In his weekly 100-word column posted on the NFL Players Association’s web site (maybe they should reduce that to 50 now that Mario Manningham is in the league), Executive Director Gene Upshaw reiterates that there will be no agreement to a rookie wage scale:

“Every spring, the buzz from general managers is, ‘We need to fix rookie compensation.’  We addressed this issue by limiting rookie pool growth and fixing the maximum number of years a rookie could sign.  The length of contracts severely limits players’ ability to move money into future years.  What the media doesn’t report is that the rookie pool is part of the overall salary cap, and a player is only a rookie for one season.  Clubs want the players to pay for mistakes teams make in drafting.  We’ll never agree to a rookie wage scale in such a short-career sport.”

Sorry, but the more Upshaw talks about this, the less sense he makes.  And he never addresses the core question — whether it makes sense to take some of those millions that will be paid to Jake Long and Chris Long and Matt Ryan and Darren McFadden and Glenn Dorsey and Vernon Gholston and Sedrick Ellis and Derrick Harvey and Keith Rivers and Jerod Mayo and allow that money to be spent on players who already have proven that they can compete successfully on the NFL level.

The flaw in any reason that Upshaw can articulate is the salary cap.  Every dollar not spent on a rookie is an extra dollar that is available for a veteran.  So by reeling in the money paid to the guys taken at the top of the draft, who have no vote in the matter, there is more money to be paid to guys who already are in the league, and who have full say in the matter.

Upshaw’s position only illustrates, in our view, that he’s out of touch with the people he is paid a multi-million-dollar windfall of his own to serve. 

As a player told us last week, the notion that they don’t want a rookie wage scale is flat-out wrong.

“It’s the exact opposite,” the player said.  “Players want it because it benefits them.”

In our view, Upshaw’s stance on this issue is the very thing that could bring enough players together to make a meaningful run at bouncing him out of his job.