by Andrew Healy

Even if the opening days of free agency felt like a shopping free-for-all, it is a fair question to wonder how much all this matters. Most players get something close to their true value. Free agency, in general, does not appear to make the difference between winning and losing.

But what is true on average does not apply to all cases. The Patriots likely do not win the Super Bowl this year without signing a certain itinerant free-agent cornerback. On the other side of the ledger, a failed signing such as Michael Johnson in Tampa Bay can hamstring a franchise for years.

The numbers -- both previous performance and player age -- can help identify those few signings where a player is paid way too much relative to his likely future performance. They can also help identify those cases where the downside is small and there is some serious bargain potential.

For this year, I will go position by position to identify highly questionable contracts and those that have some notable value for the signing team. Then I'll add up the net value across teams to identify the teams that appear to be doing the best in free agency by using their salary cap dollars wisely.

To evaluate the teams, I also need to add a key component that can be overlooked: compensatory picks. With the methods I described last week, we can value draft picks in the same way that we value players and cap space. The teams that got the most value in compensatory picks for not resigning free agents created about as much value as the Dolphins destroyed by overpaying Ndamukong Suh.

Methods

First, I'll describe how I estimate the value that Suh's contract and other 2015 free-agent contracts created or destroyed. This part can be skipped if you want to just see the results.

As with last week, I use Pro-Football-Reference's Approximate Value (AV) to evaluate performance. I estimate $1.486 million to be the amount that a team has to spend on average to get one additional point of AV from a veteran player relative to a replacement-level player, who Chase Stuart estimates produces 3.36 AV per season.

Take Suh. His contract pays him $18.318 million more per year than the minimum ($745,000) for players with four to six years of service. I estimate that Suh thus needs to generate 15.68 units of AV to be worth his salary.

Needed Future AV = 3.36 + ($18.318 million)/($1.486 million) = 3.36 + 12.32 = 15.68

After finding the future AV that Suh's salary implies, I used his weighted AV over the previous three seasons to look at his previous performance. I weighted that by the number of games played in a year, but included a penalty for playing fewer than 16 games.

Finally, I compared a player's Weighted Past AV with his Needed Future AV, adjusting with a linear regression that allows a player's age to flexibly impact their worth.

From this I get Age-Adjusted Value, my estimate of the extra value that a player provides based on his past performance, his current contract, and his age. Suh's Age-Adjusted Value of -2.14 says that he is likely to produce 2.14 less AV per season than he needs to in order to justify his contract.

Cornerbacks

Player Old Tm New Tm Age Yrs Avg Salary Guaranteed Wt Past AV Needed Future AV Age-Adj Value Byron Maxwell SEA PHI 27 6 $10,500,000 $25,500,000 4.05 9.92 -4.63 Davon House GB JAC 25 4 $6,125,000 $10,000,000 2.00 6.98 -3.81 Tramon Williams GB CLE 32 3 $7,000,000 $10,000,000 5.67 7.57 -3.21 Teddy Williams JAC CAR 26 2 $900,000 $2,200,000 0.00 3.46 -2.09 Perrish Cox SF TEN 28 3 $5,000,000 $2,250,000 3.67 6.22 -1.68 Chykie Brown NYG NYG 28 2 $900,000 $200,000 1.00 3.46 -1.59 Brandon Browner NE NO 30 3 $5,000,000 $7,750,000 4.93 6.22 -1.54 Darrelle Revis NE NYJ 29 5 $14,000,000 $39,000,000 10.41 12.28 -1.52 Chris Culliver SF WAS 26 4 $8,000,000 $16,000,000 5.40 8.24 -1.47 Walter Thurmond NYG PHI 27 1 $3,250,000 $2,000,000 2.38 5.05 -1.44 Rashean Mathis DET DET 34 2 $1,750,000 $750,000 4.53 4.04 -1.12 Brice McCain PIT MIA 28 2 $2,750,000 $3,000,000 2.95 4.71 -0.89 Buster Skrine CLE NYJ 25 4 $6,250,000 $13,000,000 5.00 7.06 -0.89 Chris Cook SF SF 28 1 $1,350,000 $650,000 2.36 3.77 -0.54 Shareece Wright SD SF 27 1 $4,000,000 - 3.92 5.55 -0.39 Leonard Johnson TB TB 24 1 $1,000,000 - 3.00 3.53 0.04 Phillip Adams NYJ ATL 26 1 $745,000 - 2.28 3.36 0.29 Robert McClain ATL NE 26 1 $1,240,000 $300,000 2.66 3.69 0.34 Antonio Cromartie ARI NYJ 30 4 $8,000,000 $20,000,000 9.33 8.24 0.84 Bradley Fletcher PHI NE 28 1 $2,500,000 - 4.91 4.54 1.24

Age-Adjusted Value comes out negative for most cornerbacks. This doesn't mean that most free-agent corners are overvalued; rather, it suggests that AV probably undervalues corners.

