The NFL and NFL Players Association are apparently making progress on a rookie wage scale. Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports reported on Wednesday that the two sides had a basic agreement down for a rookie wage scale. Aaron Wilson of National Football Post reports that an NFLPA source tells him they haven't agreed to anything yet.
But it appears they're getting closer.
Essentially, Cole's report says the contract length for first round rookies would shrink to four years (as opposed to six years for the top 16 picks and five years for picks 17-32) and there would be some sort of cap on the salaries.
Last year, Sam Bradford pulled in a six-year, $72 million contract with $50 million guaranteed. That number is expected to decrease dramatically. The NFL obviously would like it to be as low as possible while the NFLPA has to find a common ground on where to draw the line and, ideally, repay some of that money to the veterans.
The players want four years on rookie contracts because it allows them to get to free agency quicker, which is usually the goal. The owners would prefer longer first round contracts but shorter also allow them to get out of bad deals (lookin' at you, JaMarcus Russell).
While a deal isn't done yet, it appears the two sides are making some sort of progress to installing a rookie wage scale.