The overvaluation of Wide receivers

[Alphadawg7]

3 hours ago, Jrb1979 said:

I'm of the opinion it's due to both. Yea they needed a game wrecker on defense to win but they also need elite talent on offense too.  

 

 

 

I mean we were the 16th best in history, best all time for the Bills.  If that isn't good enough you got other issues wouldn't you say?

[ghostwriter]

Buffalo is kind of in a bad spot. Every talking head that I’ve listened to has said that this a horrible draft at WR. So we’re kind of stuck with what’s available in Free Agency unless we want to trade for someone.

[MikePJ76]

6 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Hate Josh Allen?  I might actually be his biggest fan.  But facts are facts...we had guys wide open on our final series and we didn't make the plays to get them the ball.  So for people to pretend we lost this game all because we didn't have a Chase, Jefferson, etc type player is just not reflective of what actually happened.  

 

 

so cooper didn't slip then?  seems convenient to leave that out.

[Thrivefourfive]

I will not pretend that having Amon Ra St Brown is worse than not having him. Not all big money guys aren’t team dudes. 

[Alphadawg7]

2 hours ago, MikePJ76 said:

so cooper didn't slip then?  seems convenient to leave that out.

 

Convenient to leave it out?  

 

1st Down - Guys are wide open and Allen throws a bad pass that Romo called a "throw away" it was so off.  

2nd Down - Guys are open and Allen has a his ball batted down at the LOS on a throw to Samuel that would have been a first down.

3rd Down - Allen completes to Cooper on a WR screen, he doesn't fall down, his back foot slips a little but even so, the only way the play can work is if all the blocking also works perfect, which it doesnt and Cooper is tackled for a short gain.  

4th Down - Guys are wide open but Allen shifts the protection to the wrong side as Spags confuses him, our team, and coaches leading to free releases on the blitz and Allen doesn't see a wide open Shakir to his left for an easy first down and more and is forced to throw to what was a wide open Kincaid down field but under duress falling away which ends up being a prayer ball that Kincaid tries to adjust to and can't complete the catch.

 

We did not lose because we did not have guys open or because who was on the field.  We lost because on the final 4 down series we had guys open on every down and we failed to take advantage of them.   

 

So for the last time, our series ending had nothing to do with not having open targets for Allen to throw to.  End of story.  And the only reason we were in this position was once again our defense let the Chiefs score over 30 (for the only time this entire season) a week before another team completely shuts them down (3rd time in 4 of our Chiefs losses in the postseason Chiefs would get shut down a week later and lose).  

 

PS:  If (as you claimed earlier) we would have scored on that Cooper screen (which he was not going to do even if he didn't slip), Mahomes still gets the ball back with over 2 minutes and timeouts only down 3 or 4 (depending if Bass converts the XP).  Mahomes is the only QB in history with a 100% success rate of scoring on the final drive to tie or win the game in the postseason.  And not only is he perfect, he has the most attempts at while also remaining 100% and no other QB is even over 50%.  And given our defense was amongst the worst in the NFL at allowing first downs and amongst the worst in 3rd down conversions, if you think Mahomes who gets 4 downs now to keep moving the ball isn't scoring the go ahead TD on that next drive then you have not been paying attention or watching this defense trying unsuccessfully to stop Mahomes late in games.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:48 AM by Alphadawg7

[BigDingus]

On 2/16/2025 at 10:54 AM, Magox said:

This board and for that matter much of the league greatly values the worth of Wide receivers to their teams prospects to having success.   As it stands there are 23 total receivers who make at least $20 million per year of which 11 make more than $25 Million.  Just a couple years ago there were 14 who made $20M+ and just 5 that made $25M+.

 

The rate of inflation for paying receivers has outpaced the rate of the salary cap inflation as a whole.   To put this into perspective, by the time the 2025 season begins nearly half the league will have allocated pretty close to 10% of their entire salary cap towards their star receiver.

 

Justin Jefferson made up 13.7% in 2024

Devante Adams 13.5%

CeeDee Lamb 13.3%

Cooper Kupp 12.8%

AJ Brown 12.5%

Amon-Ra St. Brown 11.8%

Brandon Aiyuk 11.8%

Tyreek Bill 11.8%

Dk Metcalf 11.5%

Deebo Samuel 11.5%

 

Out of which 4 of them made the playoffs this past year.

https://theanalyst.com/2024/09/are-the-highest-paid-wide-receivers-worth-it

 

The league over the past 17 years had steadily increased their rate of passing which justified an increase in the rate of inflation to receivers.    Back in 2005 teams were throwing on average for 203.5 and saw a steady increase all the way to 2020 peaking out at 240.2 yards per game.   Since 2020, teams have began to run the ball more often and more successfully, seeing the passing rate steadily decline to 217.6 yards per game which is a substantial 10% rate of decline in passing yardage over the past 5 years.   It makes sense that teams have evolved and have adjusted to playing more bully ball against teams that were designed to stop passes who employed lighter boxes and base nickel defenses leading to the decline in passing yards.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/NFL/passing.htm

 

It's not coincidence that sometime around 2020 NFL teams which was when teams were at their zenith in terms of passing yards had begun to seriously deflate Running back valuations comparatively to the rest of the NFL rate of player personnel pay and began the inflation of wide receiver pay relative to the NFL pay as a whole.

