NFL rookie salary cap?

As I always say at this time of year, I'm not making any predictions on the draft, as I don't follow college football, so I know almost nothing about the players eligible to be drafted.

Gregg Easterbrook has been saying for years that the NFL draft system is broken:

As regards rookie deals, there is increasing pressure for the NFL to adopt an NBA-style rookie wage scale. A year ago, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said it was "ridiculous" that high-first-round choices, who have never played an NFL down, signed for more money than established NFL stars. It is indeed ridiculous. In recent years, the first-selection guaranteed-money average has been $29 million, meaning draft picks have hauled in more guaranteed money than LaDainian Tomlinson received in the deal he signed three years ago at the peak of his career. It is equally ridiculous, but less commented on, that first-round choices receive so much more than midround choices, when football is a team sport, and midround players often outperform first choices. Last year the average guaranteed money for a first-round choice was about $8 million — for a fourth-round choice, about $300,000. There's no way the typical first-round draftee means 27 times as much to his NFL team as the typical fourth-round draftee. But that's how the pay assumptions work.

The story repeats, draft after draft, as highly touted college stars are taken early in the first round, sign megabucks contracts and then go into the witness protection program. A rookie salary cap would be in the interests of almost everyone: teams, veteran players, and rookies-not-taken-in-the-first-round. The only ones who'd see their situation change for the worse would be the first 32 players taken in the draft (who would now have to prove that they can make the transition to the pro league before being rewarded with big contracts).