Does NFL free agency work? Ranking all 32 teams in value added the last 3 seasons

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NFL free agency gets underway Monday with the opening of the negotiation period at noon ET, and teams will start taking steps toward building and retooling their rosters for the 2023 season.

As the league has grown, so too has the amount of attention and buzz surrounding this part of the calendar. Player movement always garners excitement and for good reason. Free agency provides teams with an opportunity to inject their rosters with elite talent, as long as they spend their money in the right places.

But how much of an impact does free agency actually make? As this year’s window begins, we set out to answer that question.

The methodology for our study was relatively simple. Using contract figures from Over The Cap, we determined the amount of cash each team spent on the 657 free agent signings over the past three seasons — 2020 through 2022.

A few parameters here: We only included free-agent signings who received at least $1 million in cash, and we also only included free agents who signed before the start of the regular season. So in-season signings like Odell Beckham Jr., who joined the Rams in November 2021, were not factored in. Players who re-signed with a team were also not included. The cash number was calculated only for the seasons in which a player was on his free-agent contract. If a player signed an extension, we stopped counting the cash the year the extension went into effect.

Next, we had to quantify a value for each player’s on-field production. Unfortunately, there was no ideal solution for this. Football does not yet have a reliable all-encompassing value stat like WAR — Wins Above Replacement — in baseball. But Pro Football Reference has a statistic called Approximate Value (AV) that is about as close as we can get. It is not perfect, and that is something to keep in mind when reviewing the results of our study. Pro Football Reference describes AV as “an attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year (since 1960).” You can find a full explanation for how AV is calculated here.

We inputted cash spent and approximate value figure for each of the 657 free agents. Using those figures, we could then calculate how much cash each team spent on free agents over the past three seasons, as well as how much total approximate value those free agents produced.

Once we had the data, there were several ways to organize it to produce different rankings.

We can sort by total AV produced to see which teams have gotten the most value out of free agents over the past three seasons, regardless of the money spent.

We can sort by cash spent to see which teams were most active in free agency.

Divide the approximate value by the millions of cash spent, and you end up with how much approximate value each team produced per million spent — an indication of which teams have been most efficient in free agency over the past three seasons.

We can also sort the free agents individually to see which players produced the most total AV, as well as which players produced the most AV per $1 million cash earned.

Let’s dive in.

No huge surprise here in terms of the team leading the way in free-agent AV produced over the past three seasons. The Bengals built their defense largely through free agency, and those free agents were a big part of Cincinnati’s Super Bowl run in 2021. Safety Vonn Bell, edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, defensive linemen Larry Ogunjobi and D.J. Reader, and cornerbacks Chidobe Awuzie, Eli Apple and Mike Hilton have been key pieces on that unit.

The Packers have been the least active team in free agency over the past three seasons, spending by far the least amount of cash on free agents at $18.9 million. No other team has spent less than $51.5 million, which is pretty stark evidence of how the Packers have gone about building their rosters in recent seasons. Some of that, of course, is how much cap space they have used on Aaron Rodgers.

The Packers jump from last place to first place when organizing the data by AV produced per million. They have not spent much in free agency, but when they have, they were rather successful. Small sample size is a factor here. The Packers have only spent more than $1 million in cash on seven external free agents over the past three seasons. But the big difference-maker was linebacker De’Vondre Campbell. The Packers paid him $2.5 million in cash in 2021, and Campbell broke out as a first-team All-Pro, producing 14 AV. He then signed a five-year, $50 million extension in 2022.

The Bengals dropped down to 19th in the AV per million rankings. The Trae Waynes contract, signed in 2020, put a huge dent in Cincinnati’s figure. The Bengals paid Waynes $30.86 million in cash over two seasons. He only played in five games and produced just 1 AV.

Most of the teams ranked highly in the AV per million list spent less in free agency but were very efficient in how they spent their money. One exception is the Texans, who have taken a pretty fascinating approach to free agency. Over the past three seasons, Houston signed 39 external free agents that made at least $1 million in cash, including 36 over the past two seasons. None of those 36 free agents have made more than $5.5 million cash. They did not have any home run success stories, but they did find some value in the middle and lower tiers of free agents.

The Titans had a few huge misses, like Vic Beasley (0 AV for $9.5 million in cash) and Bud Dupree (9 AV for $33.93 million), which is why they ended up at the bottom of these rankings.

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Teams have been successful in targeting edge rushers on the free-agent market. Leonard Floyd, Matthew Judon, Hendrickson and Robert Quinn are all in the top 10 in total AV produced while on their free-agent contracts.

The Patriots have received a lot of criticism for their 2021 free agent class, namely the huge contracts they gave out to tight ends Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith. Those two deals certainly affected New England’s AV per million figure. However, they did have two big wins in that group — Judon and defensive lineman Davon Godchaux, who both cracked the top 10 in total AV produced for free agents over the past three seasons. The Pats ended up in 16th in AV per million.

Safety Tashaun Gipson Sr. has played well above his contract in two of the past three seasons, appearing in our top 10 twice — in 2020 with the Bears and with the 49ers last season. He made just $1.05 million in cash in both of those seasons. Gipson agreed to terms Sunday evening to return to the 49ers on a one-year, $2.9 million deal.

The Campbell deal in 2021 is one of the best contracts signed over the past three seasons.

Agholor caught 48 passes for 896 yards and eight touchdowns in 2020 with the Raiders, and he leads the way in AV per million for that season. He cashed that in for a two-year, $26 million deal with the Patriots in 2021 and has not produced at the same level in New England. Those are the highs and lows of free agency.

The Chargers’ Morgan Fox was just outside the top 10, ranking 11th in AV per million. He finished 2022 with 6 AV and only made $1.19 million in cash.

(Top photo of Matthew Judon and Jack Conklin: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)