Around the NFL Post Draft News.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by FrenchSkin

I've always thought it was really strange that NFL players' contracts contain so little guaranteed money, I wasn't aware this wasn't the case in other American sports, do you guys know if there's any "historical" explanation of this discrepancy ?

Envoyé de mon SM-J320FN en utilisant Tapatalk

There are several reasons. Some of them could be:

The other sports are much more dependent on individual stars so the top group of players has generally had a lot of influence on the top contracts which has the effect of carrying down the line.

The other sports dont have as large rosters, so in order to pump up the numbers on the top contracts the NFL owners claimed they had to have an out.

Football players are much more likely not to finish a contract due to both drop off in play and injury so it has been easier to argue that full terms shouldnt be guaranteed. If they go to guaranteed contracts you will see much shorter lengths, like KCousins is.

And the NFLPA is a substantially weaker union because so many of its active playing members know they only get so many years and a real strike likely takes one year away from their income. Thats not a thing to Aaron Rodgers or other superstars, but there are a lot of 20-23 year olds who see the loss of 500k in a year to stand up for the already rich players ability to get more money, or 30+ players who may only have 1 or two years left. Those two disparate groups create splits and dissensions that the owners can use against the union.