Age-Adjusted Value is particularly down on Byron Maxwell and the two former Packers, Davon House and Tramon Williams, although there is more variance in potential outcomes for House than for the other two. Age-Adjusted Value rates the Revis signing as an average value for corners, but he gets hurt for his outlier season in Tampa. He seems much more likely to be 2014 Revis (14 AV) with the Jets than 2013 Revis (8 AV).

Age-Adjusted Value is most positive on the Cromartie signing and two potential value signings that the Patriots made at the low end of the market: Robert McClain and Bradley Fletcher. While the Patriots should probably keep Fletcher away from guarding the Dez Bryants of the league, there is value in getting even last year's most memorably torched corner at that price.

Safeties

Player Old Tm New Tm Age Yrs Avg Salary Guaranteed Wt Past AV Needed Future AV Age-Adj Value Jeron Johnson SEA WAS 26 2 $2,000,000 - 1.00 4.20 -1.83 Ron Parker KC KC 27 5 $5,000,000 $8,000,000 3.46 6.22 -1.52 Da'Norris Searcy BUF TEN 26 4 $5,937,500 $10,500,000 4.00 6.85 -1.48 Sergio Brown IND JAC 26 3 $2,333,333 $250,000 2.00 4.43 -1.06 Anthony Levine BAL BAL 27 2 $1,100,000 $400,000 1.41 3.60 -0.95 Isa Abdul-Quddus DET DET 26 1 $1,500,000 $300,000 1.74 3.87 -0.76 Marcus Gilchrist SD NYJ 26 4 $5,500,000 $8,500,000 4.67 6.56 -0.52 Jimmy Wilson MIA SD 28 2 $2,125,000 $1,250,000 2.96 4.29 -0.47 Mike Adams IND IND 33 2 $2,425,000 $1,200,000 6.50 4.49 0.41 Kurt Coleman KC CAR 26 2 $1,400,000 $600,000 2.95 3.80 0.52 Nate Allen PHI OAK 27 4 $5,750,000 $11,800,000 6.02 6.73 0.53 Antrel Rolle NYG CHI 32 3 $3,750,000 $4,900,000 7.33 5.38 0.65 Rahim Moore DEN HOU 25 3 $4,000,000 $4,000,000 5.90 5.55 1.53 Kendrick Lewis HOU BAL 28 3 $1,800,000 $1,400,000 5.34 4.07 2.14 Chris Conte CHI TB 26 1 $1,500,000 $1,250,000 5.42 3.87 2.92

The Titans did not get great value with their $23.8 million contract ($10.5 million guaranteed) for Da'Norris Searcy. On the positive side, Houston appears to have gotten Rahim Moore at a good price. Baltimore made a smart signing of Kendrick Lewis and Tampa got Chris Conte on a contract with little downside.

