https://snapsandstats.ghost.io/are-we-framing-positional-value-correctly/

The rules of positional value are not immutable. They change as the game changes, as trends change, as the types of players coming out of college change.

Always good to remember that conventional wisdom wasn’t always conventional and won’t always be conventional.

But the point I most agree with here is that positional value focuses too much on financials and not enough on on-field play.

Players play. That’s where they earn their value.

7 comments

  1. Though true eventually a player’s initial contract and salary is based on where they are drafted. So if you draft a safety first overall you’re paying them $50 million or so.

  3. Yeah we’ve seen the RB market decline the past two decades while QB market explode and take up a larger portion of the cap post Mahomes’s 2020 deal. 

    In regards to the LB market, it’s in decline too. Arguably valued lower than RB. We saw a handful of LBs hit FA and signed this offseason with underwhelming contracts. The AAV was lower than many predicted. 
    Devin Lloyd who had an All- Pro season signed only for 5% of the cap. 

    Articles make a point that Bijan and Gibbs can give the RB market a boost but who do the LBs have in the future? LB is a tough position to play consistently. 

    Markets definitely come and go as the game changes. I could see the IOL markets for G and Centers booming the next couple years.

  4. I fully agree with your last point here, it’s something I think about in every discussion I see about positional value. I don’t have time to read the article, but the funny thing is I imagine it uses that last point in service of an argument that RBs have more value than most people think. That would be something i disagree with, precisely because of their value on the field

  5. IMO positional value only matters when comparing two similarly graded prospects. The primary goal should be finding good players and the finances should come second. Think of how much better this team would be if the giants took Kyle Hamilton at 5th overall and Zion Johnson 7th overall in the 2022 draft over Kayvon and Neal.

    Just go back and look at any draft that’s 4+ years out and do a mock re-draft. You’ll see so many more non-premium positions deserve to go in the top 10 than they actually do in real life.

  6. It is amazing to me how financial valuation considerations have pretty much become the be all and end all of NFL roster construction. Like AAV etc.

    Here’s a tip from someone who has been watching NFL football for close to 50 years now: the most important part of NFL roster construction has to be the *players*. Their skillset, their intangibles, their desire to win, their ability to mesh with a team and elevate everyone around them. Go *find* those people. Then, make the financials work. If the financials don’t work for a particular player, then go find the next best alternative player, and try to make the financials work for that person. Rinse and repeat.

    Too often (and Schoen is particularly guilty of this IMHO), teams do it in the reverse order: “We have X number of dollars to spend, and we’ve allocated Y dollars to this position because that’s how much financial value we’ve assigned to it, so let’s see what player we can slot into this financial slot.” No. No no no. Build a team of players, *then* work on the numbers.

  7. >Players play. That’s where they earn their value.

    You can just say you don’t understand positional value, and somebody will surely help you understand.

    Though I will say everything else you wrote is accurate. Value shifts over time. Conventional wisdom changes. Still, this whole “players play, that’s where they earn their value” indicates that you don’t understand how positional value works. Positional value is always dependent on replacement level.

    That’s why the best kickers aren’t and have never been super valuable, nor logn snappers. When damn near every kicker in the league is automatic, having the most automatic kicker doesn’t really matter.

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