OTC had projected a 242m cap, so this is +13m per team.
Judy Battista
@judybattista
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Massive $30 million leap in the salary cap to $255.4 million per team is unprecedented jump; came as a result of the full repayment of money advanced to the teams and deferred by players during the pandemic, plus huge increase in media revenue, the league announced.
I wouldn't predict any routine outcome, especially any identifiable inflationary impact on different strata. But the one prediction I think is more important is what the big increase this year reflects in terms of future revenue related increases (not the covid factor), and how that boosts consumer confidence.
Hypothetically, if the Giants feel more confident future caps will rise, they may feel more comfortable using the tender on Barkley. And then attacking UFA with more confidence and future cap dollars.
In that scenario the Giants end up with an incremental good player (Barkley).
The most important thing to keep in mind is that roster and cap construction is not built year-to-year, but on a horizon. And both the numerator (fixed dollars committed), and the numerator (cap) over that horizon are the driving factors, not that one-year number.
a point i made earlier in the thread but got lost, i think we are going to see more tags than usual because all tag values are obviously based on previously done contracts, before this extra 5% of inflation hits the market. the last 2 seasons 8 and 6 players played on tags. id take the over this year.
an extra 5% of inflation may not sound big and you are right the extra stimulus will be applied all sorts of ways, but a lot of it is going to get spent because teams generally need to spend 90% of their cap. ahead of the trade deadline in october 2023 there were only 2 teams with more than 11m cap space open, which was about 5%.
so i think a lot of teams are going to come around to spending it on no risk 1 year deals for their best players at what are now the old market rates.
which may unfortunately thin out a FA market even more than usual.
example - NE has 70m to spend, if they want to keep onwenu it's 20m on a 1 year deal. he was projected to get 4x60m with 33m gtd. if there were 5% inflation on that deal, or more because he's an in-demand player, very easy to see him cost 2x the amount of guaranteed money as tagging him would be, and they could tag him and still try to extend him longer.
Love your posts.
Tua
derrick brown
jedrick wills (doubtful)
tristan wirfs
jerry jeudy (doubtful)
aj terrell
ceedee lamb (if i was betting on who goes first id bet on him)
justin jefferson
brandon aiyuk
id guess we see 5+ 100m+ extensions from that group. the wr tag is 25m next year and cowboys will have parsons on 5th YO on deck for an extension, so i think they have the most urgency to get something done with Lamb, who is also coming off a career year so he should be able to get a top of market deal. at least until jefferson sees it and then gets more.
1) Some teams will spend very aggressively on multi-year deals now to try and ride the inflationary curve they believe is coming
2) Some will be able to make fewer cap cuts now, which will thin down supply, and potentially increase demand
3) Some will enjoy the temporary cost/benefit disproportion in the tenders this year
I think the Giants will benefit from 1 and 3. The first because they have a very attractive position in the fixed spending obligations they have over the next three years.
1) Some teams will spend very aggressively on multi-year deals now to try and ride the inflationary curve they believe is coming
2) Some will be able to make fewer cap cuts now, which will thin down supply, and potentially increase demand
3) Some will enjoy the temporary cost/benefit disproportion in the tenders this year
I think the Giants will benefit from 1 and 3. The first because they have a very attractive position in the fixed spending obligations they have over the next three years.
Exactly; and with #1 the extra $13 million is helping the Giants get a player regardless if everyone else also gets the extra $13 million. Not sure how that is even in dispute.
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I'd loosely guess three themes emerge eventually, but I've tried and failed on enough 5/3/1 predictive models in my career, I know these are guesses, mostly covered above.
1) Some teams will spend very aggressively on multi-year deals now to try and ride the inflationary curve they believe is coming
2) Some will be able to make fewer cap cuts now, which will thin down supply, and potentially increase demand
3) Some will enjoy the temporary cost/benefit disproportion in the tenders this year
I think the Giants will benefit from 1 and 3. The first because they have a very attractive position in the fixed spending obligations they have over the next three years.