 

The question begs is the rate of pay inflation in the NFL for receivers justified?

 

Before I get into that, I wanted to share some stats.

 

The four teams that threw the ball the least in 2024 was Philadelphia, Baltimore, Green Bay and Buffalo.   All 4 teams were playoff teams, one won the Super Bowl, another went to the AFC championship.  Out of the top 10 teams that passed the ball least 7 made the playoffs.

 

This past year in 2024, out of the top 10 receivers in terms of receiving yards only 3 played in the playoffs, Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Ladd McConkey.

 

Out of the top 10 of the teams that spent the most for wide receivers in 2024 only 3 made the playoffs. Out of the bottom 17 teams that spent the least in wide receivers in 2024, nearly half of them did make the playoffs.  

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/position/wide-receiver/_/year/2024/table/active/sort/cash_total

 

It's clear that for NFL teams to be successful that it is not necessary to have true blue #1 blue chip boundary WR's.  Chiefs, Bills and Ravens are examples of this.  Out of the 14 teams that made the playoffs, only 5 teams have receivers that are being paid over $20M a year.

 

It's evident that the NFL has begun to trend towards running against lighter boxes more and passing the ball less.   It takes a little time for GM's to adjust to realities on the ground, but we are beginning to see the deflationary cycle break in terms of paying playmaking RB's, but we've yet to see this happen in the wide receiver market.  There are traditional factors at play such as basic supply and demand, in which unfortunately for RB's, the supply of RB's are expected to increase through this years RB crop of rookies which may put a damper on the overall RB market and that inversely there aren't that many stellar WR's in this year rookie crop which may prevent a lid for WR's.

 

With all that said, I do expect to see the inflationary rate of pay for Wide receivers to begin to subside sometime in the near future.   I don't advocate for having bottom tier talent at the receiver spot, what I am advocating is that it's not necessary to pay these extreme high wages that eat up so much cap room for a WR, specially in a league that has consistently been trending towards passing the ball less over the past 4 seasons.   

 

 

I feel like all this points to why it actually does make sense to pay Cook.

 

The WR rate is increasing while the passing game is decreasing. Meanwhile, teams that have started running the ball more & have good RBs have been seeing success. The Eagles won a SB after trading for Barkley, Henry nearly ran for 2,000 yards despite people thinking he'd be slowing down at this point, and James Cook was scoring TDs like crazy & our best weapon on offense. 

 

His role should probably increase even more, and he's still a lot cheaper than a top WR. 

[Magox]

15 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

Yeah. Look at their coaching staffs and then look at ours. I'm sorry but there's no comparison. The Eagles are a better comparison for what we need to do. They have an all star roster with two top tier pass catchers. That's going to be our most likely path to success.

 

 

More than 10 years back might as well be ancient history in the NFL. And I'm trying to be fair, I'm looking at all Super Bowl participants not just Super Bowl winners. The participants in recent Super Bowls have all had a pass catcher that at the time was very clearly a top tier weapon. KC this year was really the lone exception.

 

 

 

 

Obviously it's convenient to exclude the two most successful organizations in recent history simply because they have a HOF coach and and to not look back over the past 25 years, specially considering that the league is pretty close to where it is in passing utilization as it was back in 2020.

 

With that said, I decided to look at the list of recent WR's that you listed that you thought was a better example to use.

 

And here is what I found.

 

AJ Brown (twice)

Deebo/Aiyuk/Kittle

Cooper Kupp

Ja'Marr Chase

Mike Evans

 

Mike Evans went to the Superbowl during the 2020 season.  Mike Evans signed an $82.5 million contract extension in 2018.   That is an an AAV of $16.5M.  The salary cap for the 2020 season was $198.2 million Which Equals 8.3% of the total cap towards their star WR

 

Deebo Samuels in the 2020 Superbowl which was for the 2019 Season was on the roster and Aiyuk was not.  Deebo Samuels was on his rookie contract on a 4 year $7.25 million contract which is an AAV of $1.812 Million contract.  The Salary cap was $188.2 Million for this season meaning that it equaled about 1% towards the cap for him.

