Got it. But it still doesn't really make a ton of sense to wait until Round 11 to go over for somebody, unless it's someone you're not sure you can sign. And I hope we're not passing on better talent in rounds 3-5 just to take a shot at a guy we're not sure we can sign.
It really should, because you lose that pool money if you don't sign a player in rounds 1-10, whereas you're basically just given the amount in rounds 11-40. Not signing a guy in round 11 doesn't affect your ability to sign other players. Not signing your 10th round pick drops your overall pool for everybody. Also, any amount saved in 1-10 applies to your pool, while no savings after 10 can go toward anything.
Granted, it's a near-negligible amount, but you have a low chance of signing any top prospect that is left at this point as it as.
To give an example:
Round 10 we draft/sign Joe CollegeSenior for $10,000
Round 11 we draft Bobby HardSign
By giving Joe CollegeSenior only $10,000 of the $133,000 bonus allotted, we add $123,000 to our overall bonus pool. This can then be used toward giving Bobby HardSign as $250,000 bonus.
If we draft Bobby HardSign in Round 10 and Joe CollegeSenior in Round 11 we then do one of two things:
1) We sign Bobby HardSign for $250,000 and Joe CollegeSenior for anywhere up to $125,000. We get the same two guys but lose $123,000 of our draft pool.
2) We fail to sign Bobby HardSign and lose the $133,000 from our overall draft pool.