Exactly; and with #1 the extra $13 million is helping the Giants get a player regardless if everyone else also gets the extra $13 million. Not sure how that is even in dispute.
bc of #2/#3, both of which will do the bold.
go look at last years FA class and count how many of those multiyear signings you'd today consider good signings that you'd be excited to see the nyg make in 2 weeks.
now reduce that number of good players by 5-10% while increasing the cost of acquisition by 5-10%.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/2023/all/all/ - ( New Window )
What we do know is across a 3-year horizon this 13M infusion doesn't change the Giants overall position of fixed spent dollars : cap ratio in a substantive way. They are in good shape regardless.
Said another, the Giants have plenty of dollars not tied up in guarantees/paid bonuses in 24-26. This gives them the free cap space and flexibility to shop for long term investments.
All GMs are also emotional creatures, and Schoen has described some emotional tendencies in terms of cap management in the past.
So my guess is the 13M makes him more comfortable tagging Barkley and then using his advantageous flexibility to shop in the UFA market.
What we do know is across a 3-year horizon this 13M infusion doesn't change the Giants overall position of fixed spent dollars : cap ratio in a substantive way. They are in good shape regardless.
Said another, the Giants have plenty of dollars not tied up in guarantees/paid bonuses in 24-26. This gives them the free cap space and flexibility to shop for long term investments.
All GMs are also emotional creatures, and Schoen has described some emotional tendencies in terms of cap management in the past.
So my guess is the 13M makes him more comfortable tagging Barkley and then using his advantageous flexibility to shop in the UFA market.
from page 1 - at least a few teams on this list are likely to be more aggressive than nyg for whatever good players make it to UFA and end up in your category #1.
realistically i am hoping the nyg can lan 1 "ben powers" from this years fa class. it will likely cost more than powers and it will be competitive. onwenu and hunt are the 2 who stand out. then id look to the 1 year market.
disagreeing that fa is negative value?
well here's 1 example - ben powers grade was bad last year in denver as the 12th highest paid fa and im hoping the giants can sign someone comparable for more $ than he got.
just eyeballing some other very bad looking deals 12 months later - bradberry, edmunds, jimmy g, carr, jawaan taylor.
good ones = bates, meyers. hargrave and mcglinchey were at least solid, but paid beyond their play.
There are three buckets of cap charges:
- free space
- fixed (guaranteed or paid bonus holds)
- committed but not guaranteed
When you look at the Giants from the view of free money + dollars than can shed, the Giants are likely higher on the list.
I can't agree or disagree without looking at the data. The anecdotes are interesting, but not conclusive.
To derive value, we'd also have to look at a few other factors, to be fair as well.
But the best way to look at is probably as simple as: what is the average cost of a player at that position who performs at that level?
There are three buckets of cap charges:
- free space
- fixed (guaranteed or paid bonus holds)
- committed but not guaranteed
When you look at the Giants from the view of free money + dollars than can shed, the Giants are likely higher on the list.
yes the nyg are cap healthy. i am not saying they arent. i've written 11k+ words on the nyg multi-year cap health.
the question is will other teams whether they are as cap healthy or not long term will push prices higher to where the few players on market exceed rational contracts?
example, last year elite guard chris lindstrom extended early 102m, mike mcglinchey got 5 years 87m as a FA RT.
what if a team offers Onwenu 95m because they view him as a starter at RT with the ability to kick into a top RG if necessary?
denver was not in good cap shape last year and they were not only the team that gave mcglinchey 87m but also gave powers his 51m. so there could be teams below the giants on that list who get aggressive out of desperation.
Being in good health also doesn't necessarily indicate a team will spend a lot. Some teams are cheap, and some teams are wreckless.
I don't know enough about other teams like I said to make a broad macro claim.
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disagreeing that fa is negative value?
I can't agree or disagree without looking at the data. The anecdotes are interesting, but not conclusive.
To derive value, we'd also have to look at a few other factors, to be fair as well.
