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Many college coaches have become frustrated with players leaving early for the NFL Draft when they don't view it as being in their long-term interest. Every year, many players declare for the draft after their junior seasons and end up going undrafted.
Among the coaches getting frustrated is Alabama head coach Nick Saban. Speaking at a press conference, Saban railed against the current trend of more and more players leaving early, per ESPN. Seven Alabama underclassmen declared for this April's draft, which was the most during Saban's time with the school.
Most of the talk usually centers around how a player can maximize his earnings by leaving early, and not risking injury or a decrease in draft stock with a bad senior season. But Saban sought to make the flip side of the argument, making the case that players can usually actually increase their draft stock during a senior season, and make a lot more money in the process.
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“Now, we have guys that have no draft grades, seventh-round grades, free-agent grades, fifth-round grades that are going out of the draft. And the person that loses in that is the player,” Saban said, arguing that agents and NFL teams are taking advantage of young players and locking them into four-year deals at low salaries for the later round picks.
“When people make emotional decisions, they're going to have to suffer some really difficult consequences for themselves in the future. Because you don't have to go out for the draft early. You can come back and play. We've had six or seven guys here that had second- or third-round grades that became top-15 and first-round draft picks and made a significant amount of money doing that, so there's some really good examples of guys that did it that way,” Saban continued.
Saban can make the case all he wants, but it likely isn't going to do too much to stem the tide of players declaring early.
