Yesterday, Scott Barrett, a fantasy football writer from everybody’s favorite football site Pro Football Focus threw together this informative, color-coordinated graphic to show how teams are spending their money by position in 2017:
Using OTC data, here’s how each team is allocating their money spent at each position for the 2017 season. pic.twitter.com/DG8Q7fbonT
— Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) March 21, 2017
Some dominoes have yet to fall in free agency, and the NFL Draft is still over a month away, so these numbers for the Lions—who are fairly close to being capped out—still stand to change a bit by the beginning of the 2017 season. For example, DeAndre Levy’s contract is still accounted for here until his contract comes off the books after June 1.
Here are some interesting notes gleaned from the chart:
- With the aforementioned Levy still on the books, the Lions are currently spending a larger percentage of their cap funds on defense than offense. In 2016, the Lions defense finished dead last in Football Outsiders DVOA last season at +20.4 percent.
- The NFC North as a division is spending the least amount of money on running backs. Both the Lions and Vikings are tied for the highest percentage of money spent at the position within the North at a paltry three percent, but the Lions lead the way in total dollars spent at $5.3 million.
- Even though Detroit handed out substantial contracts to Rick Wagner and T.J. Lang this offseason, the team is still only spending 15 percent of their cap on offensive linemen, which actually puts them below the league average mark of 18.5 percent.
- Defensive back, a position where plenty of media members, writers and fans wish to see the team address with an early selection in this year’s draft is actually where the team has the most amount of its cap allocated at 21 percent.
- A contract extension for Matthew Stafford is looming even though the two sides haven’t had contact as of March 1:
We have not. We have not talked to Matthew and his representatives. I think that’s something that eventually we will get to. We’ll see how that goes. We’re kind of taking it one step at a time with the current free agent class, the current draft class.
But Stafford’s cap figure of $22 million in 2017 would actually be less going forward in the short term should the two sides get a deal done.