But the best way to look at is probably as simple as: what is the average cost of a player at that position who performs at that level?
ok well put in whatever analysis you want but here's a simple/quick methodology - cross check the actual AAV of the FA signed and the OTC modeled value of that players performance.
as ive said for the last few weeks, finding bobby okerekes who exceed their FA contracts is very rare.
Does that include rookie and UDFA contracts that are fixed?
Does that include rookie and UDFA contracts that are fixed?
OTC’s player valuations are calculated using proprietary formulas to more accurately depict the value being provided by a player based on his on field performance relative to the current market for his position. The calculations utilize a number of statistic and performance evaluations that are provided by Pro Football Focus. Positional valuations use a number of factors including snap counts, PFF grades and statistics to determine the player’s primary valuation. Overall values add a special teams component to the valuation. For a more in depth analysis of player and team performance please visit PFF to lean about the content and services they offer. To learn more about the OTC valuations, please read our introductory article.
from the intro post by fitzgerald:
To develop our valuation metric we are primarily using four signals to re-assign salaries in the NFL that I think can best explain the players true on field worth. While the formulas that we use are proprietary they are based on player participation, Pro Football Focus grades, raw statistical performance, and proprietary statistics developed by PFF.
So why these main categories? I’ll explain my logic here.
While snap counts do not tell us much about a player’s performance they are telling us that the coaching staff must see something in that player to keep trotting him out there week after week. Even if the coach is simply forced by circumstance to play someone (such as the Jets most recent need to play a third string QB as a starter) there is value to just taking a snap. This is a prime reason why so many NFL incentives, in particular the rookie proven performance escalator, is tied to just playtime.
Statistical performances are big drivers of NFL salaries. While there are always exceptions to every rule, players who sack the quarterback more often than not get paid more than a rusher who hasn’t had much luck bringing a QB down. While we can argue over the efficiency of an Ezekiel Elliot the fact is he produces a ton of yards, first downs, touchdowns, etc…(well before this year at least he did) and clearly the NFL sees value in just production.
The second way we look at production is more through efficiency measures and trying to identify how much of that raw production is being produced by a player’s level of play versus just having an abundance of opportunities. Going back to Elliot you may be able to look at his yards per target in the receiving game, percentage of yards after contact, etc… and realize that when compared to league averages his efficiency is not that high. Mike Evans produced a ton more yards last year than would be expected of a player given his amount of times targeted in an offense while Jarvis Landry produced less. Using many PFF statistics give us the ability to better identify efficient production vs volume based production.
Finally the PFF grade gives an overview of how a player is performing on a play by play basis and gives more context to the quality of snaps being played and the quality of those stats, some of which may still be misleading due to other things that impact a play. I look at this as essentially having a seasoned scout telling me what level they really see a player at.
We take all of these numbers and use them to calculate how contracts should be attributed to players at each position based on how they are playing on a week by week basis as well as over the course of the entire season.
It is important to note that this is NOT a free agent valuation. A free agent valuation is something very different as the baseline for those salaries is the veteran marketplace rather than the entire NFL market. Those numbers would likely be much higher for many players. This valuation we have is a way of distributing salaries in an equitable manner so that rookies and veterans would be valued on the same scale within the current market at that position. This allows us to cap the market close to where salaries are currently slotted and is why a Patrick Mahomes isn’t valued at something like $40 million as we are working, more or less, within the constraints of the salary structure in 2019.
so to answer your question - yes all players are included and obviously rookie scale deals are always a better value - which is why there is rarely value in free agency where the market is going to drive demand beyond supply. free agency prices are almost always higher than on-field value with very rare exceptions (like okereke).
https://overthecap.com/introducing-the-otc-valuation-metric - ( New Window )
I think it’s better to think of contracts and cap hits as a percent of the cap so this shrinks the cap percentage of existing contracts.
I think it’s better to think of contracts and cap hits as a percent of the cap so this shrinks the cap percentage of existing contracts.
this is 100% good for the giants strategy of having tried to get players cost controlled last year. dex and thomas will very quickly be "value" deals.
if jones somehow got back to 2022 performance level sy's point about him maybe getting some trade value is legitimate. his last couple years could look like a pretty good value contract if he plays to a starting level.
