Rookie Draft Rules & Salary Scale

[Preds]

Below are the rookie draft rules as started in the Frenzy rulebook, 2004 changes are indicated by dark red text.

5. Rookie Draft

5A. General Information

Only rookies (players with no prior NFL experience) will be eligible to be drafted in the rookie draft. The rookie draft will begin on or about one week after the first day of the NFL college draft (see Section 5B).

5B. Rookie Draft Details

The rookie draft will be 4 rounds in a NON-SERPENTINE fashion based on the prior years ranking for each team, with the 6 teams failing to make the playoffs picking from 1-6 and the 6 playoff qualifiers picking 7-12 based on their finish. The Frenzy Bowl runner up will pick 11th with the winner picking 12th. Spots 7-10 will the playoff seeding, with the worst seed picking 7th.

Starting with the 2004 Rookie Draft, rookies will have a predetermined base salary based on their position and draft slot a players is drafted in. The base salaries are as follows:

Rd.Pk QB RB WR TE K
1.1 400 500 350 150 150
1.2 390 490 340 145 145
1.3 380 480 330 140 140
1.4 370 470 320 135 135
1.5 360 460 310 130 130
1.6 350 450 300 125 125
1.7 340 440 290 120 120
1.8 330 430 280 110 110
1.9 320 420 270 105 105
1.10 310 410 260 100 100
1.11 300 400 250 100 100
1.12 290 390 240 100 100

2.1 280 380 230 100 100
2.2 270 370 220 100 100
2.3 260 360 210 100 100
2.4 250 350 200 100 100
2.5 240 340 190 100 100
2.6 230 330 180 100 100
2.7 220 320 170 100 100
2.8 210 310 160 100 100
2.9 200 300 150 100 100
2.10 190 290 140 100 100
2.11 180 280 130 100 100
2.12 170 270 120 100 100

3.1 160 260 110 100 100
3.2 150 250 100 100 100
3.3 140 240 100 100 100
3.4 130 230 100 100 100
3.5 120 220 100 100 100
3.6 110 210 100 100 100
3.7 100 200 100 100 100
3.8 100 190 100 100 100
3.9 100 180 100 100 100
3.10 100 170 100 100 100
3.11 100 160 100 100 100
3.12 100 150 100 100 100

4.1 100 100 100 100 100
4.2 100 100 100 100 100
4.3 100 100 100 100 100
4.4 100 100 100 100 100
4.5 100 100 100 100 100
4.6 100 100 100 100 100
4.7 100 100 100 100 100
4.8 100 100 100 100 100
4.9 100 100 100 100 100
4.10 100 100 100 100 100
4.11 100 100 100 100 100
4.12 100 100 100 100 100

In addition to these base salaries, rookies will earn bonuses based on their performance each year of their original rookie contract. These bonuses will be based on their year end ranking among players of the same position. Players drafted after round 1 will receive a lower bonus for equal performance. That is, second round players receive a bonus 75% of that of a 1st round pick, 3rd round receive 25%, and 4th round receive 25%. Performance bonuses are earned on top of the standard 10% raise, not in place of it.

The minimum raise is 10% of the previous years salary. Any incentive bonus earned is above and beyond the standard minimum raise.

Further, each rookie will have a maximum salary that his contract can hit with incentive bonuses. The maximum salaries will vary on position and round drafted. When calculating for the maximum salary, the player will first be assessed his 10% annual contract increase, and then any applicable signing bonus will be applied up to the maximum salary payable according to the players position and the player was drafted in. Once an incentive clause bumps the contract at or above the maximum salary, incentive bonuses will no longer apply, although the 10% annual contract will still apply on any remaining years of the contract.

The bonuses and Maximum Salaries are as follows:

QB's
1st Round 2nd Round 3rd Round 4th Round
#1 Overall 500 375 250 125
2-5 350 263 175 88
6-10 200 150 100 50
11-20 100 75 50 25
All Others None
Max Salary 1200 900 600 300

RB's
1st Round 2nd Round 3rd Round 4th Round
#1 Overall 600 450 300 150
2-5 450 338 225 113
6-10 300 225 150 75
11-20 200 150 100 50
All Others None
Max Salary 2000 1500 1000 500

WR's
1st Round 2nd Round 3rd Round 4th Round
#1 Overall 450 338 225 113
2-5 300 225 150 75
6-10 200 50 100 50
11-20 100 75 50 25
All Others None
Max Salary 1100 825 550 275

TE's
1st Round 2nd Round 3rd Round 4th Round
#1 Overall 225 169 113 56
#2 Overall 200 150 100 50
#3 Overall 175 131 88 44
#4 Overall 150 113 75 38
#5 Overall 125 94 63 31
6-10 50 38 25 13
All Others None
Max Salary 750 563 375 188

Teams will be allowed to trade future draft picks up to 1 season in advance, therefore you can trade picks for the 2003 season in 2002, however, you could not trade picks for the 2004 season.

