Quote:
Originally Posted by Ade Jimoh Fan Club
Why is our rookie pool so low? It's not like we had any rookies to sign. Did we give HB Blades a Ginormous signing bonus? Anyone know?
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I know that our rookie pool started out at $3.4 million, per
this report from ESPN.
And
per JLC in his blog:
Quote:
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Also, Skins have $2.1 million left under the rookie cap, which, given the low base salaries these guys make, is plenty of space for LaRon Landry. Those talks are ongoing.
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This tell me we used $1.3 million on Ecker, Blades, Sartz, and Palmer. That's about $300K per player, which essentially amounts to their base salaries. So JLC's number of $2.1 remaining makes total sense to me: the Redskins started with $3.4 million in room, they signed the 4 low draft picks to essentially minimum salary deals, leaving them with $2.1.
The $3.4 we started with isn't out of whack with the rest of the NFL. Tampa had 10 draft picks, including Gaines Adams at #4 overall, and was allocated only $6.1 million in rookie pool money.
The rookie pool has set up a push-pull in the financial market between the vets and the rookies. As we know, vets got huge contracts this past offseason. But the rookie pool did not rise in proportion with those huge contracts this season. Rookies are seeing the big money that vets got this offseason, and they're being aggressive in their negotiations. But teams are having to tell them hey, we're bound by the rookie pool, it is what it is. And consequently you have a lot of #1 picks who still aren't signed.