Andrew Luck would be a top-3 pick in a NFL expansion draft - "The Herd"
By: Luke Kerr-Dineen| June 30, 2016 11:04 amFollow @LukeKerrDineen
The Indianapolis Colts announced that its quarterback Andrew Luck had signed a monster $140 million, $87 million guaranteed contract on Wednesday. Luck is now the highest-paid player in the NFL, and it prompted a rash of reactions from people claiming he was overpaid.
That line of argument simply doesnt hold up, asmy colleague Steven Ruiz does a good job explaining, even when you account for his minor regression in 2015. On the contrary: Theres actually a better case to be made that Andrew Luck is still actually underpaid.
ESPNs Dan Graziano has a good piece about how Lucks deal is, in many ways, an underwhelming one, largely becauseit failed to keep pace with the previous growth in NFL quarterbacks salaries.
This is a deal that has been anticipated for more than a year now by people around the NFL But within the context of the NFL quarterback market, Andrew Lucks new deal is a pretty big letdown.
Itsimportantnot to get bogged-down in numbers here. It doesnt matter what Andrew Luck is gettingpaid if hes getting paid less than what hes worth. If I pay someone $5 an hour to do a job thats worth $20 an hour, it doesnt make it okay simply because Im paying him something.People have a right to earn their market value, whatever their level, and Andrew Luck is no different.
And thats the perpetual problem facing football at every level.
Theres an ever-growing acceptance that football is a violent and dangerous sport. Professionals know that, and increasingly, they accept it, even as the longer-term ramifications are becoming more clear. The unjustness of it all stems from the fact that these same players are ushered through a system that is constantly designed to strip them of their market value in a way that boxers, for example, are not.
(Via OlyDrop)
Players arent paid in High School (obviously), then are locked out of the NFL for the next three years. Thatessentially forces them into playing college football where, of course, they arent allowed to get paid again. Then they move onto the NFL, where theres a rookie salary cap. Even when theyre freed of that they spend the remainder of their careers negotiating contracts within the confines of their teams salary cap.Time and time and time again, forces around them are depressingtheir price as low as possible.
And that has happened to Andrew Luck once again.
He went unpaid through college than was the second draft class to suffer the consequences of a rookie salary cap. He signed a $22 million, four-year contract when he came into the league in 2012despite being afar better prospect than Sam Bradford,who made more than double that just in guarantees two years earlier, before the cap was imposed.
(AP)
This contract is probablygoing to be the biggest one Luck ever signs, and it was negotiated with the deck stacked against him. Luck may be the most important player in Indianapolis, butwhen youredealing with a hard cap, that doesnt matter as much. You cant have Andrew Luck plus 52 scrubs. You still need to fill out a team.
NFL owners have constructeda masterful, intricate system designed, above all else, towards maximizing their own profits. Until that changes,no football player will ever be paid what theyre truly worth. And therein lies footballs greatest problem.
Charles Barkley: I told Johnny Manziel "you"re s******g up your life"3hr ago3 inferior quarterbacks who are about to make even more money than Andrew Luck5hr agoWhy should anyone believe Johnny Manziel will ever get sober?6hr agoSource: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/06/andrew-luck-signed-for-140-million-but-hes-still-underpaid
