Paraag Marathe: "Our Level of Spending on Defense is not sustainable over time"

Originally posted by buck:
Does this lack of sustainability of the defensive line costs impact how we will draft?

Does drafting defensive picks high in the draft increase or decrease the relative cost of the defense?

I do not understand numbers and math well enough to figure this out. Help!!!!

Here is a great article I found that explains the rookie salary structure for drafted players:

http://rulingsports.com/2012/04/25/the-structure-of-nfl-rookie-contracts/

Bottom line, rookie's salaries are capped for the first four years and so are the escalators in their contracts. The price tag doesn't go up till year 5, depending on when they were drafted.

It is WAY cheaper to get rookies (.............outside the top ten picks) rather than signing free agents or extending your own players long term. At least a team can do some cost cutting by drafting wisely and extending only a select few veterans.

Originally posted by m_brockalexander:
Here is a great article I found that explains the rookie salary structure for drafted players:

http://rulingsports.com/2012/04/25/the-structure-of-nfl-rookie-contracts/

Bottom line, rookie's salaries are capped for the first four years and so are the escalators in their contracts. The price tag doesn't go up till year 5, depending on when they were drafted.

It is WAY cheaper to get rookies (.............outside the top ten picks) rather than signing free agents or extending your own players long term. At least a team can do some cost cutting by drafting wisely and extending only a select few veterans.

Thanks. I am going to read the article now.

If we draft a CB in the first 2 rounds, as seems fairly likely, the writing could be on the wall for Tarell Brown. He can probably get more on the open market than we will be able to pay given that Crabtree's, Kap's, Iupati's, A. Davis's, and Aldon Smith's contracts will all be coming up in the near future.