Teams are required to assign contract years and declare active or development squad roster assignments to rookies by the end of the off-season free-agency period which ends August 15th each season. Rookies will not count against your cap until contract years have been assigned and they have been placed on your Active Roster or if they have been placed on your Development Squad, therefore if you were to include the costs of your rookies, you can exceed your cap during the off-season up until the time you assign contract years and declare whether the rookie will be on your Active Roster or Development Squad. If placed on your Active Roster, you must have room under the cap to accommodate the player. If a rookie is not declared active or DS by the end of the free agency period, he will become a free agent available to open bidding. Rookies may be cut during the off-season free-agency period with no cap hit, however, once they are declared active the cap penalty rules will apply.

Once the rookie draft begins, teams will have 24 hours to make a selection if the previous selection was made on Monday through Thursday, and 48 hours to make a selection if the previous pick was on a Friday or Saturday.

When you make your selection, please list your pick number 1st, followed by Position Player Name, and NFL Team in the Subject bar.

For example, Jersey has the #1 pick, his thread subject should read:
1.1 RB William Green, Cleveland

Make any commentary (which is encouraged) in the message area of the thread.
Following the example above, the message commentary could read:
Pretty much everybody's consensus pick here and I NEED RB's!

Each team will be responsible for monitoring the draft THEMSELVES. We will not send out e-mail reminders telling you when you are up.

If your time limit expires, the next team(s) in line is(are) free to make their selection(s) (with salaries set at their original draft position, not the one they moved up into). Teams that are skipped can step back in at any time, however the player they select will receive the salary for the slot they were originally slated to draft in.

Draft Picks CANNOT be waived. Remember, you can cut a rookie pick with no cap hit until August 15th, so there is no reason not to make a pick.

Rookies drafted in the 2002 and 2003 Rookie draft will have their salaries adjusted to coincide with the aforementioned starting salary scale and incentive levels.

5C. Supplemental Draft

Any player drafted by the NFL (whether rookie or supplemental) must be required to be exposed to a frenzy rookie draft before being granted outright UFA. Further, the Frenzy will implement a blind Supplemental Draft on an as needed basis (i.e. whenever the NFL holds one and an offensive player is drafted).

The draft would consist of all interested teams e-mailing a 3rd party or blind source the player(s) they would like to draft, and what round & team's pick (since teams may hold others picks in the next years draft) they're willing to forgoe the following year to claim said player(s).

The team willing to give up the highest pick would get the player(s), and in the event of a tie (where 2 or more teams submit the same round for any player) we would go by the current years rookie draft order for the picks listed to be forfeited in exchange for the player(s) with the highest pick being the winner.

Any necessary supplemental draft would be scheduled within 3 weeks of the conclusion of the NFL's Supplemental draft for any given year.

1. If a player is selected through the supplemental draft his salary would be based on the pick that was given up for him. If pick 2.5 was the winning pick and the player is a RB his salary will be $720.

2. You can offer any pick in the following years draft as long as you own said pick and specify which pick is being used, if you hold multiple picks in a round. This is what the Texans did to get Hollings (using the Raiders pick).

3. The player if selected through the supplemental draft would be DS eligible.

4. Players that are exposed to the supplemental draft and not selected become UFA's just like players from our regular annual draft.

[Philadelphia Freedom]

Stupid question which I know is addressed clearly in the rules (which I can't get to here at work). Anyhow, what is the maximum numbers of rookies in the Frenzy that can be added to the 3 player (developmental/practice) squad in a given year. I think the SAC'd it is two and I am pretty sure it is one here but I wanted to confirm.

Can anyone help me out?

TIA!!

[Preds]

Originally Posted by Philadelphia Freedom

Stupid question which I know is addressed clearly in the rules (which I can't get to here at work). Anyhow, what is the maximum numbers of rookies in the Frenzy that can be added to the 3 player (developmental/practice) squad in a given year. I think the SAC'd it is two and I am pretty sure it is one here but I wanted to confirm.

Can anyone help me out?

TIA!!

The Practice Squad can be added to as follows each year:

Frenzy - a max of 1 player year from the 4th round only. No more than 3 players ever allowed on the PS. Players CANNOT be traded from 1 PS to another, and can not move from TS to PS.

