A New Order Comes to NFL : Pro football: Draft has been reduced to eight rounds and newcomers will split less money because of rules that could also result in no rookie holdouts.

This is proving to be a year of unprecedented change in the NFL. And some of the most significant changes are coming this month.

Establishing one precedent after another, all this is about to happen:

--The league’s 57th annual college player draft April 25-26 will shrink from 12 rounds to eight.

--The 224 members of the NFL’s class of 1993 will split fewer dollars than any in recent memory, because the league has a new ceiling of $56 million for rookie salaries, an average of $2 million per club.

In other years, one rookie sometimes made $2 million or more.

--But few, if any, holdouts are expected.

Two quarterbacks seem sure to go first, and Notre Dame might set a record with six first-round draft choices.

The quarterbacks are Rick Mirer of Notre Dame and Drew Bledsoe of Washington State. Other Irish candidates are Jerome Bettis, Reggie Brooks and Irv Smith of Lou Holtz’s offense and defensive players Tom Carter and Demetrius DuBose.

In most positions, it is a robust draft. But it could be the first of the modern NFL drafts producing no extended rookie holdouts.

“That’s because drafted players who don’t sign by Aug. 6 won’t be allowed to play this year,” Dick Steinberg, general manager of the New York Jets, said the other day. “It’s spelled out in the new (player-owner) settlement package.

“The (change) will put heavy pressure on both sides to end the long holdouts we’ve had in (recent years). Young players and the clubs that draft them are both hurt when you’re still (negotiating) in August and September.

“The (league) has had a situation where many rookies signed so late that they didn’t really contribute at all in their rookie season. Those days are over.”

Under the new rules, this year’s rookies, during the negotiating process, can elect to miss some of the late-July training camp period.

“But if they aren’t in camp for the season’s first (exhibition) game, they lose a year’s salary,” Steinberg said.

“The pressure will be on the teams, too. If a team can’t sign a guy by the first week of August, they’ll lose him all year. They’ll be losing one of their eight draft choices. (And with) so few of them now, that’s a big loss.”

Pittsburgh agent Ralph Cindrich, commenting on the tug of war he foresees this spring matching agents against clubs, said: “It will be a new way of playing chicken.”

One serious problem for this year’s college candidates--the new restriction on NFL entry-level salary money--was created in the revised player-owner agreement.

“The total in each club’s rookie salary pool depends on where they finished in the standings last year,” Cindrich said. “The average is $2 million per club, but it could be as little as $1.7 million or as much as $2.4 million.”

And those aren’t guidelines. They are firm limits.

Cindrich, a former NFL player who represents 50 players, notes that contracts can be drawn to provide additional payoffs in future years. But there will be salary caps then--and any contract money promised for next year must fit under next year’s cap.

“The new system benefits the most experienced contract advisers,” Cindrich said. “Only so much money is out there, and when (the club) hits close to the number you have in mind for your (client), you’ve got to move on it, right now.

“To represent a (rookie) properly this year, what you need is a light trigger. A good aim and a light trigger.”

There have been reports of possible lawsuits against the NFL by college athletes who are being deprived of the millions that high draft choices used to make. But such lawsuits are hard to win, according to Stephen Ross, the Illinois law professor who for years has specialized in antitrust and sports law.

“Federal courts permit the members of a union to set (entry) requirements for new members,” Ross said.

In pro football, the applicable union is the NFL Players Assn., which has endorsed the league’s historic new terms.

“The (terms) are fair and reasonable for everybody,” Gene Upshaw, the NFLPA’s executive director, said.

“In the old days, too much contract money and too much bonus money was wasted on (rookies) before they ever played a down in the NFL. The way it is now, the bulk of the (available money) is going to veterans who earned it--and that’s the way it should be.”

In the union’s endless negotiations with NFL club owners this year, Upshaw also pushed for, and achieved, a one-third reduction in the number of draft rounds.

“Unions always want fewer rounds, and leagues always want more,” Cindrich said. “Drafted players are bound to the teams that draft them--and club owners like that. The more players an owner drafts, the more he can dictate to. That thought has no appeal to a union.”

As a consequence of those and other considerations, the NFL draft has been on a zigzag course since its start in the 1930s. The first one in 1936 was a nine-round draft. By 1939, the NFL was up to 20 rounds, and by 1946, when the Rams moved to Los Angeles, there were 30 rounds. The number dropped to 20 in 1960, to 17 in 1967 and to eight this year, and it will drop to seven next year.

From New York, Steinberg said: “The NBA has a two-round draft, but ours will never come to that. In the NBA, some first-round choices don’t make it. In the NFL, if you got down to five or six rounds, there would be too much bidding for good players.”

Upshaw, who has concluded that seven rounds could be about right for a football league, said a short draft benefits the game’s majority.

“For example, it’s good for the teams,” he said. “They don’t have to waste any money on low draft choices.

“It’s also good for veteran players. They’ll be competing for their jobs against fewer draft choices.

“And it’s a lot better for (journeyman) rookies. There will be more free agents now. Guys who would have been drafted in the ninth or 10th rounds will be free agents this year. They’ll have more leverage.”

Does anyone lose?

“Yes, players drafted in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds won’t be as well off as they were last year,” Cindrich said. “They’ll be caught in the money squeeze.

“With a $2-million cap (for rookies), most clubs will use most of it on their (first three) choices. They’ll also save some money to go after the more (desirable) free agents left over after an eight-round draft. The squeeze will be on most teams’ low draft choices.”

As every politician learns, pleasing everyone is impossible, Upshaw said, noting that he has been sued this spring by players making $1.5 million to $2 million per year and up. They allege that Upshaw signed a settlement package that is denying them a chance to double their millions.

“I am sorry about that, but there’s no way to satisfy every player,” Upshaw said. “Here in this office, we’re interested in the majority, not the occasional exception.

“The new (NFL system) we helped plan--and that I agreed to--is designed to reward football players for their talent. Not their seniority, but their talent. Not their potential as rookies, but their talent.”

And, he maintains, the system is working.

“Look at all the free agents that are moving to better jobs all the time,” Upshaw said. “I never thought I’d see the day when offensive linemen were paid as much as quarterbacks.

“Everyone won’t like the changes in this new draft, but the majority will. Let the majority rule.”