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After building camaraderie and completing money management and life skill seminars, the 11 rookies drafted by the St. Louis Rams were offered and have signed their four-year contracts. Here's how their contracts break down:
| Player | Contract | Signing Bonus |
| Greg Robinson | $21,284,098 | $13,799,344 |
| Aaron Donald | $10,136,500 | $5,692,000 |
| Lamarcus Joyner | $5,030,176 | $1,978,312 |
| Tre Mason | $3,010,600 | $637,500 |
| Maurice Alexander | $2,684,260 | $464,260 |
| E.J. Gaines | $2,327,672 | $107,672 |
| Garrett Gilbert | $2,298,680 | $78,680 |
| Mitchell Van Dyk | $2,280,600 | $60,600 |
| Christian Bryant | $2,269,000 | $49,000 |
| Michael Sam | $2,265,896 | $45,896 |
| Demetrius Rhaney | $2,265,896 | $45,896 |
The 2011 CBA means rookies have very little to negotiate in their first contract. Each draft pick (draft slot) has a predetermined amount. The agent and player will know exactly how much the signing bonus and overall contract will be worth the very minute the player is selected.
The little that can be negotiated in a rookie contract, as explained by Andrew Brandt, is as follows:
Payment terms for signing bonus amounts. While smaller bonuses are paid upon execution, larger amounts are usually paid in installments, with agents pushing for earlier payouts and teams wanting deferrals.
Guaranteed salary. The first half of the first round has been able to secure fully guaranteed four-year contracts. The fourth-year guarantee negotiations are integral further down the round. Second-round contracts usually have guarantees for the first and second year, and so on.
Offsets. Offset language allows teams to recapture guaranteed money if the player is released and signs with another team, preventing "double-dipping." Teams are typically insistent on having this language, and they’ve been largely successful in getting it, trading better payment terms and/or cash flow to maintain their precedent.
Early roster bonuses. Agents try to separate out early roster bonuses from salary, payable in March, to force teams to make decisions on players during a month when they would enter a more open marketplace as opposed to later in the offseason.
Lastly, to give quick representation of the differences between players and their overall contract and signing bonus, I put some numbers into the Google machine and it gave me this graph:
It's nice to have everybody quickly signed (and signed all at once).