So what if you don't register for the NFL draft?

The Game Room
1

So here the situation: It’s 2024, and you’re a senior QB playing for powerhouse football team. Scratch that: you are THE QB playing for the THE powerhouse football team. You’ve won the Heisman 4 years in a row. Your team has gone 60-0 in the four years you’ve been there, with a national championship each year. Every scout, coach, sportswriter, and armchair QB agrees you’re awesome, and everyone predicts your success will only grow as you get into the pros.

And a plus for you, the star QB for the NFL team in your hometown just retired. You know, the home town where your whole family lives. And your fiancee. And your fiancee’s family. And where you’ve dreamed of raising a family since you were four (hey, being a football god doesn’t mean you can’t have a soft side too).

But there’s a problem. Your hometown team is last in the draft. The team that’s first in the draft, and one that refuses to trade, is the Alaskan team from the 2020 NFL expansion, the Deadhorse Beaters. The Beaters haven’t won a game since they were a team. In fact, they’ve never even scored a point in every loss they’ve had. There’s never been more attendees at a game than there have been players on the field. Nobody knows why the owners even let the certifiably insane inheritor of an oil estate keep a team up in the tundra (Nude pics from the last NFL-owners-only-orgy are suspected). And their General Manager has publicly salivated over the chance to draft you for his team.

But you’re clever. After running your daily “sprint 100 yards in 3 seconds” training routine, you call a news conference. Where you announce you won’t be registering for the draft. And you just happened to have just bought a house in your home town. You remember, the one where the star QB just retired. Yep. Nothing suspicious there. By the way, your mailing is <mumble mumble> juuuuuuuuust in case someone from that team was curious…

Alright, ridiculous hypothetical aside, I’m sure this situation has come up. There’s plenty of good college players that don’t want to get stuck playing for the Jags. (No offense to Jacksonville). And there’s plenty of cash-rich teams that would love to buy out the top 20 draft prospects to front-load their team and screw everyone else. That’s why there’s a draft, and I’m sure there’s a million rules to keep the above from happening. But how flexible are they? If a really good player really wants to play for some team, or he really hates some other team, is it just “Sorry Charlie, you play for the team that picks you or you don’t play at all”, or is there some ability to abuse Free Agent rules there?

2

I’ve always wondered about that too, but for the NBA. Like if the Lakers happen upon some basketball prodigy in the streets, could they just sign him without letting the other teams get a crack at him?

3

That’s why you can trade draft picks. If one team really, really wants a player … who let’s call Bobbie Griffin the 4th … they can go ahead and trade away their draft picks or players, or players and draft picks, to move up in the draft and get the guy they want.

About the only way is to hold out and refuse to play unless the team trades you, gives you a raise, or meets your demand. Chris Johnson, MJD, and other players have all held out, in effect not playing unless their demands are met. You can read more about how it works and bargaining chips on each side in this article.

You could also refuse to play if your coming out in the draft. For example, Eli Whiny Douche Pouty Face Manning made it perfectly clear that if he was drafted by the Chargers, he would simply refuse to play. The Chargers drafted him anyway … and then immediately traded him to the Giants for Phillip Rivers and a couple draft picks. Teams and the player both have some leverage (although it clearly favors the NFL if you want to play in the NFL), and most of the time things get worked out.

4

You can just do what John Elway did when he was drafted by The Colts in the early 80s… Throw a tantram and threaten to play baseball instead if the team refuses to trade you to a better team.

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If you are an eligible player, you must declare for the draft in order to play in the NFL; you cannot become a free agent simply by failing to declare for the NFL draft*, you can only become a free agent by going undrafted, getting cut, or completing your contract.

You can refuse to sign with the team that drafted you, and if they do not trade you, i.e. John Elway or Eli Manning as previously mentioned, you will go back in the draft the next year. Even if they do trade you, you can still refuse to sign with whatever team they trade you to, and again, you can re-enter the draft the next year (see Bo Jackson).

I believe it works the same way in the other sports as well.

*I don’t have a cite for this, but I’m sure that’s how it is.

6

So why is it throwing a tantrum or being whiny by not wanting to play for a crap team? In any other line of work in the world, we think people should be able to work for whoever they want, and not work for companies they don’t like. It’s different for athletes?

7

Keep in mind that if you are drafted, and you don’t sign a contract for a year, then you go back into the draft pool, and theoretically the same team can draft you again. You are not a free agent unless nobody drafts you.

8

Presumably, you don’t want all the top athletes getting together and saying "Hey guys, let’s all play for the — and win the super bowl, because it’s boring watching one team stomp all the competition. It’s also so the bad teams have a chance to draft good player without being stuck with the dregs of the league. I think a better analogy is schoolyard picks for the sandlot game rather than working for giant corporation X.

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This assumes the team with the first draft pick is willing to trade, which sometimes they aren’t. Of course, that’s their prerogative too.

10

Because the purpose of draft seeding is to allow poor teams to rebuild by giving them better draft picks. If you eliminate that, you’re essentially giving the best players to the big market teams. The salary cap works against that but a player can get more endorsement contracts and exposure in a big market (like NYC) versus a small market (like Green Bay). And there are ways around the salary cap with creative accounting.

Players can work for whoever they want once they achieve free agency, which varies from league to league depending on their collective bargaining agreement.

11

Kelly Stauffer, first round pick for the Cardinals, refused to sign. The Cardinals refused to trade him. Stauffer sat out the entire 1987 season. Finally, just before the 1988 draft, the Cardinals traded him to Seattle.