The system is literally setup to depress the pay of younger players and inflate the pay older players. The ratio between pay and performance for players by timeline is very distorted.
Value is just a tricky measurement when the rules are different by traunch.
To avail value, if it were a system I was designing, I'd only compare veteran vs. veteran deals.
I think we all know the best bet is for a cost depressed player on a rookie deal.
The system is literally setup to depress the pay of younger players and inflate the pay older players. The ratio between pay and performance for players by timeline is very distorted.
Value is just a tricky measurement when the rules are different by traunch.
To avail value, if it were a system I was designing, I'd only compare veteran vs. veteran deals.
I think we all know the best bet is for a cost depressed player on a rookie deal.
the rules are the rules and cap space is treated equally.
again there is a reason free agency more often fails. the supply/demand equation is stacked against free agents succeeding.
that is why its easy to challenge people to find the FA deals they wish they had even with the benefit of hindsight. and why even with hindsight its hard to do and they rarely answer the question.
but free agency is literally the only place you can deploy cap space if you dont draft well enough to have players worth extending. and there are a lot of teams forced into the market, forced to overpay non-elite players.
i have no idea but as a pure guess id say at least 75% maybe more.
if 1 huge chunk of the league-wide cap space is on rookie deals that are under valued.
almost by definition the other huge chunk (veteran contracts) is proportionally over valued.
this is another page on otc i like, it shows how teams distribute their cap space. this is the new york giants, the majority of their roster is rookie scale contracts but they only add up to 24% of their cap spend - and that is 8th most:
if less than half of the giants roster is veteran players who add up to 75% of the cost, the value equation is backwards unless they are highly productive players like lawrence/thomas who got extended at a relative value vs external FAs who had to get overpaid.
free agency is a "dont hate the player, hate the game" situation. the free agent game is rigged against teams.
forget the big contracts, mark glowinski, darius slayton, and graham gano cost as much as the entire base of non-minimum rookie talent on the roster (which is basically 4 years worth of day 1/2 picks).
https://overthecap.com/texture - ( New Window )
That 75% guess, that includes all vested players who weren't extended before their rookie deal ended?
I'm careful not to posit a guess on the results without having the data so I'll frame it as how I would design a system to evaluate this problem. To be clear I don't have a strong sense of what the results would be.
The system is built to produce certain results -- we can call it all rigged, tilted, etc. But the design is loosely:
1) All teams must spend between a floor and ceiling over a period of time
2) All players have an earnings floor, but only one group of players (3 years or fewer vested - cohort A) has an earnings ceiling
3) Because of that earnings ceiling, the distribution of dollars spent is intended to disproportionately fall within the group *without* a ceiling (those with 3 or more vested - cohort B)
So now because of that structural difference, to avail the value of cohort B, I wouldn't include cohort A, in the data set. In retail terms, it's simply a different product type. We can pause, and make a macro assumption that cohort A is inherently more valuable. That's almost certainly true. And I think we would all agree the more players on a rookie contract that are making big contributions to your team, the better.
But the apples are so different than the oranges, you produce some weird results.
Patrick Mahomes AAV 45 | Value 36.6
Lamar Jackson AAV 52 | Value 39.4
Tyreek Hill AAV 30 | Value 19.1
I wouldn't be surprised if the power analysis showed virtually all cohort B contracts are bad value. I assume if you pull out cohort A, and only compare players in cohort B among themselves, the ratios get way closer.
I wouldn't call UFA a bad value, I would just say it likely needs to be evaluated under different terms.
That 75% guess, that includes all vested players who weren't extended before their rookie deal ended?
correct. talking about players signed on FA market.
i think the nyg lived experience in this CBA the last decade or so (3 different gms, 5 different hcs) is reflective of typical.
if you made a list of the 10 biggest inflation adjusted nyg signings it would probably be something like schwartz, snacks, vernon, jackrabbit, marshall, solder, golladay, bradberry, martinez, okereke.
of those 10 i would calculate only okereke and maybe 1-2 of the 2016 guys as returning = or surplus value.
