Let's play NFL GM

[pazrul72]

With all the talk about who should be getting what deal this offseason I thought it would be interesting to make a theoretical team without specific names just looking at Salary Cap issues. Most of my numbers come from overthecap and I am just using them as a baseline guesstimate so if they aren't 100% accurate I believe them to be close enough to play with.

The predicted salary cap is 126.3 million and I will assume the typical roster needs 3 million for a practice squad and 3 million for in season transactions and injury settlements etc, so for ease of numbers lets assume a typical team will have 120 million to build a roster. Divide that by 53 players and you reach the average salary of 2.2 million. Now obviously I am going to give my starting QB way more then the guy on the bench but you can only have so many superstar contracts. By superstar contract I mean a face of the team franchise player like Rodgers, AP, Mario Williams, Revis etc. Depending on the position of your franchise player it will cost you somewhere between 12 - 20 million. For the purpose of this exercise lets assume you can only have one such player.

If you can get your superstar for 12 million you can then afford 4 what I will call probowl caliber players the 6-8 million dollar range like Gronk, Foster, Cameron Wake, Joe Hayden. If your superstar costs 20 million you can only afford 3 of these probowl players.

That leaves 12 contracts for very good players, the ones that cost somewhere between 2-4 million. The London Fletcher, Brendan Merriweather, Fred Jackson's of the NFL.

Filling out the rest of your roster are 32 jags and rookies for ease of math each costing 750,000.

So last piece of information is what each position at each level costs.
QB Superstar 18 - 22 million Probowl 12- 16 million Very Good 8 - 10 million
RB Superstar 12 million Probowl 5-8 million Very Good 2 - 3 million
WR Superstar 8-12 million Probowl 5-6 million Very Good 2-3 million
TE Superstar 7-9 million Probowl 4-5 million Very Good 2-3 million
OL Superstar 10-15 million Probowl 6-8 million Very Good 2-4 million
DT Superstar 8-12 million Probowl 4 -6 million Very Good 2 -3 million
DE Superstar 12- 16 million Probowl 6-10 million Very Good 2-5 million
LB Superstar 8-10 million Probowl 4-6 million Very Good 2-3 million
CB Superstar 10-16 million Probowl 6-8 million Very Good 2-4 million
S Superstar 8-10 million Probowl 4-6 million Very Good 2-3 million
P/K Elite make 3-4 million and everyone else makes 1-2

So the point of this is by position you're the GM, how do you make your team?

 

[pazrul72]

My team has a probowler 12 million at QB with 4 other probowlers at TE, OL, DT, and CB. My 12 very good would be 2 DE, 2 LB, CB, S, 3 OL, RB, 2 WR. The plan is to win in the trenches and hope my QB is good enough to make the rest work.

I think the thing that amazed me most from making this thread is what a huge advantage is it to teams that have Superstar caliber players on rookie contracts. As an NFL GM you absolutely HAVE to draft well. The salaries of vets will absolutely kill you if you don't. Even Tom Brady who took an absolute sweetheart of a deal at 11 mil per year is a huge burden on the cap and the teams who pay 20+ for ANY player? insane.