 

Deebo Samuels for the 2024 Superbowl which was the 2023 season was on the roster and Aiyuk was still on his rookie contract.  Deebo Samuels signed a contract extension of a 3 year $71,550,000 deal which is an AAV of $23,850,000, the salary cap in 2023 was $224.8 Million meaning that it equaled about 10.6% towards the cap.

 

Cooper Kupp  The Rams went to the Superbowl in 2022 off of the 2021 season.  Cooper Kupp signed a 3 year extension in 2020 for 3 years $47,250,000 that applied towards this season.  That's an AAV of $15,750,000, the salary cap for the season (COVID year so it had gone down) was $182,500,000 which equaled 8.6% of the cap

 

Jamar Chase Made the Superbowl in 2022 off of the 2021 season. Jamar Chase was on his rookie contract which was a 4 year $30,819,000 contract which is an AAV of $7.7Million and the salary cap that year was $182,250,000 which equaled 3.9% of the cap

 

AJ Brown  Made the Superbowl in 2023 off of the 2022 season.  AJ Brown signed a 4 year $100 Million contract extension with an AAV of $25 Million - The salary cap in the 2022 season was $208.2 Million which equaled 12% of the cap   And for the 2024 Super bowl season this past year his latest extension is 3 year $96,200,000 which is an AAV of $32 Million.  The salary cap this year is $255.4 Million which equaled 12.54% of the cap

 

The only true outlier are the AJ Brown contracts.

 

What is it that the Eagles are doing differently that allows them to spend so much on offense?

 

1) The Eagles lead the league by an incredibly huge margin that applies voided years money.  They currently have $390.4 Million in voided years.  The 2nd place team is San Francisco with $204 Million.   Buffalo which is right around where the league average at 16th place in Voided years has $33.1 Million.   10 teams have less than $10 Million.   

 

This means that the teams that employ this are willing to extend cap hits over a larger number of years.  Simply put, teams that use this are having much larger cash expenditures throughout the lifetime of these contracts.   Jeffery Laurie is willing to pay a lot more money from a cash perspective to field his team.  The team that does this the second most is the San Francisco 49ers.   It's not coincidence that the only two outliers up above are the teams that are willing to pay the most to retain their star players.

 

2) Drafting success -

A) 2021 Draft -1st pick  DeVonta Smith STARTER, 2nd round pick Landon Dickerson STARTER, Milton Williams 3rd round pick DT Impact player one of the stars of the Super Bowl STARTER-

B) 2022 Draft - 1st pick Jordan Davis STARTER, Cam Jurgens STARTER, Nakobe Dean STARTER

C) 2023 Draft - 1st pick Jalen Carter (Top 3 DT in the NFL), Nolan Smith STARTER

D) 2024 Draft - Quinyon Mitchell IMPACT starter, Cooper Dejean Impact starter

 

You said 

Quote

The Eagles are a better comparison for what we need to do.

 

Sure.   Lets get the owner to go ahead and increase his voided year usage by 1200% and pay out significantly more going forward to retain all your star players and get some in FA.   I'm for it, sounds easy.

 

And yes, lets make sure that we can draft pro bowlers every year and get some immediate pro bowl caliber level of play from rookies from our draft choices and pick up ALL PRO's along the way.   Sounds good.  Now that I think about it, every team should just go ahead and draft this well and spend this much money lol.

 

Of course this is the extreme outlier, most teams are not willing to pay that much real money to keep and collect talent and don't have this incredible recent success through the draft.

 

This is not the realistic takeaway of roster construction.   

 

Each team is different in how much their owners are willing to spend, how they construct their teams, where they are up against the salary cap, schemes and player personnel strengths/deficiencies.   

 

When you look at Superbowl champions the two biggest takeaways are:

 

1) It is almost a must to have a top tier QB.  In over 90% of the Super Bowl winners over the past 25 years they had one.

2) It is almost a must to have a top 8 defense.  Out of the past 25 Super Bowl winners, in over 85% of the winners, they had one.  The Eagles did not win the Super Bowl because of their offense, they won it because of their defense.  Any of the playoff teams could have played the Chiefs with their offense and would have won that game with the performance the Eagles had.  

 

The point of the thread was primarily two fold.

 

1) Are Wide receivers and their ascending contract values overinflated?   We know 100% that the rate of inflation for WR pay has dramatically increased to the salary cap, that is a fact, not an opinion. 

2) And for most teams, more specifically the Bills, does it make sense to go into FA and pay these overinflated rates?

 

Considering that the NFL is trending towards running more and passing for nearly 10% less than just 4 years ago and that top defenses and having an elite or near QB are necessities, and that the Bills barely have an average defense, the conclusion for me is that YES, WR pay is without doubt overinflated and NO, it does not make sense for most teams, specially the Bills to chase after a WR via FA to the tune of over 10% of the Salary cap.