Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante84
Random question, but if a UDFA just completely balls out, are they eligible for a fresh, brand-new full contract?
If so, they could make so much ****ing money in their career. They'd get to skip the entire rookie contract years.
That said, with a guy like this, if he were to ball out, I'd structure his deal almost entirely on incentives based on playing time.
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Yes and no.
Typically they end up signing a 2 year deal. And when that deal expires you're a free agent. But the kind of free agent depends on your service time.
At 2 years, you're an exclusive rights free agent. Which means the team can sign you to a new deal for technically whatever they want. And they COULD give you some insane long-term deal if they wanted to. Maybe it would even be smart to leverage your ERFA season into a cheap contract.
But very few teams do that. They sign the guy for at/near the league minimum for a season and then when that expires you're a regular RFA and you'd probably get something like a 2nd or 3rd round tender.
You have to have 4 years of NFL service time to be eligible for unrestricted free agency. That's why those hold-out threats in the first 4 years are rarely taken seriously. The last thing these guys want to do is end up as RFAs after they've played 3+ years and their rookie deal has expired. It just pushes their payday back a season.
But folks - this guy may not even make it TO camp. Let's tap the brakes. There's a very clear reason why the kid went undrafted.