Any rumblings on if Coney and /or Tillery are going

I would be surprised if they left *

It seems to me that it is only good for players

to come back if they really want to come back. so it concerns me that they are on the fence. if they come back, they should be committed to being team leaders.

While of course I want them to return

I definitely think it is in their own interests to do so. I think they need to take a look at Ronnie Stanley and see how it worked out for him.

being a number 6 pick is bad? who knew? *

He said the opposite. Stanley came back for his SR year *

To your point, if either Coney or Tillery were going to be

an early pick ( first 3-4 rounds), then go. I don't see that happening for either. For Coney, another season like this one could elevate him into the earlier rounds. Their hesitation could be a good sign or both/either weighing the options.

I think it has more to do with the delta between

where they would be picked this year with where they could end up with another in college. Even if a player is projected to be a an early-3rd round pick, there's a difference of life-changing money between early-3rd round and mid-1st round, and that' the kind of jump both players could make with another year (especially Tillery with his measurable).

if you're good enough to make it

getting to that second contract one year earlier - regardless of draft position - is a fair argument to make the jump

add in that if you consider your football career finite - that last year getting paid at career end vs the final year in school also makes sense

i wish em both well regardless their decisions

But the risk of injury between contract 1 and contract

2 is going to be greater than 1 more year in college. So I think, when you balance the risks/rewards, it still makes more sense to look at the delta between the draft this year versus the draft next year.

It's still the same # of years to get to the second contract

all other things being equal. You are adding an extra year of risk in college to get there. Of course, first-round picks might have to wait an extra year to get a bite of the apple.

But the risk to get to go back to college comes with

the potential reward of a bigger contract. There really isn't a likely upside to the second contract in terms of numbers other than getting to it a year faster. As mentioned below, the extra year is made up for with the difference between a 3rd round and 1st round contract (all assumptions, obviously, but you have to go with the info you have at the time of the decision).

if a player is truly weighing the risk of injury

i'd think it would favor being paid if/when it occurs

You have to take reward into account as well.

Like I said, the difference between 1st and 3rd rounder is a significant amount of money. You have 1 year risk of injury there. Looking forward to your second contract, you have multiple years of potential for injury in addition to the potential that your skills will not translate as well to the NFL (where, if you're debating a jump as a 3rd rounder you, in theory, are making good progress at the college level). So in the first scenario, you're basically trading one year of risk/zero earnings versus trading multiple years of injury risk + translation to NFL risk for one year of your end-of-career contract money. It's certainly a difficult decision, but I still think the ability to jump from round 3 to round 1 money is a better investment than the investment of jumping in hopes of getting one extra end-of-career contract year. I think there are way more variables in the second scenario that you can't control/predict.

FV = PV (1 + r)^n *

I told them the exact same thing but would they listen? *

Yep. Go ahead and plug in the numbers for the last pick

of the first round from 2017 (and pretend this is your 2018 salary) and the first pick of the 3rd round for 2017 (I'll give you a hint, the first rounder wins).

yes but

knowing where i'm slotted today vs the unknown of tomorrow vs the possibility of injury

against the unknown possibility that i might increase my position (or decrease)

and the intangibles of: i like my teammates, i like my coaches, i like college, i'd like to try to win a NC, etc

make it a difficult formula to overcome making the leap today if they're simply looking at the math of it

and like i said - whatever they decide is fine by me

That's fair. It is a complicated equation.

But you can only make decisions based on what you know today, taking into account potential for the unknowns. If Coney/Tillery talked to the same scouts who are writing these articles about them, they'd get feedback that if they continue with their trajectory they could move from 3rd to 1st round. At that point, I think the math speaks for itself (if the last pick in the first round in 2018 invested all his bonus, he would have about $10 million more than the first pick of the 2017 3rd round in 2050 doing the same thing using your compound interest formula, even without that extra year. And that's just the guaranteed bonus). But there's no guarantees either way, I agree with that.

What is coneys upside?

Since I truly don't know how NFL scouts view him. I agree that the chance to move into round 1 or 2 is a reason to come back, but question if there is any type of season coney could have that would elevate his stock above what it is now. Seems to me his profile might cap him in 3-7, where the money differential is not all that great, and if that's where he is, then maybe he gains nothing by coming back.

I'm certainly no expert, but I've read that he could

be a late 1st round talent, or certainly 2nd round. Where he could help himself most by coming back is by having a greater amount of tape of the type of play that he had at the end of this year. If you remember, he wasn't even the starter at his position coming into the year (he was rotating with Martini).

my bad

i probably need more coffee

Stanley stayed through his senior year. He skipped a 5th *

He could have left after 3. That is the poster's point *

Thank you Tex

That was my point.He almost went, came back, and upped his draft status. FWIW, Josh Adams did the smart thing by leaving.