By: Joey Bittick

In case you haven’t heard (and if you haven’t, you probably aren’t a Rams fan or have been living in the mountains somewhere anyway), I will fill you in.  Sam Bradford, the Rams pick with the Number 1 spot in the 2010 NFL Draft, just signed the largest rookie contract in NFL history—a $78 million six-year deal. It could be worth even more if Bradford reaches certain incentives, but the $78 million (while certainly a huge sum) is not what has people abuzz.

What people are talking about is $50 million, the largest amount of guaranteed money in the NFL—EVER—and all of this for a guy who has never taken a snap in the NFL. To put this amount into perspective, Peyton Manning (the universally recognized best QB in the NFL who set the standard by which all NFL quarterbacks will be measured) got $34.5 million in guaranteed money in 2004. Tom Brady (the three-time Super Bowl-winning QB who holds the single season record for most touchdown passes) will make $3 million in the final year of his cap-friendly deal. So, Bradford’s deal raises questions about the validity of the current system for signing rookies in the NFL.

But Bradford’s mega deal is not the only contract that has raised eyebrows.  Matthew Stafford, the Number 1 pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, got $41.7 million in guaranteed money. That is a lot of cash, to put it mildly. Bradford, however, was given 16.6 percent (a whopping $8.3 million) more! The outrageous amount of money rookies are having thrown at them has raised speculation that the NFL will adopt a rookie wage scale.

Those in favor of a rookie salary cap (so to speak) point to the NBA slotting system as an example of how it would work in the NFL. A rookie’s salary will be pre-determined by the pick they are drafted with. I wanted to take a look for myself to try to determine whether or not rookie contracts were growing at an outrageous rate or if Sam Bradford’s 16.6 percent salary increase is a singular aberration, so I decided to take a look at the quarterbacks chosen Number 1 overall since the year 2000.

2001 – Michael Vick QB Atlanta Falcons, 6 years, $62 million, $15.3 million guaranteed

Despite his legal troubles, Vick has not been as bad a QB as some would think; that does not mean he has been a good QB either. He has been able to win some games, though, due to his ability to run the ball like no QB in the NFL has before or since. With a career completion percentage of 53.7, 72 TDs, 52 INTs, and 11,591 passing yards in 86 games (68 starts), Vick certainly is not in the upper echelon of the NFL passers by any stretch of the imagination. He does have a career record of 38-28 (with one tie) and has added almost 4,000 yards rushing and 23 TDs on the ground. Still, even without his off-the-field transgression, these are not stats you might expect from a Number 1 overall pick. Add to that the fact that he was paid more than any other player taken Number 1 in future drafts until Matthew Stafford in 2009.

2002 – David Carr QB Houston Texans, 7 years, $46.2 million, $10.9 million signing bonus

Considering Michael Vick’s gargantuan contract the year before, the Texans got a relative bargain in David Carr. That does not mean he was a good pick, though this is not entirely Carr’s fault, as the Texans chose to select a QB despite one of the most porous offensive lines in recent memory. Carr was sacked 76 times as a rookie! In his five-year career with the Texans, he was sacked a total of 249 times in 75 games. Despite all of this, he managed to complete more than 60 percent of his passes during his final three years in Houston (completing 68.3 percent in 2006). However, he only passed for more than 3,000 yards once (3,532 in 2004), had only 59 TDs to 65 INTs, and really just could not recover from the pounding he took behind that offensive front the Texans entrusted with his protection. He is now a backup for the San Francisco 49ers. In my mind, there will always be a question of what Carr could have accomplished on a team with even an average offensive line.

2003 – Carson Palmer QB Cincinnati Bengals, 7 years, $49 million, $14 million signing and option

Carson Palmer is the first Number 1 overall pick of the Aughts to have sustained success. Palmer has already been named to two Pro Bowls and has led his team to the playoffs twice.  He has a 63.2 percent career completion percentage, 18,724 passing yards, 128 TDs, and 80 INTs for a career QB rating of 87.9. There are still questions about whether Palmer can win in the playoffs (two playoff games have led to two losses) and whether or not he will ever reach the levels of the NFL’s true elite quarterbacks (Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, and until he retired a few months ago, Kurt Warner). But it seems he was definitely worth being picked Number 1 overall.

