Rookie Performance v. Rookie Salary Cap

This football season we are seeing a lot of rookie quarterbacks succeeding in the NFL and a couple of them have even put their teams in the playoffs.  You can say the same thing about last season's rookie class when Cam Newton put up one of the, if not the, greatest seasons for a rookie QB in NFL history.  Before the past two seasons, rookies put up some decent numbers but nothing like we are seeing recently.  But why?  You could say that it is because the players coming into today's league are more mature and ready to succeed right away.  You could say that this is just a fluke and next year's class will fall flat on their ass when they enter the league.  But I think I have a simpler explanation.

Two years ago, the NFL implemented a new rookie wage scale that greatly reduced the amount of money a high draft pick could earn with their first contract and that is the reason we are seeing the new rookies' performances rise.  But why exactly?  Well, because immature 20 year olds are no longer being paid obscene amounts of money and can now focus on football and not swimming in their money vaults like Scrooge McDuck.  Sure, these guys are still making a ton of money, but it is far less than what they would have made before the new rookie wage cap.  For example, the year before they put the rookie wage scale in place (2010), the number one pick overall, Sam Bradford, got a 6-year/$78 million contract that guaranteed he would get $50 million even if he was cut or injured on the first play of his career.  That is an obscene amount of money and was more money than every QB in the league was making at the time except for Peyton Manning.  Then in 2011, Cam Newton was drafted first overall and because of the new rookie wage scale, his contract was only worth $22 million over four years.  In other words, his first contract was less than half of the previous year's first pick's guaranteed cash.  And yes, Cam is still making a lot of money, but is a third less than what he could have made if he was drafted one year earlier.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that there is a direct correlation between the new rookie wage scale and recent rookie QB performance.  Before Cam Newton and Andrew Luck were picked first overall, the first pick in the four previous drafts were Sam Bradford (had one half decent year), Matthew Stafford (only good when he is healthy which seems rare), Jake Long (he's been good but playing offensive line isn't as tough as QB), and JaMarcus Russell (biggest flop of all-time).  And sure, a couple of the high draft picks have been good over the years, but the rookie contracts had ballooned out of control only very recently and personally, I think it was about time they put a clamp on the ridiculous amount of money they were dishing out to unproven rookies.  Think about what I said earlier, Sam Bradford got a larger contract than all but one of the current starting quarterbacks in the league and he had yet to play a single down in the NFL.  How does that possibly make sense?  Those incoming rookies were making more than veterans who had proven that they can make it in the league and it took this long to finally fix that oversight?  Sure, the NFL makes billions in profit each year, but you would think that it would make more business sense in investing that money in your current players instead of guys you drafted in hopes that they were good enough to even cut it in your violent league.  I got way off topic there, but I think you see what I'm trying to say and if not, well, tough titties.

"Also, getting less money means it's okay to grow wicked neck beards."