Current Rule: 14.2 - Players acquired through the rookie draft are assigned an option year salary as follows: Round 1 Selection 1 - 4 $1.5m Selection 5 - 8 $1.25m Selection 9 - 12 $1.0m Selection 13 - 18 $800k
Proposed Change: Starting with the 2024 Rookie draft, all current salaries will remain the same except for picks 1-14 which will be changed as follows: Selection 1 $2.0M Selection 2 $1.9M Selection 3 $1.8M Selection 4 $1.7M Selection 5 $1.6M Selection 6 $1.4M Selection 7 $1.3M Selection 8 $1.2M Selection 9 $1.1M Selection 10 $1.00 Selection 11-14 $900K Selection 15-18 $800k (same as now)
Justification for proposed change - The salaries of the first four picks in the draft should not be the same. The 1st pick is MUCH more valuable than the fourth pick.
I propose to increase the salary for the first pick in the draft by 1/3 from $1.5mil to $2.0mil. I do not feel that is an unreasonable salary for the 1st pick in the draft and it should have a higher salary than any other pick. From there, I adjusted the proposed KRFL salaries of each pick so that they are each very close to the same percentage of the salary that pick is the the first pick in the draft for 2023 NFL's salary cap. Refer to https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/draft/. If we make this change, the remaining salaries in the KRFL draft are already in sync with the NFL salary cap salaries as a percentage of the salary of the first pick, and so we do not need to change any of the other salaries.
I feel this is a rather nominal change, but one that should be made as, to reiterate, the salary of the first four picks shouldn't be the same, a salary of $2.0M for the first pick is not unreasonable, and this change puts KRFL in sync with the NFL's rookie draft slotting used for salary cap purposes.