Ravens Use of Cap Dollars v. AFC Playoff Teams
Regardless of how you feel about Tom Brady there is no denying his greatness. His preparedness is second to none and his ability to manage the finer nuances of his position to his team’s advantage is remarkable. Cry Brady or not, the man is the ultimate competitor.
Given his accomplishments, you might expect Tawmy Boy to be among the highest paid quarterbacks in the league. His cap figure for 2016 was $13.765M according to Spotrac.com. Certainly not chump change yet it ranks as the 18th highest cap figure among all NFL quarterbacks.
That’s value!
And it speaks to his competitiveness. He’s willing to take a haircut on his pay to help Bill Belichick build a better team around him. All the tantrums, cheating and your personal disdain for him aside, if Tom Brady wore your team’s colors, you’d be a fan.
Brady’s relatively light cap number sparked my curiosity, so I decided to see how the Ravens compare cap-wise, to 2016’s six AFC playoff teams — specifically how they distribute their cap dollars. The numbers shown in the chart below represent a percentage of a team’s overall cap number invested in a particular position.
For example, the Ravens invest 15.93% of their cap in the position of quarterback. That number includes Joe Flacco and Ryan Mallett. The numbers highlighted in green represents the highest investment (as a percentage of the team’s cap) at a given position among the seven teams. The number highlighted in red represents the lowest investment at the given position.
* The Raiders do not have a fullback on their roster.
Some Observations
• Of the 7 teams the Ravens invest the least in offensive support for Joe Flacco.
• The Ravens have the 4th highest investment in the quarterback position (2nd among the 7 teams noted) yet they ranked 21st in points scored in 2016.
• The Ravens invest significantly less in their defensive line (5.01%) than all other teams.
• The Ravens rank first of the seven teams in investing at cornerback and in the overall secondary (21.26%) yet they gave up more TD passes (28) than any team other than the Dolphins and their passer rating against (86.9) was better than just three of the playoff participants. The Chiefs’ defense had the best passer rating against at 79.8.
• The Patriots invest the least among these teams on defense yet they were the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL.
When you have arguably the greatest quarterback of all-time accepting average pay amongst his peers and your defense is more efficient dollar for dollar than any other team, you go to the Super Bowl…a lot!
Resources
Pro Football Focus Offensive Line
Pro Football Focus Front-7
Pro Football Focus Secondary
Football Outsiders Special Teams Stats
NFL.com
