Cap Efficiency

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 9:00 AM PDT in Daily Links Comment 18 comments

Any NFL GM could probably spend the entirety of their salary cap before the bathroom mirror steams up; how they spend it is another story all together. This isn't baseball, where the Yankee pay more to fill in 1st and 3rd on their lineup card than three teams pay to employ their entire organization. In fact, in 2009 the Yankees will pay for A-Rod only slightly less than the Marlins will pay for the Marlins. J.I. Halsell at Football Outsiders takes a look at how efficiently teams spent and handled their cap space in 2008.

As we all know, the team that spends the most money on players isn't always the team with the most wins; to that point, the Seahawks had the fifth highest 2008 Team Salary with $122 million but could only muster four wins. Conversely, the Giants had the fourth lowest Team Salary at a little under $105 million, yet had 12 wins.

Well that was rude. Barely sets foot in the house and already he's insulting the upholstery. I'll let Halsell continue, but only because he brought pastry. Who can say no to rugelach?

Keep in mind that "Team Salary" is not cash paid, but instead represents contract amounts accounted for. For example, if a player signs a contract with a $1 million signing bonus, the full $1 million isn't counted in 2008 Team Salary, but instead the prorated amount counts; that would be $200,000 on a five-year contract.

It is important to note that the Efficiency Rating is based solely on wins, which as we know is an outcome subject to all sorts of other factors. A bit of NFL accounting information that I had not previously heard about:

The cap space rolled over component is important in my opinion because the NFL practices a "use it or lose it" philosophy towards unused cap space. Therefore, teams are wise to roll over their unused cap space into the next capped year; interestingly, not all teams rollover their unused cap space.

On to the results. You will want to click through to see the tables. As is no surprise in a metric that revolves around wins, most of the teams that scored well in Efficiency Rating made the playoffs (or didn't despite 11 wins). More interesting are the teams that scored higher or lower than expected. Tampa Bay finished a narrow second despite winning only 9 games. How? They had the second lowest payroll in the NFL and rolled over more than $25 million.

Atlanta rated on the low side for an 11 win team, as they rolled over only $1.2 million. Pittsburgh, despite 12 wins, managed to cost themselves cap space in 2009 by running a deficit. Likewise, Baltimore carried over a red number. Unsurprisingly given their 4 wins, the Seattle Seahawks finished near the bottom of cap efficiency after a high payroll and low rollover.

Looking at the 2009 Adjusted Cap numbers, Tampa is excellent cap position headed into 2009. Third on the list? San Francisco. Having cap space and spending cap space wisely are still two entirely separate entities, but take a look at how teams have positioned themselves for the upcoming season from an accounting.

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I don't know about this 'Efficiency rating'

Is it less efficient to spend more money on coaches and front office people?

I also wish he looked at more than one year, and used pythag/projected wins instead of actual wins (maybe adjusted for strength of schedule as well).

by LantermanC on Jun 5, 2009 9:43 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Probably so, and I wouldn't put any stock in the rating as a prediction tool. It's only relevant from an outcomes perspective.

It is interesting, however, to see how clever various teams were in the management of their caps.

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 9:57 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

As far as our team is concerned

It adds to the idea that we’re near the end of a window, pushing back mightily in all directions to keep it open for one more year. Although Ruskell is definitely building for post-Hasselbeck, as well.

It also compliments the idea that we greatly underperformed last year, as opposed to having much less talent than we presumed. And that the same talent on hand this year does indeed provide some hope that the team can rebound into contention again, as opposed to the bitter concession that we weren’t that good in the first place and can’t justify greater aspirations than your average 4-12 team can muster. This is not an appeal to authority, either, but simply validation by volume. The Brian Russell issue might perplex, but Holmgren and Ruskell are too good to fill a roster as though it has talent in the first or second tier of the league, when in fact the talent could only support 4 wins. They can’t be that wrong about that many players. It’s an encouraging sign.

by jacobstevens on Jun 5, 2009 10:38 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Cap concerns aren't a reason to believe that the Hawks are "near the end of a window".

Cap massaging is exceedingly easy in the NFL when compared to the guaranteed contracts of other sports.

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 11:16 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sure

I tried to clarify that by pointing out that it adds to that idea, something that a number of us had already thought or at least wondered about, before we went 4-12. I didn’t look at that list and suddenly think because we had a big number, maybe we’re close to the end of a window. And I didn’t see the figure and think our backs are against the wall, we’ve got to grin and bear it.