12

No, I understand the reasons for the draft, I just don’t get why a player is called whiny or throwing a tantrum when they don’t want to play for a crappy team.

13

Because just by being drafted you are already one of a relatively tiny number of people who will ever have that opportunity. Even star players on renowned college teams can go undrafted, so to be one of those lucky few, then whine about getting drafted by [crappy NFL team] is immature and puerile, not to mention quite arrogant and presumptuous, seeing as even top-5 “can’t miss” draft picks can fail spectacularly once they get on an NFL field with grown men.

14

You may also want to consider that even dropping from a #1 pick to a #32 pick is a substantial change in income. We are talking about a difference of about $20M per year different. For that money you can live in your city, play in AK for the duration of a 3-4 year rookie contract and, if you play well enough, write your own ticket to the team of your choice for the remainder of your career.

Holding out and reentering the draft will drop you even more.

15

It’s none of those things and I hope that one year soon all players eligible for the draft refuse to participate in it.

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If I misremember, please correct me, but IIRC in some other threads about the NFL, you seem to advocate the NFL be forced to open itself to all members, that it no longer have a draft, and that players get to choose where, and for how much, they get to play.

I would suggest that such a plan would lead inevitably to a drop off in the quality of play due to the dilution of talent, many more lobsided victories as the Dallas Cowboys simply demolish the Des Moines Insurance Adjusters, a complete lack of parity in the league where the richest teams can buy all the talent they want, many more failed franchises that exploit an area to get public funds for a team and then fold in a year or two, and professional football would become the butt of late night jokes.

Yes, the NFL draft limits a players ability to play wherever and for whatever they want. Yes, the owners are more interested in making money than serving their fans (which is true for almost every business in the world). Yes, limiting the people who can own franchises keeps out other potential owners. But those things are also responsible for the parity the league enjoys, the high level of play most of the time, and the overall success of NFL football. Scrapping it all to chase a concept of fairness to everyone, while admirable, would destroy it.

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Right, and a lot of those top five can’t miss prospects miss because they’re put on crappy teams at the top of the draft. Like the years that the Bengals were always terrible, always had high draft picks, picked can’t miss prospects, and ruined them. Same with the Titans here now. I don’t know that Jake Locker was can’t miss, but playing on a team with a bad line and bad receivers didn’t exactly help his career.

I refer to the Bengals because of one player, David Klinger. Can’t miss coming out of college, set records in school, got stuck behind a horrible offensive line, and was sacked out of the league. Then we look at him as a bust. I totally understand why someone coming out wouldn’t want to play for those teams.

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I hope that one year soon I’ll bump into Steve Forbes at a donut shop and he’ll give me $10 million on a whim… but I don’t count on it.

The thing is, there is absolutely NO motivation for any given player to do as you suggest, let alone all of them. Let us suppose that you are John Brown, and it’s early in 2014.

You have finished your college career; it was fairly successful, but you were not a household name and you’ve attained no fame or recognition on which you can trade. You’re 24. You have a degree, and with it, plus whatever minor local connections you have made in your time in Pittsburgh, you could get a job that pays a whole $50,000-$60,000 a year.

You have the choice to declare for the NFL draft. If you do this, you will (as it turns out) be picked in the third round by the Arizona Cardinals (91st overall). You will sign a 4-year contract worth around $2.8M. Of that, a little over $500,000 is fully guaranteed, so if you blow out your knee forever on the first day of camp, you’ll still get as much as you would make in 5 years working a regular job. You will be on TV. You will be able to live comfortably. You have a young daughter - you can now give her more or less anything you think she ought to have. If you play well - and you’re fast and smart, so you probably will - you’ll earn that full $2.8M and potentially much, much, much more. Four years from now you’ll be a free agent, and if you don’t like Arizona there are 31 other cities from which to choose.

Or you can go the RedWiggler route, and boycott the draft out of principle. The NFL will still play its 2014 season, even if literally every draft-eligible player boycotts… you really think losing a single rookie class will make the NFL buckle? You will get the aforementioned mid-level job. You will give your young daughter what you can afford. While you sit for a year, your skills will deteriorate. Maybe you get in a car accident or fall down the stairs and break your leg. You have a chance of never getting an NFL payday, ever.

And remember… your motivation to bend and enter the draft gets stronger with every other player who refuses to declare. You look up one day and the 14 guys ahead of you at your position, all moved by RedWiggler’s protests that it’s not fair, have refused to declare. You’re suddenly the best WR in the draft. The New Orleans Saints, who want a fast WR, let it be known that if you declare, they’ll take you #20 overall and guarantee you seven million dollars.

If you are John Brown, why would you say “no?” Because of some arbitrary principle that says you should get to pick your own team? Even if that principle is true, who cares? John Brown’s interests are best served by entering the draft and going where he’s drafted… and he’s responsible first and foremost for his own welfare, and that of his family.

And by the way, it’s a stupid principle. The NFL teams are not really analogous to 32 individual, discrete companies; though they “compete” on the field, they don’t compete in the way that matters (financially). Really, it’s more akin to 32 departments of the same company. You don’t like the department to which you’re assigned, your choices are to work there anyway, to go work at a different company, or - if you have considerable leverage - to force a switch. Same as the NFL.

19

The other option is to go to Canada. Tom Cousineau, Joe Theismann, Rocket Ismail, and others have done this.

20

Question: Sometimes you’ll here about some Rugby/Soccer/Aussie Rules Football player coming over and getting signed by an NFL team. Do they have to declare for the draft too?