Tom Telesco Strives to Pay Players What They are Worth

Las Vegas Raiders general manager Tom Telesco tries to pay players what they are worth, a philosophy that was passed down to him from his mentor, Bill Polian.

Las Vegas Raiders general manager Tom Telesco is always looking to be fair to his organization and to the players.

In a league where players are constantly overpaid, or even not paid enough, Telesco seeks to pay players the right price. To him, that price is what they are worth.

Telesco inherited this concept from his longtime mentor and legendary NFL general manager Bill Polian.

"Well, I didn't sit down and teach it to him [Telesco]; he got it by osmosis and because very early on in the process, we recognized that he could handle that job and handle it well, so he was knee deep in it almost from the beginning," Polian told our Hondo S. Carpenter Sr. when he recently joined the "Las Vegas Insider" podcast. "The reason you pay what a player is [worth] -- there are two reasons for that.

"No. 1: financial chemistry. There's one thing that every player in the league knows: his salary, and the other thing he knows is the salary of everybody else in the locker room. So, the thing you want to be sure of is that the players recognize that the organization is paying everyone fairly.

"Not what the agent wants, maybe not even what the player wants, but fairly with respect to his teammates and the contribution that he makes. So, that, to me, that's the most important part. If you overpay somebody, you're taking it out of somebody else's pocket and giving it to the agent in essence.

"And that doesn't make for good financial chemistry. And that's a real thing. Many times, it goes unreported, but it's a real thing.

"And secondly, there is so much injury in our business, there's 100% injury rate. And there are so many unforeseen things that occur in a given year. Bill Parcel's is fond of saying, 'When you come to work, every day, five things happen that you didn't anticipate would happen.'

"You have to deal with them. You always have to have some money in the bank, literally, to take care of emergencies. You can't go back to the owner for supplemental funding; he's not the Congress.

"So, you always have to have a rainy day fund, and the way you build up that rainy day fund is to pay people exactly what you think they're worth. It's a negotiation, obviously -- the agent -- you're not always going to get your number, the agent's not always going to get his. But if it's within a fair range, then that puts a little money aside for a rainy day, which will inevitably come."

You can watch Carpenter's full interview with Polian from the "Las Vegas Raiders Insider" podcast here.

The NFL Draft will be held in Detroit, Mich., on April 25-27, 2024. The Las Vegas Raiders currently have the No. 13 overall pick.

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