You’re points are correct. “Exceedingly” is pushing it, but you’re right. And yet, it doesn’t change the fact that if we are at the end of a window, or once we do get there, Ruskell’s proactiveness is helping, but through picks or cash, getting long-term solutions to replace our QB & LT figures to be very expensive, on top of the typical year-to-year contingencies on bringing back or replacing contract year guys, or if our DE solutions to succeed Kerney don’t pan out, etc. It’s going to cost money, and massaging often has at least marginal impact on the quality of your roster, if it doesn’t actually make a minor impact. If you’re looking for a QB, minor impacts are large.

I’m not trying to suggest we’re about to face cap hell. But the combination of late-round picking contention and a cap does limit your agility in finding long-term replacements at key positions, particularly in bulk, and it matters more because your agility relative to other teams to acquire such limited resources is crucial.

So, yeah, in the cap era there are still windows, however well you manage your cap. And with that in mind, the fact that roughly speaking, relatively speaking, we paid our roster more than most rosters, roughly speaking the expectation was that it was one of the more talented rosters. 4-12 humbled us as fans, and the question has been on a lot of our minds: were we fools to think this talent was far north of 4-12? Or is it reasonable at all to anticipate a significant bounceback? On the assumption that two decently able people, Holmgren and Ruskell, would be very hard-pressed to be so wrong about so many players on their roster, I say, no, I think it’s very reasonable to anticipate a bounceback. And I don’t say that solely because of the chart here, but because of a compendium of observations. This simply adds to it, marginally supports the idea that much more. That’s what I was getting at, and why this “adds to the idea.”

by jacobstevens on Jun 5, 2009 11:31 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Let me run some numbers and get back to you, but I'd bet that winning % correlates very poorly with payroll in the NFL

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 11:47 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I wouldn't find it surprising

and I wouldn’t find that significant in any way. The relevance of money to contention windows is that top talent at key positions costs money, but that alone does not comprise payroll (there’s some 40-odd other guys on the roster), nor does it alone comprise winning % (there’s some 40-odd other guys on the roster).

And the big thing that wouldn’t be reflected in numbers is, a team with money doesn’t inherently have the ability to go and sign the best players at every position, they’re scarce and usually locked down. That’s relevant here because contention windows more likely correlate much more strongly to talent than to money, even though money follows talent. If that’s the point you’d like to make, consider it made, I definitely believe you and agree with you.

How that all fits in here, I guess I splained my thoughts already. My initial thought here was, if we really are stupid to think this is anything other than a 4-12 team, and shouldn’t expect much more in 2009, AND we had a top payroll, then I’d expect Ruskell to be pretty foolish as a GM, particularly with money but also obviously with talent, and I would expect there to be a number of tangible things that keen followers of the team such as you guys and the FG faithful would have already observed. There’s Brian Russell, but he alone didn’t make us 4-12, and his contract didn’t nearly push us to the top of the league in payroll. I don’t think Ruskell and Holmgren are that stupid. Can’t be that stupid and have it so well hidden from us. And since I don’t think they’re stupid, and they believed in this team, and paid this team accordingly, roughly equal to what I thought the team’s talent level was, It’s just one more minor piece that fits with the idea in my head, that we underperformed, meaning we have the ability to perform much better this year.

I realize that most all of that isn’t something that you can take away from this article, so once again I’m not trying to suggest that there is a pure correlation between solely our standing within these numbers, and our chances this year. It’s just one more piece to fit in, but I can’t have these kind of conclusions (reasonably) without the rest of it, gleaned from everything else. Sorry I’m not trying to be a prick about it, just trying to make my thoughts clear, since they apparently weren’t the first time around.

by jacobstevens on Jun 5, 2009 12:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

So you've been arguing the entire time that talent correlates with winning?

To be honest, I’ve had a hard time following your argument along here (and in general, being as concise as possible would help that). So I’ll just respond to what I think your argument may be. If I’ve not covered it, tough, I’m going back to my tedious look at winning percentage vs salary since 2004.

Yes, top talent costs money through free agency. A good GM identifies players in the draft that can help beyond the first round, which is where you start getting production well beyond salary. A good GM locks up younger core players at non-fungible positions for below what the market value would be for that player once they hit FA. While it may suck for fans, players producing at a level below what their major contracts should be sent packing.

