MSully, I just cannot figure out the meaning of your avatar. Is it some kind of inside joke, or am I just out of touch?
Minimum rookie salary in the NFL for 2013 is $405,000. All of the players that declared have a legitimate shot at making a team right now for decent money. Half of them have a shot at really big money.
They also have a great shot to improve as a player, win another SECC and take a crack at another NC. If half of them are just gambling on their second contract, what's the hurry?
It's not a great shot at all. It's a long shot. 1. Consider Ciron Black. We had an All-American Offensive Tackle three years ago who decided to stay for his senior year. He got hurt that year but played on the injury, did not have a good season and eventually failed the NFL physical. He would have been a 1st or 2nd round pick if he had left his junior year. The lesson was not lost on his teammates. If you are ready for the NFL, playing a senior season risks career-ending injury. 2. Conversely, few players have raised themselves from a 5th-round pick to a 1st-round pick on his senior season effort. It's a long shot. 3. $400 Grand is a lot of money. PhD's can't go out of school and earn that kind of cash. As NFL salaries go up, capable juniors will leave early. It happens at Bama, too, and will continue to. LSU just had an amazing class of juniors this year. Some day Bama will catch up and lose a bunch of them, too. 4. Some of them have children to support and poor families in need. They don't have the luxury of playing for the sake of Rah, Rah when a six-figure salary is within reach.
If this type of middle and late round NFL attrition ever becomes the norm in the SEC, the other conferences have nothing to worry about. Parity will abound and dominance will be used only in an historic sense. We shall see.
Ford: "Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be in the NFL. I feel like my best chance to get in the league is now. I feel like I've maximized my potential at LSU." "I think this signifies that LSU is good at developing players and getting them ready for the NFL," ESPN college football analyst Rece Davis said on a teleconference last week. "There is some great talent whose time to move on has come. It's a good problem to have. The last thing you want is to have a bunch of seniors coming back who aren't very good players." The NFL's new collective bargaining agreement, which was signed in 2011, cut into the gap in pay for rookies drafted in the top rounds and lower rounds. That has created more reason to jump even when a player's draft stock could be improved with another season. "More and more you are going to see middle-round juniors entering the draft because of the new pay scale from the new CBA," Detillier said. "As a third or fourth round pick, you can make between $350,000 to $500,000 with a signing bonus. And it's not worth it financially to stay another year in college to go up a round because the money is about the same.
Problem with all that money is that NO ONE shows them what to do with it in a manner they create some wealth preservation. In addition the never ending saga of these blood sucking "entourages" these guys end up with drain that money in the same amount of time they make it. If they are too stupid to learn what to do with money when they have it they are better off getting back to college ASAP and getting real job skills that require something other than football. Free agents are the ones really looking at uphill climb's as they must live off the meager signing bonus and per diem until they make the team.
These are great points, Red...it just seems like a lot of players from one school. When was the last time ANY one school had ten players drafted from it? And that doesn't count the two or three seniors that will likely get picked up. 12-13 from one school just seems really unlikely. I don't think I would have taken the risk, if I were these guys. Of course, I'm not, so it doesn't matter...LOL.
