Quote Originally Posted by dawgs View Post
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2018/04/27/2018-nfl-draft-1st-round-rookie-salary-projections-what-mayfield-barkley-and-darnold-will-make/#c06905445814

Here is the nfl rookie slots for 2018 picks. Simmons might be able to sneak into the back half of the top 10 this year and probably won't improve his stock next year even with another great season (as deep as DL is this year, there are very few skill position guys on offense projected as 1st round picks too, so the draft is gonna be defensive heavy anyway, and Simmons is projected towards the top of the DL heap). So even if he's project at say the middle to back of the 1st round, he'd have to climb into the top 10 to really change the $$$ he's gonna get in any significant way. Then you figure if he has a good head and good advisors, he'll be investing a sizable chunk of that signing bonus, so he'll be gaining interest for a year. Then figure he'll hit free agency 1 year earlier and if he pans out like cox and jones have, he'll be looking at a ~$15+M/year deal at that point (maybe $20M+ with salary cap increases), so you take around $3-5M less spread out over the life of the rookie contract, but between interest gained on investing and an extra year of free agency, he would more than make up for coming out early even if he only projects as a mid-late 1st round pick. And then combine that with no guarantee to improve his stock and a reasonable projection that he could hurt it by becoming stale to NFL scouts even if he doesn't drop off in production significantly or maybe production dips without sweat splitting the OL's attention or a strong offensive skill position draft in 2020 after teams loaded up on early DL picks in 2019 pushes him down the board, and there's really not a financial reason to come back.

Now he could just want to comeback regardless of financial reasons, and that's his decision to make, but (assuming he maintains his 1st round grade and stays healthy) anyone that thinks he'd be financially better off coming back in hopes of improving his rookie contract is wrong.
The problem is for him I don't think he is necessarily a lock to even go in the first round because of his incident. CBS put out a mock draft two or three days ago that didn't even have Simmons mentioned in the first round at all.

Another good year + 4.0 GPA + degree in hand + another year away from his incident not to mention fewer DL/Edge/DE prospects makes him pretty much a lock for the top 10 next year. That would be potentially an extra 10-15 million dollars not to mention a free education. And none of these guys are going to invest anything to get interest- trust me. If someone gave me 10 million dollars at age 22 I doubt I would have invested any of it either. And while Rivers isn't Sweat- he is good enough to be very productive with a Simmons by him.