Rookie Pool Allotment

by: Michael Steffes

Just in case you were interested in this kind of stuff, the rookie pool figures came out today. After exercising the 28th pick in the first round, and trading away their third round pick, the Seahawks ended up 25th in rookie pool allotment money. Funny how that works out, considering the Hawks had the 25th draft slot. They are allowed to use $3,674,960 to sign their rookies.

In a way, these numbers are part of an outdated system. Agents and front offices have found plenty of ways to maneuver around the rookie pool. The intention of this rule is to keep rookie salaries down by giving the team a fixed amount they can't go over to sign rookies. What generally happens is a lot of money gets pushed into later years, with teams knowing that high picks will be given that amount of time to prove themselves.

As for the Seahawks, it means that they will use approximately 3.7 million dollars of their approximately 11 mil in cap space to sign rookies. The rest of the money will be used for extensions, emergency, and possibly LTBE incentives which will increase their cap space next year. If you want more info on how the rookie pool works, check out the ESPN article which released the figures. END