Linebackers

Player Old Tm New Tm Age Yrs Avg Salary Guaranteed Wt Past AV Needed Future AV Age-Adj Diff Dan Skuta SF JAC 28 5 $4,100,000 $8,000,000 3.61 5.62 -1.14 J.T. Thomas JAC NYG 26 3 $3,333,333 $4,500,000 2.70 5.10 -1.03 Jeff Tarpinian HOU HOU 27 1 $795,000 $50,000 1.20 3.39 -0.95 Andrew Gachkar SD DAL 26 2 $2,600,000 $2,200,000 2.30 4.61 -0.94 Jonathan Casillas NE NYG 27 3 $2,666,667 $2,975,000 2.64 4.65 -0.77 Brian Orakpo WAS TEN 28 4 $7,750,000 $13,500,000 6.58 8.07 -0.62 Justin Durant DAL ATL 29 3 $3,600,000 $1,250,000 4.69 5.28 -0.25 Ramon Humber NO NO 27 2 $1,042,500 $334,000 2.41 3.56 0.09 Mark Herzlich NYG NYG 27 2 $1,300,000 $400,000 2.64 3.73 0.15 O'Brien Schofield SEA ATL 27 1 $1,700,000 $255,000 3.05 4.00 0.29 Jabaal Sheard CLE NE 25 2 $5,500,000 $5,000,000 6.00 6.56 0.61 Malcolm Smith SEA OAK 25 2 $3,500,000 $3,750,000 4.69 5.21 0.65 Jasper Brinkley MIN DAL 29 2 $3,250,000 $2,000,000 5.38 5.05 0.68 Bruce Carter DAL TB 27 4 $4,250,000 $4,250,000 5.33 5.72 0.85 Akeem Ayers NE STL 25 2 $3,000,000 $2,750,000 5.23 4.88 1.53 Curtis Lofton NO OAK 28 3 $6,000,000 $6,500,000 7.67 6.90 1.64 Brooks Reed HOU ATL 28 5 $4,400,000 $9,000,000 6.73 5.82 1.78 Sean Weatherspoon ATL ARI 27 1 $3,850,000 $1,250,000 6.25 5.45 2.04 A.J. Hawk GB CIN 31 2 $1,625,000 $500,000 7.33 3.95 2.55

Age-Adjusted Value suggests the Jaguars overpaid for Dan Skuta, as did the Giants for J.T. Thomas. The numbers love the Cardinals getting Sean Weatherspoon at the price they did, and they also like A.J. Hawk as providing value at his bargain-basement price.

Defensive Linemen

Player Old Tm New Tm Age Yrs Avg Salary Guaranteed Wt Past AV Needed Future AV Age-Adj Diff Pernell McPhee BAL CHI 26 5 $7,750,000 $15,500,000 2.55 8.07 -4.16 Trent Cole PHI IND 32 2 $7,000,000 $7,750,000 6.34 7.57 -2.54 Ndamukong Suh DET MIA 28 6 $19,062,500 $59,955,000 12.67 15.68 -2.14 Tyrunn Walker NO DET 24 1 $1,750,000 $750,000 1.50 4.04 -1.97 Jared Odrick MIA JAC 27 5 $8,500,000 $22,000,000 5.67 8.58 -1.67 Jarius Wynn BUF BUF 28 2 $1,100,000 $250,000 1.79 3.60 -0.94 Derrick Morgan TEN TEN 29 4 $6,750,000 $10,500,000 6.32 7.40 -0.74 Greg Hardy CAR DAL 26 1 $11,311,600 - 8.84 10.47 -0.26 Chris Canty BAL BAL 32 2 $2,325,000 $1,500,000 5.60 4.42 -0.13 Corey Peters ATL ARI 26 3 $3,050,000 $5,750,000 4.00 4.91 0.46 Dan Williams ARI OAK 27 4 $6,250,000 $15,200,000 6.33 7.06 0.51 Cory Redding IND ARI 34 2 $3,000,000 $2,000,000 7.38 4.88 0.88 Vance Walker KC DEN 27 2 $2,500,000 - 4.30 4.54 1.00 Terrance Knighton DEN WAS 28 1 $4,450,000 $2,950,000 6.00 5.85 1.02 Nick Fairley DET STL 27 1 $5,000,000 $1,500,000 6.03 6.22 1.05 Stephen Paea CHI WAS 26 4 $5,250,000 $7,850,000 6.09 6.39 1.07 Vince Wilfork NE HOU 33 2 $4,500,000 $5,000,000 8.67 5.89 1.18 Michael Johnson TB CIN 28 4 $5,000,000 $4,500,000 7.00 6.22 1.65 Alan Branch NE NE 30 2 $2,150,000 $700,000 6.40 4.31 1.84 Kendall Langford STL IND 29 4 $4,300,000 $2,500,000 7.67 5.75 2.26 Henry Melton DAL TB 28 1 $3,750,000 $1,000,000 7.06 5.38 2.55 Adrian Clayborn TB ATL 26 1 $3,000,000 $750,000 6.55 4.88 3.04

By Age-Adjusted Value, the Bears hugely overpaid for Pernell McPhee. The contract he signed seems to have no upside. In the best case, he reprises Paul Kruger in Cleveland and lives up to a big contract. The numbers are also pretty down on the Colts' again going old on Trent Cole and on the value that the Dolphins got in the Suh contract.

