The NFL continues to get a lot younger and cheaper
By the time NFL players reach their third and fourth years in the league, the vast majority are struggling just to hang on because of injuries or younger, faster and often cheaper rookies out for their jobs.
In 2006 and 2011, the players union and the NFL tried to do something about that, adopting salary and bookkeeping rules with the potential to extend the careers of these veterans.
It hasn’t worked.
In a first-of-its-kind analysis, The Associated Press found that since 2005, the average amount of playing experience for athletes on the NFL’s openingday rosters has shrunk from 4.6 years to 4.3.
In 2005, there were 784 players with three years’ experience or less and 714 with five or more years. In 2018, the gap widened to 852 and 644.
Teams are increasingly made up of a few star millionaires and an army of young players earning close to the minimum salary, with a dwindling number of older, journeyman athletes in the middle.
“You don’t really have a lot of middleclass older guys. It’s actually kind of sad,” Detroit Lions safety Glover Quin said.
For most guys in the NFL, there is more at stake than salary. Those who make it three years plus three games become vested in the league’s pension plan. Many players argue, too, that they deserve better from the NFL than to be treated as disposable, given the heavy toll the game takes on their bodies.
The exodus of the mid-level veteran is a longstanding source of tension between the union and the NFL, made more acute because of the increasing speed and violence of the game and advancing knowledge about the long-term effects of concussions. The issue could become a sticking point in the next collective bargaining negotiations; the current deal expires at the end of the 2020 season.
Union leaders argue that they have fought successfully to increase the amount of money going to all players, in part by raising the NFL cap on team payrolls. As the union sees it, where front offices spend that money is their decision.
“Just as long as they spend it,” said union president Eric Winston, who played for 12 seasons. “But how do you address something like that? Do you say, ‘Well, let’s mandate there are five to 10 guys on every roster who have four to seven years’ experience?’ OK, then which guys aren’t going to make the roster because of that?”
The NFL declined comment on the findings.
Every September, third- and fourthyear players get cut to make room for younger and less-expensive athletes, who themselves will become expendable as soon as they are eligible for higher salaries.
Unlike the NBA and Major League Baseball, neither of which is as dangerous as football, the NFL has very few players with guaranteed contracts – meaning, if they get injured or cut, they don’t get their full salary. Some might even get nothing.
The story of ninth-year Seahawks safety Earl Thomas stands as a cautionary tale. Thomas held out through the preseason for a new, cash-up-front, long-term contract in case of serious injury.
He failed to get what he wanted and played instead under his soon-to-expire contract this year. In the fourth game of the season, he broke his leg.
The final image of Thomas on the field was of him giving the finger to his own bench as he was carted off, knowing he almost certainly won’t get as big a contract now that he’s damaged goods.
In a different contract squabble, sixth-year Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, seeking a long-term deal that would protect him in case of injury, took the virtually unprecedented step of holding out the entire season .
In 2006, the “minimum salary benefit” was added to the collective bargaining agreement to help lower-paid veterans keep playing. It allows teams to sign players in their fifth year and beyond to one-year contracts at the league-mandated minimum for their experience level, while charging less than the full amount against the club’s salary cap.
For example, a fifth-year player this year would get the league minimum of $790,000, but only $630,000 of that would be counted against the $177 million cap on the team’s payroll. (The league minimum for a rookie is $480,000.)
In 2011, the NFL and the union went further and slapped salary limits on first-round draft picks, in part to free up money to sign other players.