John Lynch Thinks Rookies Are Overpaid

John Lynch has publicly taken the position that rookies are paid too much and that the NFL should adopt a rookie salary scale similar to the NBA. Testify, brother!

"I'm with them on that," said Broncos safety John Lynch, who is entering his 16th season. "I'd like to come up with an NBA system where you put a cap on the rookies. I can see the owners' problem there. You look at JaMarcus Russell. He may turn out to be an awesome quarterback, but you're investing $60 million right off the bat. It's reached the point where everyone who picks in the top five wants to get the heck out of there. I would like to see that pool of money redistributed."

Here is the NBA rookie salary scale for 2008. The first pick of the NBA draft in 2008 will get a little over $4 million guaranteed. In his second year he will be guaranteed more than $4.3 million. After that, it goes into team options and qualifying offers and gets all confusing and hard, kind of like the first time I had sex. Except for the team option part. That would have been fun. Anyway, it seems like a fair system, and I'm pretty sure former first round rookies like LeBron James or Yao Ming or Allen Iverson did well for themselves after their rookie seasons.

As more and more veterans speak out, Gene Upshaw is going to have to change his stance on the whole rookie salary issue. He's supposed to speak for the players, not inject his own opinions in their place. Upshaw has said very clearly that he will not accept any limits on rookie pay.

"Every year at this time, I hear it again. They don't like how the rookies are paid. 'They need some kind of pay scale.' Well, I'm not going to agree to limit how the rookies are paid because it has a huge impact on veterans. I'm not going to agree to it.

Does anyone else find it weird that Upshaw speaks in the singular "I" when discussing union matters? "I'm not going to agree to it." What he wants is irrelevant. I dunno... it just seems like if you represent a group of people, you should say "they" or at the very least "we". I know it's nitpicking, but man, this guy is such an egomaniac.

Upshaw also is "concerned that keeping rookie salaries too cheap could price veterans out of jobs, especially those who make one of the varying minimum salaries." Upshaw: "We don't want to get into a position where the league is keeping four or five rookies because it's cheaper than keeping one or two veterans."

The rookie scale would only apply to the first round and maybe the second. And those players are already getting paid enough to where teams have to cut veterans in order to stay under the cap. Another one of Upshaw's arguments is that high rookie salaries make it possible for veterans to go to team managment and ask for comparable money, which is absolutely ludicrous. Upshaw lives in this fantasy world where there was never a salary cap. The truth is that each team has a pie. If a rookie is taking $35 million guaranteed out of that pie, there is precisely that much less to give to the veterans, regardless of whether or not they feel entitled to it. John Lynch hits the nail on the head: Redistribute that pool of money.