Age-Adjusted Value likes the value that Atlanta got in several players, and particularly loves the upside of the Adrian Clayborn contract.

Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

Player Old Tm New Tm Age Yrs Avg Salary Guaranteed Wt Past AV Needed Future AV Age-Adj Value Lee Smith BUF OAK 27 3 $3,033,333 $3,100,000 0.35 4.90 -3.31 Marcus Easley BUF BUF 27 4 $1,750,000 $2,200,000 0.00 4.04 -2.80 Jordan Cameron CLE MIA 26 2 $7,500,000 $12,500,000 3.79 7.90 -2.74 Kenny Britt STL STL 26 2 $7,000,000 $4,300,000 3.90 7.57 -2.30 Richard Gordon KC KC 27 1 $745,000 - 0.00 3.36 -2.12 Owen Daniels BAL DEN 32 3 $4,083,333 $3,000,000 4.86 5.61 -2.06 Lance Kendricks STL STL 27 4 $4,625,000 $10,000,000 2.68 5.97 -2.05 Dwayne Harris DAL NYG 27 5 $3,500,000 $7,950,000 2.00 5.21 -1.97 Julius Thomas DEN JAC 26 5 $9,200,000 $24,000,000 5.71 9.05 -1.97 Marlon Moore CLE CLE 27 3 $950,000 $200,000 0.34 3.50 -1.92 Jeremy Maclin PHI KC 26 5 $11,000,000 $22,500,000 8.06 10.26 -0.83 Eddie Royal SD CHI 28 3 $5,000,000 $10,000,000 5.02 6.22 -0.33 Jason Avant KC KC 31 1 $950,000 $50,000 4.00 3.50 -0.33 Scott Chandler BUF NE 29 2 $2,650,000 $2,000,000 4.66 4.64 0.36 Torrey Smith BAL SF 26 5 $8,000,000 $22,000,000 7.67 8.24 0.80 Percy Harvin NYJ BUF 26 1 $6,000,000 - 6.35 6.90 0.82 Andre Johnson HOU IND 33 3 $7,000,000 $10,000,000 10.04 7.57 0.88 Cecil Shorts JAC HOU 27 2 $3,000,000 $2,500,000 5.05 4.88 1.41 Brandon Gibson MIA NE 27 1 $825,000 $40,000 3.68 3.41 1.50 Steve Johnson SF SD 28 3 $3,500,000 - 5.93 5.21 1.59 Leonard Hankerson WAS ATL 26 1 $1,000,000 $225,000 4.30 3.53 2.14

Age-Adjusted Value is a little down on this year's tight end contracts. It rates the contract the Raiders gave to Lee Smith (checked to make sure, and that is not this guy) as a gross overpay. AV may not give enough value to a blocking-first tight end like Smith, but on the other hand, where's the market that values blocking tight ends at $3 million per year? The numbers may be too negative on Jordan Cameron's contract, since his AV has been depressed by his quarterbacks. Age-Adjusted Value again gives a thumbs-up to New England and Atlanta for finding potential bargains in Brandon Gibson and Leonard Hankerson, respectively.

Offensive Linemen

Player Old Tm New Tm Age Yrs Avg Salary Guaranteed Wt Past AV Needed Future AV Age-Adj Value Jermey Parnell DAL JAC 28 5 $6,400,000 $14,500,000 3.00 7.16 -3.29 Mike Person STL ATL 26 3 $1,116,667 $500,000 0.00 3.61 -2.24 Joe Berger MIN MIN 32 2 $1,077,500 $130,000 2.67 3.58 -2.22 Shelley Smith MIA DEN 27 2 $2,825,000 - 2.00 4.76 -1.52 Vlad Ducasse MIN CHI 27 1 $825,000 $40,000 3.00 3.41 0.83 Erik Pears BUF SF 32 2 $2,350,000 $1,000,000 6.69 4.44 0.95 Willie Colon NYJ NYJ 31 1 $870,000 - 5.37 3.44 1.10 James Carpenter SEA NYJ 25 4 $4,775,000 $7,500,000 6.33 6.07 1.44 A.Q. Shipley IND ARI 28 2 $785,000 $300,000 4.00 3.39 1.48 Garrett Reynolds DET STL 27 2 $1,100,000 - 4.31 3.60 1.95 Clint Boling CIN CIN 25 5 $5,200,000 $5,000,000 7.36 6.36 2.18 Marshall Newhouse CIN NYG 26 2 $1,500,000 $800,000 4.76 3.87 2.26 Mike Iupati SF ARI 27 5 $8,000,000 $22,500,000 9.47 8.24 2.46 Orlando Franklin DEN SD 27 5 $7,100,000 $15,500,000 9.32 7.64 2.92 Paul Fanaika ARI KC 28 3 $2,050,000 $1,750,000 7.50 4.24 4.13 John Jerry NYG NYG 28 2 $1,650,000 $1,000,000 8.00 3.97 4.90

