How Do Great Teams Spend $

[Pabst]

I teased this in another thread, but here’s my full write up on Cap $ vs Team Performance.

First, here was my (pretty basic) methodology. I used Spotrac’s cap allocation tool to get a positional payroll for every team. I then plotted the cap hit for each position group vs. their total wins as well as points scored/given up. I then added a linear trend line. All data is from 2022. Here are the results. Red numbers indicate a negative correlation.

cap.PNG (9.09 KiB) Viewed 994 times

First things first. R2 (r-squared) indicates how well a trend line fits the data. An R2 = 1 indicates a perfect correlation, while an R2 of 0 is perfectly random.

These are the items that jumped out the most to me:
1. Cap spent on RB is, by far, the most reliable indicator of team success. WTF?
2. Spending on O-Line is NEGATIVELY CORRELATED to success
3. There is no correlation between how much a team spends on WRs and overall team success
4. The weirdest anomaly is in the secondary.

Based on this data, here are my observations and conclusions:

1. I think we’re getting the conversation on RB’s all wrong. Here’s one key piece of data that’s not shown above: The range in Cap Hit for the RB position is, by far, the lowest. So no, good teams are not paying out the ass for a RB. What they are doing is paying for a quality starter as well as depth. Bottom line – RB DEPTH IS CRITICAL, NEGLECT THE RB POSITION AT YOUR PERIL.

2. An offensive line cannot overcome deficiencies elsewhere. The top 5 highest paid OL last year were Jets, Cardinals, Broncos, Colts, Lions. All 5 missed the playoffs. 4 of those teams were plagued by QB injuries (or crap QB play).

3. A great secondary will put your team in a position to win games, but it cannot carry you over the finish line (See: Denver, LA Rams, Patriots). A cheap/mediocre secondary can also be offset by a great offense and pass rush (KC, Philly).

4. Cap space is a horrible way to analyze the QB position. As I mentioned elsewhere, I'll try to factor in draft capital when i have the time & patience.


Anyway, I found this interesting and thought I'd share.

[Mick]

Those are pretty small R2s; not statistically significant? I might bet that if you repeated this analysis for a different season, you’d get a very different result.

Certainly not showing a strong indication one way or the other for any particular position group; but team resources toward a position group can come from either cap space or draft picks, so that complicates things as well.

[Pabst]

Those are pretty small R2s; not statistically significant? I might bet that if you repeated this analysis for a different season, you’d get a very different result.

Certainly not showing a strong indication one way or the other for any particular position group; but team resources toward a position group can come from either cap space or draft picks, so that complicates things as well.

Really the only significant ones are secondary and RB.

Overall yes, there's no "right way" to build an NFL roster. Too many variables in the equation and who you sign matters much more than a specific position.

Again, I was messing around with numbers during mandated diversity training, so take it fwiw

[SteelerDayTrader]

I’ve pretty much been saying for well over a decade now RB is possibly the biggest flaw on the Steelers roster

Mainly because they usually have one decent RB and little else

In the modern NFL you need at least 3 who can threaten a defense

[tbsteel]

Pabst, we don't deserve you. Awesome.

[ironzabo]

What he said - well done sir

[LakecrestSteeler]

No surprise on RB. Most rings are collected with teams that are nearly 50/50 run/pass if memory serves, even in the “modern era”.

If you want an RB with good pass pro, you are coming close to mandatory C2 range.

Makes sense that you have to pay for depth, pass pro and running the rock!

@Pabst does LB include Edge Rushers and Edge LBs?

[Kodiak.]

Well, the obvious answer since everyone spends about the same cap, is getting the most production for your cap dollars. And it's why paying a QB $50M, maybe other than Mahomes, may not provide as good of an ROI as paying Kenny Pickett.

So that would be a very hard analysis to do. Maybe you could use something like DVAR from FO to assign a relative value, and then simply divide by the cap number. Still difficult given that cap hits aren't always that even over the life of a contract.

Then the question is where the best teams are making hay. I can't even make a guess. Not even sure what the metric is. One would be where you get the most DVAR, and that's not necessarily your highest players, nor does it necessarily mean it's a couple of WR studs on a rookie contract, for example.


Or we could boil it down real simply: the best teams are running a track meet. Aggressive on both sides of the ball - offensive fire power to overcome mistakes, score quickly, and score more the more they get the ball. On defense, ball hawking and playing for momentum turning splash plays. If you give up a quick score, that works for your offense. Complete opposite of PIT running a marathon.

[Pabst]

No surprise on RB. Most rings are collected with teams that are nearly 50/50 run/pass if memory serves, even in the “modern era”.

If you want an RB with good pass pro, you are coming close to mandatory C2 range.

Makes sense that you have to pay for depth, pass pro and running the rock!

@Pabst does LB include Edge Rushers and Edge LBs?

Depends on the team

Watt and Highsmith are LBs. Myles Garrett is D-Line

[bradshaw2ben]

1. Cap spent on RB is, by far, the most ... cess. WTF?

Bet you that is skewed by the fact that most teams don't invest heavily in RB C$2 until they are a great team/contender. They have the luxury of paying for QB because they're loaded elsewhere. This would be my hypothesis.