Just Picture it: NO NFL DRAFT

[Ellis]

Just Picture this odd but interesting idea:
No NFL draft. If you are a rookie, the day the draft would be, you go into the free agent pool. That day is just total caos because it is just a mad sighning of players. Teams would be panicing trying to take the best college players befor they are taken.

Well the reason I am saying this is because the Draft is a waist of time. Go out and cut your grass or something.

It not going to happen, but if it did I can promise you that that day would be 1000 times more exciting than sitting there, twidling you thumbs for 15 minutes, while some team decides what the 140th player in the draft if going to be.

[Hero]

That's a pretty dumb idea... no offense.

[MountaineerDave]

Kinda sounds like the European soccer transfer season actually. Only, the transfer season takes place over named guys, not unproven rookies. And, the transfer season runs the length of most of the offseason and a little beyond. Not too different from the NFL free agency period, really.

This past draft was actually quite exciting, with the first round being completed in nearly record time. The Minnesota gaffe leading to three super quick picks being made was probably the height of draft drama, though.

The draft isn't meant for watching anyway. I listen on the radio. Folks with two TVs can listen on one TV (if you have to have Mel Kiper, which I don't) and play console games on the other. I listened on the radio to local coverage while I conducted a Madden 2003 draft myself. Leftwich ended up in Carolina. Roy Williams (WR, Texas) had come out early and was chosen first by Atlanta. Quite a combo, actually. Lighting it up in preseason.

Dave

[Anthony]

Originally posted by ellisismyhero
Just Picture this odd but interesting idea:
No NFL draft. If you are a rookie, the day the draft would be, you go into the free agent pool. That day is just total caos because it is just a mad sighning of players. Teams would be panicing trying to take the best college players befor they are taken.

Well the reason I am saying this is because the Draft is a waist of time. Go out and cut your grass or something.

It not going to happen, but if it did I can promise you that that day would be 1000 times more exciting than sitting there, twidling you thumbs for 15 minutes, while some team decides what the 140th player in the draft if going to be.

If the NFL actually did what you are suggesting, within a few years the best teams in the league would be 40 or even 50-point favorites when they played the worst teams, just like they are in college now. Eventually, with point spreads that large, some team wouldn't be able to resist an offer from gamblers to shave points in such a game, and the resulting scandal might destroy the game as we know it, just like what happened in college basketball in the early '50s.

[Marc]

Well, all the major sports have drafts, so you can't just single out the NFL. I really enjoy the draft -- it's football in April, how can you refuse it? The thing about the draft is it is supposed to aid the poor teams to even the field ... although we've seen that doesn't always work. If there was no order as in the draft, it would be unfair.

[Brad O.]

I know Anthony thinks the draft is the only way to build a team, but most of the rest of the world probably falls somewhere between him and ellis. It's an interesting idea, and I think Anthony's suggestion that good teams will take over is absurd (salary cap). That said, I kinda agree with Marc.

[Anthony]

While the salary cap does reduce the importance of the draft, another, oft-overlooked plank in the NFL's economic platform - the seniority-based "wage scale" that came out of the first strike, in 1982 - has the opposite effect. Because of the wage scale, it makes a lot more sense to fill a weak area on your roster with a "cheap" rookie you draft rather than an expensive veteran you sign as a free agent. The wage scale also tends to establish a correlation between the median age of a team's roster and their total payroll - and hence, how much room they have under the cap; with this in mind, mortgaging the future for quick fixes puts a team at a double disadvantage, since not only does it cut them off from access to young talent, but it also robs them of salary-cap flexibility.

[MountaineerDave]

The offset to this, though, Anthony, is the veteran's cap exemption. I don't understand it fully, but unders certain circumstances, a veteran will get paid X, but only count X-n against the cap. I can't think of a specific example, but I think the Pats signed a veteran FA this offseason that worked like that.

Dave