I wouldn't call UFA a bad value, I would just say it likely needs to be evaluated under different terms.
it does, everything needs to be evaluated with context. mahomes had statistically one of his worst years, 10 tds fewer than his prior low in the previous 3 years, lowest yards since 2019, highest INT total, and even in that worse year his value was close to what his contract value is.
we went down this particular rabbit hole because you said you wanted to see pff grades vs. prior fa contracts. if you want to do it that way you can do it, but like i said just on PFF grades if you eyeball powers, mcglinchey, hargrave, jawaan taylor, tremaine edmunds from last year - they were all bad grades, some very bad.
jessie bates and bobby okereke were the 2 FA's in the top 15 or so who jump out to me as having had excellent seasons. i think the chances of hitting on a FA who delivers at or above expectations like that is 1 in 4 and the other 75% are going to be somewhere on the under water scale.
RE: UFA - about 530 players signed free agent contracts last year, I'd be surprised if 400 of them were poor value. Especially since only about 55 of them had 10M or more in total guarantees (and fewer if you consider likely to paid guarantees).
Now if you go to the far end of the guaranteed curve, and you look at the 55 players who signed deals with 10M+ in total guarantees, that's probably where you start seeing a bad ratio of value. That make senses because the higher the reward, the higher risk.
But I wonder how that bad value rate compares to first round rookies? Every first round rookie gets a deal with 10M+ in full guarantees, and I believe some 2nd rounders do as well.
If we contemplate a bust rate of 10M+ guaranteed UFA vs. rookies with 10M+ guaranteed, just from a frequency rate, I wonder how that compares.
The big difference obviously is there is no upper limit on the financial damage of an UFA bust, where this with a rookie.
Now if you go to the far end of the guaranteed curve, and you look at the 55 players who signed deals with 10M+ in total guarantees, that's probably where you start seeing a bad ratio of value. That make senses because the higher the reward, the higher risk.
the expensive part of the market is the only part of FA that is consequential from a cap standpoint. any deal with less than 3m gtd is a rounding error in the big picture which is probably 400/500 deals you mentioned.
7 non-qbs got 30m+ gtd last year in FA.
9 more got between 20m-30m.
that was 16 supposed multi-year "plus starters" in the whole of UFA. and that's probably too lofty of an expectation for some of them (allen lazard was 1 of the 16 lol).
only 13 teams participated in signings on that level, so the majority didnt even sign a player on the level of okereke no less 2 or 3.
im a little surprised that this is remotely surprising to any nyg fan who has lived through 2016 and listened to schoen's comments about the risks of fa since he got here.
To avoid the risk of putting words in your mouth, I asked if you were talking about the whole of free agency, and you confirmed. That's what I thought we were debating.
That 75% guess, that includes all vested players who weren't extended before their rookie deal ended?
correct. talking about players signed on FA market.
The middle and bottom tier of free agents are where the value is. I was surprised you thought 75% of all free agents were bad value.
If the line is something closer to non-quarterbacks with 20M+ in guarantees, that's a different set of parameters than what I was debating.
At the far edge, say the top 3% of all UFA signed in a year (the top 15 out 500) -- I wouldn't be surprised if the bust rate exceeded +50%. The cost numbers are so high, producing value gets very difficult, especially at the non-QB positions.
Consider the two above situations.
• Higgins will be tagged at $21.816 million. That means a second tag for him will come in at $26.179 million in 2025, pushing his two-year cost towards $48 million. So it’s unlikely he would sign a long-term deal at less than $25 million per. That number then becomes the floor for what you’ll pay Ja’Marr Chase, who’s now eligible for a second contract. The question after that becomes whether or not the team can allot, say, $110 million or so per year to a quarterback and two receivers. Maybe the Bengals can. But it wouldn’t be easy.
