The inability of the Chicago Bears to get first-round draft pick Cedric Benson to agree to a deal has caused him to slide way down About Football's Top 150 Cheat Sheet and completely off the list of fantasy football sleepers.
Benson has been offered a deal reportedly containing $17 million in guaranteed money with the overall package worth more than the midway point between the deals received by No. 3 pick Braylon Edwards and No. 5 pick Carnell Williams. The sticking point appears to be Benson's desire to base his salary on the deal signed by last year's No. 4 overall pick, Philip Rivers, who signed a deal that was second only to Eli Manning in 2004.
The real question is, who's really holding up the deal? Is it Benson, or is it his agent Eugene Parker?
Expect the NFL to take a serious look at the way rookies contracts are negotiated when laying out the next collective bargaining agreement. (The current CBA expires after the 2007 season.) The ever-increasing slice of salary cap pie being dished out to unproven rookies is getting to be a serious issue in more ways than one.
A huge part of that problem is the agent's desire to get as much as he can for his client while pocketing a nice chunk of change for himself. The more the player gets, the bigger the agent's cut. So agents often keep pressure on the client to hold out for a bigger payday. And an agent must also maintain his reputation, so he can't risk rushing into a deal that ultimately proves to be of lower value than the pick below his client. Otherwise competing agents will use it against him during recruitment the following year. So there is no motivation to get a deal done quickly and get the player into training camp when it opens.
Look for the NFL to try to put a cap of some sort on rookie contracts, along with a predetermined salary based on draft position. These moves would reduce the cap hit of unproven players, freeing up money to pay veteran players who might have otherwise been cut free or asked to take a pay cut. They would also eliminate the agent from the equation, and virtually eliminate rookie holdouts like we see now with Benson.
Benson has been offered a deal reportedly containing $17 million in guaranteed money with the overall package worth more than the midway point between the deals received by No. 3 pick Braylon Edwards and No. 5 pick Carnell Williams. The sticking point appears to be Benson's desire to base his salary on the deal signed by last year's No. 4 overall pick, Philip Rivers, who signed a deal that was second only to Eli Manning in 2004.
The real question is, who's really holding up the deal? Is it Benson, or is it his agent Eugene Parker?
Expect the NFL to take a serious look at the way rookies contracts are negotiated when laying out the next collective bargaining agreement. (The current CBA expires after the 2007 season.) The ever-increasing slice of salary cap pie being dished out to unproven rookies is getting to be a serious issue in more ways than one.
A huge part of that problem is the agent's desire to get as much as he can for his client while pocketing a nice chunk of change for himself. The more the player gets, the bigger the agent's cut. So agents often keep pressure on the client to hold out for a bigger payday. And an agent must also maintain his reputation, so he can't risk rushing into a deal that ultimately proves to be of lower value than the pick below his client. Otherwise competing agents will use it against him during recruitment the following year. So there is no motivation to get a deal done quickly and get the player into training camp when it opens.
Look for the NFL to try to put a cap of some sort on rookie contracts, along with a predetermined salary based on draft position. These moves would reduce the cap hit of unproven players, freeing up money to pay veteran players who might have otherwise been cut free or asked to take a pay cut. They would also eliminate the agent from the equation, and virtually eliminate rookie holdouts like we see now with Benson.
Comments