars in it for loans! They don't need capped costs, and they prove it every year at draft time. But they want to eliminate one of the biggest upfront expenses when it comes to the players (the rookies' guaranteed money), and they do it by crying poor, and fans who evidently don't know any better keep agreeing with them!

Yeah, it sucks to be them if they pay Sam Bradford $60 million up front when he could be the next Tim Couch. I seem to remember that there's some risk in EVERYTHING you do in life. If you're a player, it could be risking death or paralysis on every single play, or an injury that takes your entire career away, or at the least their long term health, as so many former players who can't do simple things like walk without assistance will tell you. So boo frigging hoo if the Bob Krafts and the Jerry Joneses have to actually put some skin in the game.

There's a quote some people I know use when describing bankers' activities: Socialize the risk, privatize the profit. This is the same. Don't be fooled.