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 12:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

And actually, I'm going to tack on season run differential as well to try to crudely assess talent

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 12:44 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

And in the final reply to myself, I'll post this up for Monday morning.

There’s just no way I’m pulling this much data and whatnot while in the office.

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 1:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

No worries

I’m definitely interested in whether there’s anything significant in the findings, but it’s kind of beside the original points. I had my observation, as clarified above, FWIW, and then it went off from there, about whether cap condition is indicative of anything.

Like you, I’m just responding to what I think your argument may be. And since I didn’t see the relevance of your contention to my observation, my best guess was that you were suggesting being “near end of a window” was somewhat of a myth because caps can be massaged. I only went on to contend that “windows” couldn’t be dismissed simply because they weren’t showing up in these numbers, and one big reason why is because it correlates more with talent. So that’s a dead horse, now, not trying to prove anything further, but I will be interested in what you find.

by jacobstevens on Jun 5, 2009 1:33 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I wasn't dismissing the thought that teams have time periods in which they are best suited to condtend.

I just got lost in the rest of your argument.

Teams are certainly subject to “windows” based on the collective combinations of talent / experience / aging of the team as a whole.

So we agree.

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 1:40 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm looking forward to it.

by LantermanC on Jun 5, 2009 3:22 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nope.

Just a clarification since you didn’t seem to get it the first time around. The entire time, just simply observed that it helped to confirm what I already thought, that we have a chance this year to be better than last year, with roughly the same talent.

by jacobstevens on Jun 5, 2009 1:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I found interesting this reply from the article's author in the comments.

This would seem to underscore the points debated here regarding the resources invested in our LB corps:

This would seem to underscore the point occasionally agree with you both that talent evaluation is critical. However, if you look at both PIT and IND and how they manage their roster and cap; you’ll notice for every Peyton Manning or Dallas Clark with a huge cap number, there is an Ed Johnson (undrafted rookie free agent contract) or Freddy Keiaho (rookie contract). Similarly, in PIT for every Roethlisberger & Polamalu there are draft picks and younger players whose cheap contracts off-set these big contracts. Another part of both clubs’ cap philosophy is, short of their cornerstone players, they’ll let you walk once your rookie/club-friendly contract is over (ie, Cato June, Marcus Washington, any LB in PIT) and then replace you with a young player, who as you’ve said, has been developed in their program. So, you’re absolutely right, there’s a certain efficiency in both of these clubs’ roster/cap management strategies.
J.I. Halsell
UNDER THE CAP

Early prospect watch: RB C.J. Spiller, QB Jevon Snead, OT Ciron Black, DT Gerald McCoy, S Eric Berry, DT Ndamukong Suh, CB Ras-I Dowling 6'2, 200, RB Jonathan Dwyer

by Misfit74 on Jun 5, 2009 11:05 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

This makes me wonder, and reflect: how do we find our salary cap relief?

It seems like we just cut guys we have signed to play in a window of prime years. Wistrom, Fisher, JP, and next year probably Kerney would be examples of this. High priced FAs simply cut following the production expected from said years.

Early prospect watch: RB C.J. Spiller, QB Jevon Snead, OT Ciron Black, DT Gerald McCoy, S Eric Berry, DT Ndamukong Suh, CB Ras-I Dowling 6'2, 200, RB Jonathan Dwyer

by Misfit74 on Jun 5, 2009 11:07 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's the only way to manage a cap properly, and to some extents it's expected from the moment teams sign players.

Alexander’s contract is a perfect example of that. Alexander was signed through his age 36 season. No one in their right mind would employ a 36 year old running back at top end money. Those years are effectively treated as team option years: If the player in question manages to keep performing at levels deserving of the contract they signed, the team can continue paying them for their services.

It would be lunacy to keep most players on their current deals as they reach the end of their contract.

by abender20 on Jun 5, 2009 11:13 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Our 2005 had key contributions from cheap players, too

Tatupu, Hill, Hannam, Jurevicius. Rocky, I dunno what he cost then, didn’t he get a short extension after that?

But yeah, the point is taken. Pats, too. The good teams have great talent at key positions, first, that’s what puts them up there, but they keep it going by finding cheaper guys to contribute in the way he describes.

by jacobstevens on Jun 5, 2009 11:36 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs