Now that's an interesting perspective. I've never actually watched a draft, but I know about our nation's history of "cultivating" talent among groups that have long been treated poorly, as if they had no right to citizenship. It's a pretty disgusting history.

thanks for the reasoned reply. It just struck me as weird. And I used to be a fan....until the Bears started sucking so hard... . But, a bunch of white men up there determining the future of let's face it, mostly black athletes. Off putting to me...

So I'll repost something I posted 3 years ago because it has much of the information I wanted to discuss

I have a different view of the draft than most sports fans, this isn't a good comparison but in the regular work world you study a trade then get chosen by a company and it may not be a company that is good for you. I think the draft is bad for players in some respects in that they could get chosen by this team that has too much competition for your position while another team may work for you.

I understand they can't do a free agent system since the idea behind the reverse order draft was to help out the teams that weren't competitive and couldn't sell tickets and players signed with the Packers, Bears, Giants, the dominate teams of the era. Also teams were dropping out left and right and ensured league viability.

I like the idea of a spending cap, the losers get more to spend on incoming players so they can offer more to top players and players don't get stuck in bad situations especially for late round picks where if they're cut, they're done. A problem with the draft was since you couldn't compete for services you really didn't have an idea what a player was worth. That problem has been pretty much eliminated with rookie-scale contracts but what that led to is rather than players staying another year to improve their draft position, instead you see more and more underclassmen hurrying up to get into the NFL, get off the rookie contract, sign a big one. There was a record number of underclassmen that declared which is more than the record last year. (this was posted in 2014)

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The idea of a spending cap comes from economists who hate the system so they suggest an auction style system with teams ranked from worst to first have a capped amount to spend with 1st pick teams more money to spend than 32nd team to keep the whole reverse order system that was designed to ensure parity and keep the league overall competitive. This way teams wouldn't get stuck in a position where they don't need the best player available but a player that does fill a need is a reach at the spot so this is where you see teams trading up and down. The one thing the NFL draft is an auction though economists see that as preferable but the risk is eliminated for the most part with rookie scale pay which undervalues 2nd & 3rd round picks.

Before the NFL draft the best players would sign with the best teams which left teams dropping out left & right and the first draft probably only featured white players but it wasn't the show that it is today because of ESPN & Chris Berman made of show. It is either the draft or a free agent system and all the North American pro leagues do a draft. In any case they can always sign with another team when their contract is up.

thanks for replying...

Sort of related, but not part of this (as far as I saw), I like the idea of a team getting some sort of cap exception to resign their own players. If a player has been on your roster for "x" number of years, you can pay them a little extra that doesn't count against your cap (most of the salary still would), but if another team wants to sign them, it's all against the cap. In the old days, players rarely moved around at all. Now it can be difficult to retain fan favorites and fans are "less connected" to their hometown heroes. I think the NBA does something like this, though I'll admit I don't really understand their convoluted cap exception system.