There’s an uproar across the NFL right now that has fans, media and teams up in arms. After two teams had the utter audacity to fully guarantee the contracts of their second-round draft picks, the remaining 30 unsigned players reportedly feel entitled for the same. It’s kept players like second rounder Donovan Ezeiruaku from signing his rookie contract with the Dallas Cowboys and it’s what could lead to rampant truancy in upcoming training camps across the NFL.
Guarantees have long been a point of contention between teams and the players. Players obviously want the security of guaranteed money while teams prefer the ability to cut players loose without suffering any financial consequence.
Per Jacob Robinson of the Athletic, 2024 second-round pick guarantees ranged from 51% to 95%, with the guarantees highest at the top of the round. Since contracts aren’t completely slotted, rather negotiated, each player-team negotiation is different.
This year there seems to a rare consensus push from the second-round player pool to raise the demands in guarantees. Whether that’s a formal agreement between the players or just a shared vision following Jayden Higgins and Carson Schwesinger’s fully guaranteed deals or not, is difficult to ascertain. What can’t be denied is ownerships’ complicity in an effort to reduce guarantees across the league in recent years.
After an independent investigation found guarantees were a topic of discussion in the 2022 owners’ meetings, the NFLPA cried foul and took it to arbitration. Ownership won the initial ruling under some fairly nefarious circumstances, and the ruling is now on appeal. Whichever way it gets eventually resolved is immaterial here since players and the NFLPA look determined to make headway in their push for more guarantees going forward.
Since the top draft pick in 2024 received a contract that was 95 percent guaranteed, demands for full guarantees aren’t exactly monumental. Granted the delta between high-level and low-level second rounders is considerable, even the lowest level second-round contract has still seen the majority of it guaranteed. Caving to players’ demands is far from the end of the world for these teams.
In the case of the Cowboys and Ezeiruaku, it’s a matter of an extra few million dollars. Since most second rounders are highly likely to serve out the entirety of their rookie deals, guarantees don’t typically matter much at all. It’s just in the case of a bust — think Kelvin Joseph — that teams get stuck with a check and no supper. But these are exceptions and an understandable result of poor scouting and risky decision making. That’s where the blame lies.
Ezeiruaku is praised by many as one of the biggest steals of the draft. Many scouts had a first-round grade on the Boston College pass rusher and expectations in Dallas are that he’s a future starter with double-digit sack potential. He’s hardly the risk Joseph was.
Looking around social media, it would seem like it’s the end of the world. Like fully guaranteeing the contracts of two, top second-round picks is somehow earth shattering and the first step down a slippery slope. While it’s certainly a step in the players’ direction, it’s hardly anything worth losing sleep over and it’s definitely not worth a holdout situation in training camp.
Fans are fans of teams and often resent when players clog resources that could otherwise be used to make their favorite team better. It’s understandable. But guarantees like this matter to players far more than they matter to teams like the Cowboys because there’s very little financial fallout to these teams. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a fraction of a percentage of the budget for players who are statistically likely to play out the entirety of their respective deals anyways.
The last few teams in the draft order may want to stand firm and negotiate a less than fully guaranteed contract for their second rounders but for the Cowboys, a team that drafted Ezeiruaku in the top half of the second round, it’s worth it to cave to the demands and get their player on the field as soon as possible.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Holdout risk or no problem? Cowboys 2nd-round pick remains unsigned with camp a week away
Reporting by Reid D Hanson, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
