UNDRAFTED FREE AGENTS

[leomaz]

Offense:

- OL Cameron Jefferson, Arkansas [LINK]
- TE Brian Vogler, Alabama
- LS Rick Lovato, Old Dominion
- WR Levi Norwood, Baylor [LINK] [LINK]
- K Jeremiah Detmer, Toledo [LINK] [LINK]
- OL Chad Jerome Hamilton, Coastal Carolina [LINK]
- QB Shane Carden, East Carolina [LINK] [LINK]
- WR Cameron Meredith, Illinois State [LINK]

Defense:

- DB Qumain Black, East Central University [LINK]
- S Anthony Jefferson, UCLA [LINK]
- DL Olsen Pierre, Miami [LINK]
- S Sam Carter, TCU [LINK]
- CB Jacoby Glenn, UCF [LINK]
- ILB John Timu, Washington [LINK]

 

[Beengay fudgepackers]

La'el Collins looks like he will be a UDFA as well. I doubt the Bears get him though.

 

[leomaz]

La'el Collins looks like he will be a UDFA as well. I doubt the Bears get him though.

He will be in the 2016 draft

 

[Beengay fudgepackers]

He will be in the 2016 draft

That's not what I've been hearing...

La'el Collins goes undrafted; not eligible for '16 draft - NFL.com

If this drama clears up I think he's going to sign on with the team of his choice. I think he would probably go somewhere like seattle.

 

[leomaz]

Then came this bombshell from the Collins camp: If drafted beyond round 3 (or not drafted at all), Collins would decline to sign, and would sit out the year and enter the 2016 draft. Ostensibly, the motivation would be to recoup the guaranteed cash he has lost by falling out of the first round.

For the first scenario, there is precedent. Bo Jackson, drafted in 1986 by Tampa Bay, played a season of pro baseball rather than join the Bucs, and because he refused to sign a contract the team lost his rights before the next draft. The Raiders chose Jackson in the seventh round of the ’87 draft. Today the cutoff is Week 10, and you get thrown back into the next year’s draft pool.

You can do that.

But what if you’re not drafted, and you want to sit out a season and gain entry to the next draft? There’s no precedent, and zero language in the 2011 collective bargaining agreement providing for such a scenario. Media reports subsequent to Collins’ declaration have yet to touch on this, instead treating his assumed admission to the 2016 draft as a ’15 UDFA as a given.