5th Year Option for 2011 1st Round Picks

[Goodell]

NFL teams have to make that decision for 2012 draft pick options for next year very soon within the next couple weeks. It makes sense for efficient league operations and team management tools to include those decisions on the team roster pages during this off-season free agency choice period where teams already go to that area to make free agency decisions now.

For teams that don't make those decisions themselves before free agency starting on 4/13 here, the default will be the league picking up those options at the applicable unguaranteed salary amount for next year. Teams can then decide to not pay that just by cutting the player before paying him that amount next season without any cap hit. If they would prefer to just have the contract expire a year early and have them be a UFA next off-season, they'd have to decline the option this off-season before 4/13.

[Goodell]

Reminder from previous post about automatic option pickups for teams that did not entering those themselves before free agency: For teams that don't make those decisions themselves before free agency starting on 4/13 here, the default will be the league picking up those options at the applicable unguaranteed salary amount for next year. Teams can then decide to not pay that just by cutting the player before paying him that amount next season without any cap hit.