• Meanwhile, Burns’s tag will land at $24.007 million, if the Panthers choose to use it. That means tagging him again in 2025 will cost $28.808 million. To sign him long-term, the cost would be on the top end of the market for edge rushers—somewhere Carolina hasn’t been willing to go with him, even after turning down two first-rounders and a third-rounder from the Los Angeles Rams at the deadline in ’22. Maybe the ascension of Dan Morgan to GM, and the addition of Brandt Tilis as EVP of football ops, will change the Panthers’ viewpoint. Maybe not.
The above two, of course, play premium positions. They’re both just 25 years old. If their teams aren’t going to sign them long-term, this might be the time to move them. A trade could help the Panthers recoup some of the draft capital lost in last year’s trade for the No. 1 pick, or get back into this year’s first round. It could give the Bengals a chance to chart a sustainable future and find a new, more cost-effective complement to Chase in a receiver-rich draft.
So obviously this will change things for the NFL’s 32 franchises, as the new league year approaches.
“It’s an enormous difference from what we were all expecting,” says a chief negotiator from an NFC team.
Here’s where a couple people I talked to over the weekend see that difference coming through in the next few weeks.
• It’ll entitle any agent who was, perhaps, looking at different ideas for contract demands to shoot for the moon and draw harder lines, because these deals are always seen as pieces of the larger pie that is the cap. So the bigger the pie, the bigger, theoretically, the pieces.
• It’ll allow for teams facing difficult cap decisions to either kick the can down the road more effectively, or keep a player or two it may have cut on an existing deal.
• It’ll make older players perhaps a bit less willing to take pay cuts, since they’ll know that (a) their teams have more room to compromise, and (b) there’s more money out there to be spent.
TheMMQB Takeaways Ohio State supernova @MarvHarrisonJr isn't just skipping drills in Indy. He's not at a combine training facility at all, instead staying at OSU and building towards his rookie season. PLUS: Tags, a new cap, trades, MORE! - ( New Window )
One general observation, won't the tenders for 2024 go up from the estimates because of the 2024 multiplier?
One general observation, won't the tenders for 2024 go up from the estimates because of the 2024 multiplier?
yes but still based on prior signed contracts, and in most cases prior year salaries which are lagging the higher aav years of prior signed contracts, so still pretty far behind open market (especially if it's a position that's trending more valuable and driving a higher% of the inflation).
the differences in this years tag amounts vs expected arent likely big enough to change the short term decisions of tagging this year but the future projections are going to guide the extensions aavs and guarantees higher. the WR tag is projected to go up 4m next year. DE is going up 6m. conversely cb is projected to go up just 1m.
this is why the entire market is interconnected. last years DT franchise tag was 18.9m, this year it is 22.1m because of all the DL deals I mentioned from last year's FA period/'19 extensions a couple pages back.
the system = cba so its just what was collectively negotiated. i assume this method was popular with the 4/5's of non-LT OL and for the teams, since they dont plan to tag most non-LTs it helps them keep LT costs lower.
the LT's probably dont like it but i think they are probably the only ones.
One general observation, won't the tenders for 2024 go up from the estimates because of the 2024 multiplier?
just to add numbers to this:
i found an article from last week that had the WR tag expected to be 20.8m, so it ended up +1m. +5% just like the cap, but 1m extra for a player who would be one of the top players on the market and a prime target of the extra $416m leaguewide at a premium position is an easy call.
for tee higgens to extend i think breer is correct that the negotiation starts with an excess of 2 tags fully guaranteed ($47m) which would make him at least the 4th highest paid WR by gtd money in the NFL.
1. ajb 56m
2. tyreek 52m
3. diggs 48m
i very much doubt the bengals will be the ones to do that but if a team likes him enough to trade a first for him, that team likely will, probably in a deal very comparable to the one that sent AJB to Philly in 22 (where he got a 5x100m, with the 56m gtd).
pittman is probably in a similar position as higgins since he's similarly a very good WR but i think indy is more likely to keep him since he's their #1. ridley and hollywood brown are a level below those 2 but either of them will likely still beat christian kirk's deal on open market which could put either of them top 5 surpassing 42m gtd. and even that may look thrifty for whoever loses out on evans.