Looking at the big contracts, Age-Adjusted Value hates the Jaguars' signing of Jermey Parnell, but really likes the value that the Cardinals got with Mike Iupati and the Chargers got with Orlando Franklin. It also likes Paul Fanaika and John Jerry as two potential blue-light specials.

Ranking Teams By Value Created in Free Agency

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In the analysis, you may have noticed that I ignored a few special-teams players and quarterbacks, as well as the running backs. For all of AV's strengths, it does a poor job of correctly devaluing running backs. While DYAR would penalize Chip Kelly for shelling out big dollars for Ryan Mathews and DeMarco Murray, AV is unable to pick that up. To keep things simple, I leave out running backs. Chip the GM looks bad enough without one more demerit.

One more piece is too important to ignore, however: compensatory picks. While most free-agent contracts are break-even or losing propositions, the picks that teams get for losing free agents are manna from heaven.

OverTheCap gave rough estimates of the compensatory picks that teams would receive for losing free agents earlier this week. As they emphasize, the picks are not exactly pinned down, but there is enough information in there to estimate the value of those picks using the methods from last week's analysis.

Accounting for the value in the supplemental picks is enough to make a very annoying free-agency champion so far.

Team Net Value

From Signings Yearly Value

from Comps Total Value

from Free Agency NE 5.89 1.63 7.52 ARI 7.48 0.00 7.48 CIN 6.38 0.00 6.38 TB 6.36 0.00 6.36 ATL 5.05 0.00 5.05 SD 4.04 0.08 4.12 HOU 3.17 0.00 3.17 NYG 1.95 0.00 1.95 SF 0.82 1.08 1.90 SEA 0.00 1.83 1.83 DAL -0.52 1.78 1.26 BAL -0.66 1.80 1.14 IND 1.01 0.00 1.01 GB 0.00 0.78 0.78 STL 0.18 0.00 0.18 PIT 0.00 0.08 0.08 OAK 0.02 0.00 0.02 DEN -2.58 2.13 -0.46 KC -0.67 0.00 -0.67 WAS -1.21 0.00 -1.21 NO -1.45 0.00 -1.45 CAR -1.57 0.00 -1.57 DET -3.85 1.78 -2.08 BUF -2.92 0.75 -2.17 MIN -2.22 0.00 -2.22 NYJ -2.27 0.00 -2.27 CLE -5.13 2.45 -2.68 CHI -3.01 0.00 -3.01 TEN -4.52 0.00 -4.52 MIA -5.77 0.00 -5.77 PHI -6.07 0.00 -6.07 JAC -12.94 0.00 -12.94

Age-Adjusted Value dislikes the moves that the Dolphins and Eagles made, and thinks the Jaguars have had a disastrous free agency. It is high on the signings made by the Bengals and Buccaneers, but highest on Steve Keim's acquisitions for Arizona.

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But adding the value from the compensatory picks makes the Super Bowl winners also the winners of free agency by a nose over the Cardinals. Smart teams such as Baltimore have consistently played the compensatory game well, in part by developing players other teams want to sign. And Bill Belichick seemingly set this offseason up to grab compensatory picks.

Consider the 2016 compensatory selection they will receive for losing Akeem Ayers. That pick completes this magic trick of a trade with Tennessee:

Titans get: 2015 sixth-round pick

Patriots get: 2016 sixth-round pick, 2015 seventh-round pick, Akeem Ayers for most of 2015

The smart teams can literally create something out of nothing sometimes. The New England Patriots have won free agency in part with moves like this that happened long before March 10.