2010 draft cost us 61 million dollars.

This is one of the reasons I don't understand why we might have to let one of the following players walk: Goldson, VD, Lawson, Smith, and so forth. We have not really perused any players in FA the past couple season for this precise reason.

I will be pissed if any of the aforementioned players are not signed BECAUSE we "cannot afford them." Bulls***!

If they perform, pay them!

We won't let VD walk, but Goldson and Smith can be replaced.

Originally posted by Nuns:

Originally posted by 9erred:
Thus my theory that 2 second rounders hold more value to a team than a first rounder.

I would disagree. 2nd round picks are incredibly cheap for the skill level, but I'd slate picks 10-25 at the most valuable. As long as you are not picking for need, you're going to get a top 25 talent for a reasonable sum of money. I keep thinking about P Willis, Crabtree, Merriman, Chris Johnson as 10-20 picks that easily outplayed their contracts. Unless Bradford wins 5 straight superbowls, he can't outplay his contract.

I'd value early 2nd round picks over top 5 picks as the structure stands right now though.

I wish I could remember who wrote it, but there was a report some time ago using math and draft history to analyze where the best value is in NFL drafts and their conclusion was early to mid 2nd round.

If anyone remembers this article and can find it, link it plz.

The amount of money given to the top of the draft is pretty crazy, but what would happen with the following scenario? No draft, just a salary cap (and maybe a limit on the number of players you can sign to high contracts). Teams have to convince the college players that they offer the best amount of money plus opportunity to sign with them compared to other teams. This would be a total free market way to test the value of rookies. I am not so sure, though, that the contracts offered to the rookies would be any lower than they are today. You would have several teams trying to outbid each other for the best college players, and the bidding war could easily become just as high as it is today. You might find that in poor draft years (the year that Alex Smith came out as an example), the bidding would not go as high, but in other years I would expect it to be about the same.