Analyzing the Suh Signing
Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh signed a huge contract with Miami for what amounts to nearly $20 million per year. He's guaranteed at $55 million over the first three years of the deal. The overall size and guarantees set a new market for defensive tackles. Suh is certainly an impact player and routinely notches in the top 5 defensive linemen in advanced stats like +EPA and +WPA, but is he worth the price?I'll use two measures to evaluate the deal. First, I'll look at career Approximate Value (AV), a metric created and provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com, and how the market values AV at the defensive tackle position. Then I'll look at how the market values +Expected Points Added. We'll see where Suh's typical production and his new contract terms fit in the market.
What's the Optimum Allocation of Free Agent Money?
As I was thinking about the enormous Suh contract, I wondered what the best allocation of resources would be for free agent players. In other words, would a team be better off with a few superstars plus a bunch of role players? Or would it be better off with a squad full of relatively evenly paid and evenly talented players? Roster construction in the NBA certainly seems to adhere to the superstar model, but the NFL is different in many ways. I looked at this question several years ago, but didn't realize what I had stumbled on. I found that teams with higher median salaries outperformed teams…
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The Ngata Trade
After Ndamukong Suh left Detroit to sign with Miami, the Lions acquired DT Haloti Ngata plus a 7th round pick from Baltimore in exchange for Detroit's 4th and 5th round 2015 picks. Ngata was coming off an up year, despite his 4-game suspension, and had been a mainstay of a dynastic Ravens defense, but he was due $16M in cap charges in 2015. Trading Ngata saved Baltimore only $8.5M in cap savings because $7.5M was dead money from signing and option bonuses. So Detroit fills a void at half price, and Baltimore gets under the cap and adds to their stable of draft picks.The obvious questions for…
Disregard reposts--rebuilding lost posts following backup restore
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Bayesian Draft Analysis Tool Is Now Live
(Bonus points to whoever recognizes the #1/#1 in the picture.) One of the most popular and useful features here at AFA is back for 2015. The Bayesian Draft Analysis Tool, codenamed 'Project War Room', predicts when a prospect will be taken at each point in the draft. And by extension, it tells GMs how likely a player will still be available at each pick. It's far more useful than just satisfying anxious fan curiosity. It allows team decision-makers the critical information they need to make sound trade decisions. If a GM has his eye set on a player, this tool let's him know how high he'll need…
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