SackMan518 Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 Great article using metrics to grade how well money spent on FAs worked out for teams. Does NFL free agency work? Ranking all 32 teams in value added the last 3 seasons NFL free agency gets underway Monday with the opening of the negotiation period at noon ET, and teams will start taking steps toward building and retooling their rosters for the 2023 season. As the league has grown, so too has the amount of attention and buzz surrounding this part of the calendar. Player movement always garners excitement and for good reason. Free agency provides teams with an opportunity to inject their rosters with elite talent, as long as they spend their money in the right places. But how much of an impact does free agency actually make? As this year’s window begins, we set out to answer that question. The methodology for our study was relatively simple. Using contract figures from Over The Cap, we determined the amount of cash each team spent on the 657 free agent signings over the past three seasons — 2020 through 2022. A few parameters here: We only included free-agent signings who received at least $1 million in cash, and we also only included free agents who signed before the start of the regular season. So in-season signings like Odell Beckham Jr., who joined the Rams in November 2021, were not factored in. Players who re-signed with a team were also not included. The cash number was calculated only for the seasons in which a player was on his free-agent contract. If a player signed an extension, we stopped counting the cash the year the extension went into effect. Next, we had to quantify a value for each player’s on-field production. Unfortunately, there was no ideal solution for this. Football does not yet have a reliable all-encompassing value stat like WAR — Wins Above Replacement — in baseball. But Pro Football Reference has a statistic called Approximate Value (AV) that is about as close as we can get. It is not perfect, and that is something to keep in mind when reviewing the results of our study. Pro Football Reference describes AV as “an attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year (since 1960).” You can find a full explanation for how AV is calculated here. We inputted cash spent and approximate value figure for each of the 657 free agents. Using those figures, we could then calculate how much cash each team spent on free agents over the past three seasons, as well as how much total approximate value those free agents produced. Team rankings by total AV added, 2020-2022 Bengals 152 $ 211,391,176 Patriots 139 $ 185,323,184 Jets 139 $ 244,530,587 Panthers 122 $ 157,436,941 Jaguars 122 $ 229,985,001 Dolphins 120 $ 213,289,340 Texans 117 $ 129,646,313 Bears 114 $ 137,411,716 Chargers 114 $ 172,627,500 Commanders 110 $ 145,169,097 Browns 110 $ 167,945,295 Raiders 109 $ 163,877,800 Giants 105 $ 179,254,706 Bills 94 $ 137,712,353 Lions 88 $ 104,130,000 Falcons 83 $ 66,681,666 Broncos 78 $ 129,082,059 Vikings 77 $ 82,297,356 Cardinals 76 $ 104,532,393 Eagles 72 $ 83,780,813 49ers 68 $ 52,249,442 Cowboys 67 $ 51,546,176 Chiefs 64 $ 83,943,000 Seahawks 63 $ 73,993,662 Ravens 60 $ 80,777,500 Rams 60 $ 91,593,824 Saints 55 $ 63,564,559 Colts 52 $ 66,822,500 Steelers 52 $ 76,790,278 Titans 52 $ 104,659,928 Buccaneers 44 $ 62,998,382 Packers 34 $ 18,902,451 Team rankings by AV per million, 2020-2022 Packers 1.799 $ 18,902,451 49ers 1.301 $ 52,249,442 Cowboys 1.3 $ 51,546,176 Falcons 1.245 $ 66,681,666 Vikings 0.936 $ 82,297,356 Texans 0.902 $ 129,646,313 Saints 0.865 $ 63,564,559 Eagles 0.859 $ 83,780,813 Seahawks 0.851 $ 73,993,662 Lions 0.845 $ 104,130,000 Bears 0.83 $ 137,411,716 Colts 0.778 $ 66,822,500 Panthers 0.775 $ 157,436,941 Chiefs 0.762 $ 83,943,000 Commanders 0.758 $ 145,169,097 Patriots 0.75 $ 185,323,184 Ravens 0.743 $ 80,777,500 Cardinals 0.727 $ 104,532,393 Bengals 0.719 $ 211,391,176 Buccaneers 0.698 $ 62,998,382 Bills 0.683 $ 137,712,353 Steelers 0.677 $ 76,790,278 Raiders 0.665 $ 163,877,800 Chargers 0.66 $ 172,627,500 Browns 0.655 $ 167,945,295 Rams 0.655 $ 91,593,824 Broncos 0.604 $ 129,082,059 Giants 0.586 $ 179,254,706 Jets 0.568 $ 244,530,587 Dolphins 0.563 $ 213,289,340 Jaguars 0.53 $ 229,985,001 Titans 0.497 $ 104,659,928 MORE AT THE LINK Quote Sack "The Buffalo Range's TRUSTED News Source!" “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” ~ Dresden James Parler @NYexile Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Legs Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 The Packers, and the Steelers, have always been frugal with Free Agents. Teams have been successful in targeting edge rushers on the free-agent market. Leonard Floyd, Matthew Judon, Hendrickson and Robert Quinn are all in the top 10 in total AV produced while on their free-agent contracts. I guess that is what Beane was trying to do with Von Miller.... 1 Quote OLine 2023 Draft Prospects Steve Avila, 6'3" 333 lbs_____John M Schmitz, 6'4", 320lbs_______Darnell Wright, 6'6", 335lbs, Joe Tippman, 6'6" 315lbs____Matthew Bergeron, 6'5" 323lbs_____Anton Harrison, 6'4", 315lbs Top30 Pre-Draft Visitors Private Workouts DT Gervon Dexter___OG O'Cyrus Torrence _RB Tyjae Spears DT Jaquelin Roy_____WR Tank Dell____________________Virtual Zoom OL Juice Suggs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herodotus Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 Free agency is almost never the way to build a team. It is the way to get that final piece for your puzzle but more often than not its not a sustainable path. It also leads to cap hell if you ain't careful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thinwhiteduke Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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