2004 – Eli Manning QB New York Giants (via trade from San Diego Chargers), 6 years, $45 million, $20 million signing bonus

Eli was the first Number 1 overall pick to win a Super Bowl since his brother Peyton did it (Peyton was drafted Number 1 in 1998 and won Super Bowl XLI in 2007). While Eli may never be on the level that his big brother is (not many in the history of the NFL have reached Peyton’s level), he certainly seems to have been worth the pick. Eli has a career record of 50-37, a completion percentage of 57.0, 18,644 passing yards, 125 TDs and 88 INTs, and of course he has that ring. He has also proven to be durable starting all 80 games the Giants have played since 2005. So, while not an elite QB, he definitely has proven the Giants made the right move when they paid a steep price to acquire him during the 2004 draft.

2005 – Alex Smith QB San Francisco 49ers, 6 years, $49.5 million, $24 million guaranteed

The jury is still out on Smith. He was not viewed as a consensus slam dunk Number 1 pick. The 49ers scouts could not even reach a consensus on whether or not he should have been picked Number 1 by the 49ers. It appears those dissenters may have been right, considering that the second QB taken in the draft was Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, and he looks poised to become a Top 5 QB in the NFL. Alex, however, has suffered through injuries and inconsistency. After 2009, though, it appears he may live up to the potential that made him the first guy chosen in 2005. In 2009, he was 5-5 in ten starts completing 60.5 percent of his passes with 18 TDs and 12 INTs. He will have to improve on those numbers in 2010 to avoid that dreaded ‘bust’ label.

2007 – JaMarcus Russell QB Oakland Raiders, 6 years, $61 million, $32 million guaranteed

Those who want to argue that Al Davis really has lost his marbles and needs to step away from running the show for the Raiders need look no further than JaMarcus Russell. He may go down as the worst pick in the history of the NFL. There were major questions about his work ethic and intelligence, but Al ignored those because the man had a cannon for an arm. Well, Davis should have stayed away. JaMarcus ballooned to over 300 bills and could not even manage to complete 50 percent of his passes in 2009. The Raiders released him this past offseason, and he promptly got himself arrested for trafficking, of all things, codeine cough syrup. It seems like Russell just couldn’t lay off the Purple Drank, not even for $61 million.

2009 – Matthew Stafford QB Detroit Lions, 6 years, $72 million, $41.7 million guaranteed

It is too early to say much about whether Stafford will be a success or not, but it will be an uphill battle. The Lions certainly earned the right to select him Number 1 in the 2009 draft, going 0-16 to acquire that pick. Stafford certainly has the physical attributes to succeed, but his biggest obstacle may be overcoming the long odds of actually winning for the Lions, the NFL version of… well, Detroit.

When I take a look at these numbers, I see rookie pay as being cyclical up until 2009. They reached a high point in 2001 when Vick got his huge deal, and then fell off after that when David Carr got much less. Since then they have been rising though. When Michael Vick signed his rookie contract in 2001, many could have thought the same think people are saying about the Bradford contract: that rookie contracts will continue to balloon out of control until someone intercedes. But Vick’s contract was not outdone until 2009, when Matthew Stafford signed his deal.

So now that Bradford has set a new high-water mark, do rookie contracts keep growing at a 16.6 percent rate per year, or do they fall of again like they did after Vick broke the bank? There was a two-year gap between JaMarcus Russell and Stafford (Jake Long a left tackle was chosen in between them, and he received less than Russell), and Stafford received a 23.2 percent increase over Russell. Since Alex Smith was picked in ’05, guaranteed money for a number 1 overall QB has more than doubled (from $24 mil to the $50 million that Bradford got). So does that mean in 2015 or ‘16 the number 1 QB picked is going to get $110 million in guarantees?

I am one of those people who is in favor of a rookie wage scale, simply for the fact that I feel money should go to the veterans who have proven that they belong in the NFL. I feel that until some kind of boundaries are set, the agents that represent these kids are going to ensure that their salaries continue to rise until there finally comes a point where they are totally unmanageable and teams just decide to forfeit their draft picks. Well, maybe they won’t go quite that far but someone in the NFL has to take a stand.