The agents stand to personally lose millions of dollars in commission if a rookie scale is implemented. They’ll have to trade in their Porsches and Maseratis. Of course they’re opposed.
Because the average length of an NFL career is three years. That means most players on their rookie contracts won’t make it to free agency, and thus the agents can’t cash in on them a second time. And since rookies will be capped, that initial payment goes way, way down. 3% of $2m is a hell of a lot less than 3% of $20m. By the way, when it’s said that the money goes to veterans, it just means there’s more cap room that can necessarily be filled by free agents or re-signed players. It doesn’t necessarily mean that free agent contracts are going to suddenly become much, much larger.
The union would have to demand a much salary cap floor to ensure that the savings went to the vets. I imagine the benefits portion could be address by raising the minimum percentage allocated to that as well.