SACD - a max of 2 players per year from rounds 5 and 6 only. No more than 6 players ever allowed on the PS. Players CANNOT be traded from 1 PS to another and can not move from TS to PS.

[Philadelphia Freedom]

Thanks!!

I thought that was the deal but wanted to confirm.

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

Originally Posted by Preds

The Practice Squad can be added to as follows each year:

Frenzy - a max of 1 player year from the 4th round only. No more than 3 players ever allowed on the PS. Players CANNOT be traded from 1 PS to another, and can not move from TS to PS.

What's the rationale behind only adding 1 player to the PS per year? I know that most of us only have 1 4th round pick... but say we get a supplimental pick (like I have this year) or someone trades away a 4th... we can still only select one of those 4th rounders to make the PS?

It's definitely not a life or death issue here, but what's the harm to adding more than one, as long as you never exceed the 3 player max?

[Nittany Dodgers]

My idea was to prevent people from stockpiling 4th round picks just so they can take a bunch of RBs in the hopes that one of them turn out to be something. If you had, say, 5 4th round picks (which isn't all that far fetched given all of our trading, and comp picks) and drafted 5 RBs, you'd have all summer to see which if any had a chances, and then stash the other 3 on your PS for the year and see how they turned out. If you hit one, you get a free player. If not, wash, rinse and repeat next year. I did not want to encourage this kind of activity as much as to reward good, late round picks by allowing you to assign a 4th rounder with a 5 year contract, not worry about it affecting the year cap of the TS, and sit and wait on him to develop, and not restock the PS every year with new players trying to hit that home run.

That was my thinking. Whether or not others agree, I know not.

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I guess it's possible that the aforementioned "stockpiling of 4th rounders" could happen, but not likely in this league. The rules say only one per year, so that's what we're stuck with. I'd be up for increasing that, but it's not worth falling on my sword over (especially since this year I happen to have 2 4th rounders - that makes me kinda biased).

Again, thanks for the explanation. The rules are very clear now that I took the time to read them.

[Preds]

Originally Posted by Nittany Dodgers

My idea was to prevent people from stockpiling 4th round picks just so they can take a bunch of RBs in the hopes that one of them turn out to be something. If you had, say, 5 4th round picks (which isn't all that far fetched given all of our trading, and comp picks) and drafted 5 RBs, you'd have all summer to see which if any had a chances, and then stash the other 3 on your PS for the year and see how they turned out. If you hit one, you get a free player. If not, wash, rinse and repeat next year. I did not want to encourage this kind of activity as much as to reward good, late round picks by allowing you to assign a 4th rounder with a 5 year contract, not worry about it affecting the year cap of the TS, and sit and wait on him to develop, and not restock the PS every year with new players trying to hit that home run.

That was my thinking. Whether or not others agree, I know not.

This may be hard for everyone to believe...

but I agree 100% with Brian's reasoning and despite having multiple 4ths cannot support raising the max 1 player per year now or in the future.

The whole idea of the PS was to draft and develop deep sleepers. Limiting it to 1 per year allows 3 years for a player to develop or not before you need to cut bait and move on, and with this setup there is no reason to give up early, or restock each year, etc, as happens with the Taxi Squad.

It's truly a place to develop late sleepers that each team drafts on their own, without the pressure of impatience. I personally prefer we keep it that way.

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

Like I said, no big deal. You guys are way more into this than I am, so I respect your opinion & reasoning.

(How's that for sucking up to the rules committee!?!)

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

So... the START of our 2006 rookie draft, per the rules, is the 2nd Monday in May... so we'll begin on May 8th, correct?

[Nittany Dodgers]

Originally Posted by Royal Hawaiian Opihi

So... the START of our 2006 rookie draft, per the rules, is the 2nd Monday in May... so we'll begin on May 8th, correct?

That was in the tentative schedule, and I don't recall any objections.

Of course, I'm sure I'll be ready to go the Monday after the draft.

[Preds]

Originally Posted by Nittany Dodgers

That was in the tentative schedule, and I don't recall any objections.

Of course, I'm sure I'll be ready to go the Monday after the draft.

Not me... aside from Reggie Bush and a few others I'm totally clueless on this rookie class.

[Urza's Ragers]

There's someone else in the draft besides Bush?

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

Originally Posted by Preds

Not me... aside from Reggie Bush and a few others I'm totally clueless on this rookie class.

Well, that's all I need to hear. I think it's in the best interests of the league (or is it just the Eastern Division?) that we definitely start our rookie draft the Monday following the NFL draft. Yep, no question about it!

:thumbsup

[smsmith40]

Preds

Any chance we can revive the CDL just for a week so I can draft Bush AND Young? j/k