Editing NFL draft (section)

===Salaries===
The NFL allows each team a certain amount of money from its [[salary cap]] to sign its drafted rookies for their first season. That amount is based on an undisclosed formula that assigns a certain value to each pick in the draft; thus, having more picks, or earlier picks, will increase the allotment. In 2008 the highest allotment was about $8.22 million for the [[Kansas City Chiefs]], who had 12 picks, including two first-rounders, while the lowest was the $1.79 million for the [[Cleveland Browns]] who had only five picks, and none in the first three rounds.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=3385956|title=Chiefs get largest rookie pool to pay draft picks|work=ESPN.com|date=May 7, 2008|access-date=April 19, 2016}}</ref> The exact mechanism for the rookie salary cap is set out in the NFL's [[collective bargaining agreement]] (CBA) with the [[National Football League Players Association]] (NFLPA). (Those numbers represent the cap hits that each rookie's salary may contribute, not the total amount of money paid out.)

The drafted players are paid salaries commensurate with the position in which they were drafted. High first-round picks get paid the most, and low-round picks get paid the least. There is a de facto pay scale for drafted rookies. After the draft, non-drafted rookies may sign a contract with any team in the league. These rookie free-agents are not usually paid as well as drafted players, nearly all of them signing for the predetermined rookie minimum and a small signing bonus.

Two other facets of the rookie salary cap affect the makeup of rosters. First, the base salaries of rookie free agents do ''not'' count towards the rookie salary cap, though certain bonuses do. Second, if a rookie is traded, his cap allotment remains with the team that originally drafted him, which make trades involving rookie players relatively rare. (This rule does not apply, however, to rookies that are waived by the teams that drafted them.)

Teams used to be able to agree to a contract with a draft-eligible player before the draft itself starts. They could only do this if they have the first overall pick, as by agreeing to terms with a player the team has already "selected" which player they will draft. The last example of this was quarterback [[Matthew Stafford]] and the [[Detroit Lions]] in the [[2009 NFL draft]]: the Lions picked Stafford with the first overall selection in the draft, and had agreed to a six-year, $78 million deal ($41.7 million guaranteed) with Stafford a day before the draft officially started.

Since 2011, all rookies that are drafted, even those drafted first overall, now have their compensation and duration predetermined each year before the draft occurs, and can no longer negotiate beforehand.