2012 RULES: Rookie Contracts and Future RFAs

[Goodell]

As I was looking into drafted player contracts, I was thinking about our contract structures and how those impact the future of the player on the team.

We used to have more 3-year deals, especially for lower round players, which would lead them to becoming restricted free agents after their rookie deals (RFAs are only for 3 year players, or 3 years or less in our case).

I was reading an article about the extinction of restricted free agency in the NFL, as we started to see ourselves with much less RFAs in our own off-season free agency as well as in the real NFL.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d8 ... extinction

I'd probably be inclined to continue to have our rookie contracts resemble reality which will lead to less RFAs in the future but also players under contract with their drafting team longer. To intentionally shift away from NFL rules in places where we don't have to would require overwhelming support to intentionally have different rules from reality in that case when not needed. Instead of risk of losing player to RFA, the drafted player would be fully under contract that 4th year additionally, plus lots of options to retain afterward (unlimited bidding for UFAs, franchise tagging, LTC, etc.)

The only players who'd hit RFA status under NFL rules and our continuing 4-year+ rookie contracts would be undrafted rookies or similar youngsters who get signed to 3-year or less deals and are 3 years of service or less at the time of their free agency. I believe I mentioned we'd examine this before signing our rookie contracts, though, and get some feedback.

As the article mentions:

Don't expect a resurgence in the RFA market, either. The new CBA mandates all rookie contracts to have a term of four years, eliminating the third-year restricted free agency for every player drafted between 2011 and 2020. The only players eligible to become restricted free agents will be undrafted players and drafted players whose four-year deals didn't last. So yes, restricted free agency is headed toward dinosaur status.