Braylon's contract

The past 24 hours of the Braylon Edwards contract fiasco demonstrates beautifully what is so messed up about the way the NFL handles rookie contracts.
But to the NFL, it might be the price paid to keep control of salaries and team finances.
Edwards is reportedly signed, sealed, in camp and ready for a highly displeased Romeo Crennel to go drill sergeant on him. But even that was in doubt as late as Wednesday evening.
Edwards, his parents and agent Lamont Smith were in Cleveland yesterday. As the Browns practiced, Edwards and his entourage were reportedly upstairs with Browns salary-cap coordinator Trip McCracken trying to hammer out the sticking points to his rookie deal.
The Plain Dealer reported this morning the pact seemed like just a matter of time.
Then, suddenly, talks choked again. News cameras caught a visibly sullen Edwards leaving the Browns practice facility in Berea with an equally-as-glowering Smith.
When reporters asked him if he had a deal, he simply shook his head. When pressed for more details, he pointed in the direction of his agent without saying a word.
Team Edwards reportedly retreated back home to Detroit.
Then, sometime after dark, daylight broke for both sides. Edwards and the Browns cleared the final hundred feet of the marathon negotiating process and Edwards finally, finally was cleared for camp.
Finally.
This process, to some degree, was repeated in NFL cities around the country. Posturing, threatening, holdouts, playing to the media, not commenting to the media, smiles, frowns, clenched teeth and lots of aspirin ingested.
There has to be a better way to do this. There is, actually, but it would involve guaranteeing money in rookie contracts like the NBA does, and the NFL, which deals with arguably the weakest players' union of the four major-league sports, won't go there.
The NFL won't change the way they handle contracts, because they pride themselves on the non-guaranteed deal. Sure, there are astronomical dollars to be made in signing and roster bonuses, which are guaraneteed, but anything above that is not guaranteed.
Haggling and holdouts over rookie deals appears to be a necessary evil in the NFL's eyes. Non-guaranteed contracts means most every team is only several seasons away from being under the NFL's salary cap, no matter how overburdened they are with bad deals.
The system seems to work in the big picture. There is very little hand-wringing over the financial state of the NFL. While baseball watches the Yankees and Red Sox spend virtually at will as the Royals and Pirates are fielding essentially minor-league teams, while the NBA narrowly escaped a work stoppage in June, while a lockout cost the NHL an entire season and a lot of its relevance to the American public at large, the NFL hasn't had a work stoppage since 1987.
The NBA handles rookie contracts the sanest way a league can. A draft pick's guaranteed salary is slotted based on where he was picked. It's the same concept as hassle-free car buying: no negotiating. What the price is is what the price is.
But the NBA also has some of the largest guaranteed money deals in sports. Case in point: Shaquille O'Neal, who recently inked a five-year, $100 million extension with the Heat.
Baseball is a given. Alex Rodriguez's $252 million deal with the Rangers in 2000 is a worldwide public-service announcement on the dangers of overpaying athletes.
You won't see those kind of deals in the NFL, certainly not for guaranteed money. And that's just the way the league likes it, even if it causes agents and contract negotiators to chug more antacid.