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ESPN’s Brian Burke, founder of Advanced Football Analytics, has written about related topics like median salaries and free agent money allocation.
Back in March, I discussed cap balance as it pertains to roster quality.
There’s an art to cap management that goes beyond squeezing guys into a pre-defined space. The balance of cap space is and has been vital to success.
In his legendary 1997 tome Finding the Winning Edge, Bill Walsh wrote, “One aspect of the cap that is a major concern for all parties is the disproportionate amount of funds being committed to a smaller and smaller group of players.” He noted that in 1996, NFL teams spent 51 percent of their total cap allotment on their 10 most expensive players.
With the restructuring of rookie contracts, plus a few other changes through 20 years of collective bargaining, the ratio has barely changed. Using data from spotrac.com and using only players on the active roster (no injured reserve, no dead contracts), we find that in both 2016 and 2017, teams used an average of 48 percent of their cap on their 10 most expensive active players.
As it turns out, a lot of the best teams play a pretty dangerous game: the more you spend on your top 10 salaries, the better your team is going to be ... right up until you’ve spent too much.
The goal is apparently to get as close as possible to 60 percent without going over. If you get that ratio right and keep the right players healthy — obviously the former is a little bit more in your control than the latter — you have passed the roster balance test.
I also looked at roster balance in statistical terms:
The art of salary cap balance
| Pct. of cap occupied by top 10 (2011-17) | Teams | Avg. wins | Avg. scoring margin | Std. error (scoring margin) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pct. of cap occupied by top 10 (2011-17) | Teams | Avg. wins | Avg. scoring margin | Std. error (scoring margin) |
| 0-39% | 13 | 4.8 | -88.9 | 28.9 |
| 40-43% | 30 | 6.4 | -42.3 | 15.1 |
| 44-47% | 51 | 8.0 | +0.2 | 13.0 |
| 48-51% | 46 | 8.3 | +22.2 | 15.0 |
| 52-55% | 50 | 8.9 | +26.0 | 15.3 |
| 56-59% | 26 | 9.2 | +28.4 | 24.0 |
| 60+% | 8 | 5.5 | -89.5 | 22.9 |
Now that teams have set their rosters for the fall, I figured it was a good time to revisit this idea and try to figure out if any teams are too top-heavy or not nearly top-heavy enough.
The former: not really!
The latter: very much so.
NFL cap balance, 2018
| Team | Pct. of cap occupied by top 10 (2017) | 2017 scoring margin | ~Pct. of cap occupied by top 10 (2018) | Change (17 to 18) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Pct. of cap occupied by top 10 (2017) | 2017 scoring margin | ~Pct. of cap occupied by top 10 (2018) | Change (17 to 18) |
| GB | 47.1 | -64 | 59.1 | 11.9 |
| MIN | 53.4 | 130 | 59.0 | 5.5 |
| LAC | 54.2 | 83 | 55.0 | 0.8 |
| KC | 56.2 | 76 | 55.0 | -1.3 |
| DET | 52.9 | 34 | 54.9 | 1.9 |
| ATL | 54.8 | 38 | 54.5 | -0.4 |
| WAS | 47.0 | -46 | 54.3 | 7.4 |
| LAR | 63.1 | 149 | 54.3 | -8.8 |
| NYG | 46.5 | -142 | 54.3 | 7.8 |
| PIT | 58.4 | 98 | 54.0 | -4.4 |
| TB | 49.8 | -47 | 53.7 | 3.9 |
| DEN | 54.6 | -93 | 53.6 | -1.0 |
| CAR | 50.3 | 36 | 53.4 | 3.1 |
| JAX | 49.1 | 149 | 52.3 | 3.3 |
| ARI | 40.3 | -66 | 51.5 | 11.1 |
| CIN | 52.8 | -59 | 51.3 | -1.5 |
| NO | 42.4 | 122 | 51.2 | 8.8 |
| PHI | 45.4 | 162 | 49.9 | 4.5 |
| NE | 46.1 | 162 | 49.5 | 3.4 |
| HOU | 44.5 | -98 | 49.4 | 4.9 |
| OAK | 55.4 | -72 | 49.3 | -6.0 |
| BAL | 42.6 | 92 | 48.8 | 6.1 |
| MIA | 39.3 | -112 | 48.7 | 9.4 |
| SEA | 51.2 | 34 | 46.7 | -4.6 |
| IND | 41.6 | -141 | 45.4 | 3.8 |
| CHI | 43.2 | -56 | 45.2 | 2.0 |
| SF | 31.6 | -52 | 44.3 | 12.7 |
| TEN | 44.7 | -22 | 43.8 | -0.8 |
| DAL | 44.8 | 22 | 39.7 | -5.1 |
| CLE | 31.9 | -176 | 39.7 | 7.8 |
| NYJ | 44.8 | -84 | 39.7 | -5.2 |
| BUF | 45.7 | -57 | 36.3 | -9.5 |
The goal is to end up in that 52- to 59-percent range with your top 10 contracts. Fourteen of the league’s 32 teams have done so, including four of the six teams with the best current Vegas odds of winning the Super Bowl (the Rams, Vikings, Steelers, and Packers). One of the two exceptions is, well, the annual exception — the Patriots. From March:
If we look at teams by win total, we see that those who spent a little more on those top 10 players, and keep them healthy, tended to get what they were hoping for from them.
Focusing on just scoring margin, there’s a similar story. But in each case, there’s a Foxborough-based exception. From 2011-17, 16 teams had a scoring margin of plus-150 or higher. Six of them were the Patriots (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017).
Average percentage of cap occupied by top 10 salaries (six New England teams): 45.7 percent
Average percentage of cap occupied by top 10 salaries (10 other teams with a top scoring margin): 52.1 percent
The other exception is interesting. Your defending Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, have invested only 49.9 percent of their cap in their top 10 players — not drastically low by any means but only 18th on this list. Here are their top 10 cap hits according to Spotrac:
- DT Fletcher Cox (10.1 percent)
- QB Nick Foles (7.7 percent)
- OL Jason Peters (6.0 percent)
- S Rodney McLeod (4.7 percent)
- DE Brandon Graham (4.5 percent)
- QB Carson Wentz (4.1 percent)
- OL Jason Kelce (4.1 percent)
- DE Michael Bennett (3.2 percent)
- OL Lane Johnson (2.8 percent)
- TE Zach Ertz (2.8 percent)
Obviously the Eagles’ QB situation is unique, incumbent starter (Carson Wentz, still working his way back from last year’s knee injury) and Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles combining to occupy about 11.6 percent of their cap. (For reference, 14 quarterbacks occupy at least 11.5 percent by themselves.) And important skill corps guys like starting receivers Alshon Jeffery (2.2 percent) and Nelson Agholor (1.7) and running back Jay Ajayi (1.1 percent), not to mention starting corners Ronald Darby (0.6) and Jalen Mills (0.4), all come at a discount.
It appears that nobody, not even the free-spending Rams, are overplaying their respective hands at the moment.
Most notable about the current layout of contracts could be the teams at the bottom. From 2011-17, only about 1.9 teams per season failed to hit 40 percent of their cap with their top 10 contracts; this season, the Bills (36.3 percent), Jets (39.7), Browns (39.7), and, strangely enough, the Cowboys (39.7), are each at least slightly under that mark. The best record a team from this range generated between 2011-17? 7-9.