Building the Perfect Beast - Position Salary Breakdown of the NFL Playoff Teams

"You Have to Spend Money, to Make Money"

The NFL is a business, as any player would likely tell you.  And wins and losses will tell you right away which teams are best at handling their business.  The league controls spending by way of the salary cap, however, there are no rules on how you must spend your money.  So, this analysis will take a look at how the successful and not so successful teams allocated their salary dollars in 2017.

Howdhedoit?

The methodology is fairly simple:  using the 2017 positional salary statistics presented by Overthecap.com, we found the average cost per position for each of the 2017-2018 playoff teams and the same for the 12 teams with the lowest winning percentage through the regular season.  

Super Bowl Hopeful

Playoff teams had the following spending habits:

• Drunken Sailor - Representing salaries beyond 1 standard deviation from the position average, about 42% of playoff teams earned this designation when it came to Running Backs.  You will note, no one had Alligator Arms on this one (see below).  Evidently, playoff teams didn't care what it costs, they will spare no expense for the featured back they want. 
• Very Generous - Safety is a position I have recently proven is one of the most reliable positions to draft in the 1st round and it seems the GMs agree as as they will spend put to 1 standard deviation above average salary, here. 
• Budget Conscious - Representing salaries down to 1 standard deviation below average, Quarterbacks, Linemen on both sides of the ball and Linebackers all fall into this category.  What happened to teams breaking the bank for their signal caller?  Playoff teams are contrarian, it seems.  GMs are not being cheap, here...they are just careful with their money. 
• Alligator Arms - When  GMs are paying into the 2 standard deviation below average range, you know they feel like they have a lot of leverage in terms of contract options.  Not surprising, Cornerbacks, a position which annually seems to have the most members of the incoming draft class, get the scraps on playoff teams, compared to average.  
• We saw ties at the Wide Receiver (with Very Generous and Alligator Arms represented each at  33%) and Tight End position which showed it really didn't matter to GMs which TE they got, from a pricing standpoint. 

So, we seem the NFL elite put a premium on Running Backs and, to a lessor extent, Safeties.  Now, let's see how the teams near the bottom of the standings spend their cash.

Toilet Bowl Bound

• Drunken Sailor - Remember the thing about spending to make money?  Well the Toilet Bowl Bound teams didn't get that memo.  They spent heavily on Cornerbacks, the same position  Super Bowl Hopefuls economized.  You can see where this is going, can't you? 
• Very Generous - Quarterbacks are the big money tickets here with about 42% in this range.  Now, Super Bowl Hopefuls sent the same amount in this category, but the majority of teams were in the budget conscious area.  Perhaps Gronk and Ertz got these teams all amped for Tight Ends, but they definitely tend to overspend compared to the playoff temas. 
• Budget Conscious - Here's where the wheels really start to fall off.  TBBs are not willing to shell out the cash for Running Backs or Safeties, the two positions upon which SBH teams splurge.  Here, however, both groups agree when it comes to budgeting for Linemen and Linebackers.
• Alligator Arms -  Although no position group's majority is in this category, you'll notice TBBs will take the bargain option more often than Playoff teams at QB (33% TBB vs 0% SBH) and RB (25% vs. 0%).

Based on the 2017 data, we can visually see how much above or below each position mean the average Super Bowl Hopeful and the average Toilet Bowl Bound teams were:

Super Bowl Hopefuls vs Toilet Bowl Bounds

• QB:  Super Bowl Hopeful average position salary per team is 1.1% above the league mean vs. -15.9% for Toilet Bowl Bound teams (17% differential)
• RB:  29.3% vs. 11.5% (40.9%)
• WR: -8.6% vs. -2.1% (-6.5%)
• TE:  9.4% vs. 25.8% (-16.4%)
• OL. 0.5% vs. 1.4% (-0.9% )
• DL: 8.9% vs. 3.9% (5.0%)
• S:  12.9% vs. -17.9% (30.8%)
• CB -16.9% vs. 10.0% (-26.8%)

 Projecting 2018 Performance 

Based on the position salary averages for 2017, we can attempt to project which teams will belog to which group in 2018 based on the above percentages.  Obviously, because the data we started with is based on early free agency period numbers, these projections will fluctuate once final rosters are provided at the beginning of the upcoming 2018 season.  But for now, here are the projected top and bottom finishers:

2017 Super Bowl Hopefuls

1.  San Francisco
2. Buffalo
3. Indianapolis
4. Jacksonville
5. Denver
6. Philadelphia
7. Detroit
8. Los Angeles Rams
9. Cincinnati 
10. Cleveland
11. New Orleans
12. Minnesota

Note:  The above was adjusted so that there would be 6 teams from each conference.  In terms of the scoring system, LA Chargers and KC Chiefs are projected to have better finishes than the listed 11 and 12 teams.

. 

2017 Toilet Bowl Bound

1. Chicago
2. Miami
3. NY Giants
4. Atlanta
5. Pittsburgh
6. Oakland
7. Tampa Bay
8. Dallas
9. NY Jets
10. Baltimore
11. Washingon
12. New England

Note: As with the previous list, the Patriots were moved into the 12th spot instead of the  3 NFC teams that project worse finished.  

Remember, these projections are based on spending habit trends of the top performing teams from 2017 based on aggregation of many factors, so this "guess" is not expected to be 100% accurate.  Both lists look reasonable, even with the eyebrow raisers of the Browns making the AFC playoffs instead of the Patriots.  

Check back just prior to the new season for update projections based on the final rosters. 

Shameless Self-Promotion!!!

Follow me on Twitter @boombearjr 

or at my Facebook page:  Boombearjr Football Analysis (also @boombearjr).

Continue to watch this space for more NFL Draft commentary. 

Post Combine Ballot

The NFL draft is just around the corner!!  Be heard!  Get your ballot for the 2nd Annual DraftTwitter Top 100 aggregation TODAY!  Please reach out to have a ballot (which is on an Excel online based spreadsheet that is quick and easy to use) by leaving a comment or emailing me at boombearfootballmail@gmail to have a ballot link forwarded to you.