Comparing NFL Free Agency Dollars Spent to Win Totals 2011-2020

A Mystery as Old as Time Itself

In the NFL, there are just two ways to bring new players onto your team - draft them into the league or offer free agent contracts.  The former is fairly simple - all new prospects register for the player draft and teams engage in an orderly selection process.  The latter is a bit more tricky as teams must make competitive contract offers in hopes of the targeted players agreeing to their terms.  While the draft salaries are fixed based on the union contract, free agent contracts have only a minimum.  So, a team's management must really be thoughtful in its approach to spending because the long term impact of free agent contracts is evident even after the player has moved on.

Given the two ways to integrate new players, the age old argument comes up every off season...should my team focus on the draft or free agency?  And if free agency is the focus, how much money should they spend?   While that will always be up for debate, I wanted to look back at the numbers to see how teams that spent the most free agency money performed in terms of wins compared to the prior season. 

Let's take a look:

The Data - Using Spotrac.com, I compiled the annual Free Agency spending data from 2011-2020 and determined each team's the average free agency expense per free agent for each year.  In the table below you will find the following:

• Div - NFL Division
• Avg $/FA Z Score - The 10 year average Z Score for each teams' annual free agent contract values/the number of free agency players acquired.
• Wins over the Last 10 Year - Total Number and Z score of the total wins between 2011 and 2020.
• 10 Yr Division Place - The average and Z score for the last to divisional finishes. 
• Total GMs - Number of different GMs over the ten year period observed. 

 

If we go with the hypothesis that the lower a team's average FA contract expense,  the higher their win total over a ten year period, here is a breakout of the data:

Observations

• The table above is sorted first by Division and second by Avg $/FA Z Score.  
• From here, we can see how Wins and Divisional Place relate to Average Value of Free Agency contracts written.
• Looking at the AFC East (AE), New England has historically spent the least in terms of average Free Agency contract which is well below the mean (Z Score of -0.66 standard deviations).
• They have accumulated the most regular season wins in the league over the measurement period.
• They have an average final divisional position of 1.20 over the last 10 years. 
• Conversely, the NY Jet spent more than the mean in terms of FA contracts (Z Score of 0.30) and have the fewest wins in the division as well as the worst average placing at 3.2
• For the entire league you will see that generally, as the teams spent more money in free agency on a per contract basis their average win total and division placing worsened. 
•   Big Spenders:  
• Jacksonville has been heavy handed with FA spending at 2.00 standard deviations over the mean over the last 10 years!  The return has been a league low 44 wins. 
• Cleveland comes in second with spending 1.10 standard deviations above the mean.  The Browns have the distinct honor of having the worst annual divisional placement of 3.7 on average over the last 10 years.

What Can We Infer?

Lower per player average Free Agent contracts tends to drive win total in the NFL.  From the above table, the team with the most wins in each division is the team that has spent the LEAST in free agency in terms of average FA player contracts with the exception of the NFL North where the Packers have the most wins but they trail the Bear's division leading $/FA Z Score is just 2 basis points.   There is a -75% correlation between Avg $/FA Z Score and Divisional Wins over the 10 year period. 

 

General Managers -  While there is much work to figure out what is going on here, if you look at the number of GMs each team has employed over the 10 year period, it's easy to see that having one GM is a goal but two of the three teams who have had 4 GMs are 31st and 32nd in the league in terms of wins over the measurement period.   Consistency seems to be the key.  

• Teams with one GM spend the least per contract in free agency and have more wins and better Division Placing than teams with more than one GM over the last 10 years. 
• Teams with four GMs spend the most in F/A and had the worst performance. 

 

Final Thoughts

While the above is interesting,  it's really nothing new.  Spend wisely, not like a drunken sailor.  Nothing earth shattering about that.  What is interesting is I have a workbook with lots of details that can lead to better insight into what is really driving the decisions leading to the numbers.  Looking forward to digging into the free agency trends and tendencies of each team over the past 10 years to get a better handle on the industry as a whole.  Hope you will check back for updates.

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Don't Stop Now, You Quitter!  Other Posts To Read

QB Prospect Response to Pressure Analysis - 2020 - Taking a look at the NFL Draft Prospects for  2021 when the heat is on .  https://boombearfootball.blogspot.com/2021/02/qb-prospect-response-to-pressure.html

Jets Reset Part II - The Elephant in the Room - Part II of my look at my NY Jets and this time we have to attack head on the issue of the quarterback.  https://boombearfootball.blogspot.com/2021/02/jets-reset-part-ii-elephant-in-room.html

The Nut Doesn't Fall Far from the Coaching Tree - Looking at the lineages of some of the NFL head coaching prospects for 2021.  Boombear's College Football Analysis: Strong Roots: NFL Head Coaching Vacancies and Coaching Trees (boombearfootball.blogspot.com)