Does NFL Free Agency work? Ranking of all 32 teams by value added over the last 3 seasons

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NFL free agency begins Monday with the opening of the negotiation phase at 12 p.m. ET, and teams will take steps to build and retool their rosters for the 2023 season.

As the league has grown, so has the attention and excitement around this part of the calendar. Player movement always causes excitement, and for good reason. Free agency offers teams the opportunity to enrich their rosters with elite talent, as long as they spend their money in the right places.

But how much influence does free agency actually have? At the start of this year’s window, we set out to answer that question.

The methodology for our study was relatively simple. Using Over The Cap’s contract numbers, we determined the amount of money each team spent on 657 free agent signings over the past three seasons – 2020 through 2022.

Here are a few parameters: we only considered free-agent signings that received at least $1 million in cash, and we also only considered free-agents who signed before the start of the regular season. Thus, mid-season signings such as Odell Beckham Jr., who joined the Rams in November 2021, were not included. Players newly signed to a team were also not included. The cash number was only calculated for the seasons that a player had his free agent contract. If a player signed an extension, we stopped counting the money in the year the extension went into effect.

Next, we needed to quantify a value for each player’s on-field performance. Unfortunately, there was no optimal solution for this. Football doesn’t yet have a reliable all-encompassing value statistic like WAR – Wins Above Replacement – in baseball. But Pro Football Reference has a statistic called Approximate Value (AV) that comes as close as possible. It’s not perfect, and you should keep that in mind when reviewing the results of our study. Per Football Reference describes AV as “an attempt to determine a player’s seasonal value at every position and year (since 1960) with a single number.” For a full explanation of how AV is calculated, click here.

We entered the cash spent and approximate value for each of the 657 free agents. Using those numbers, we were then able to calculate how much money each team spent on free agents over the past three seasons and how much approximate total value those free agents produced.

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

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

We can sort by money spent to see which teams were the most active in the free hand.

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 the most efficient in free hands over the past three seasons.

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

Let’s dive in.

Not a huge surprise considering the team has been at the forefront of free-agent AV for the past three seasons. The Bengals largely built their defense freelance, and those free agents were a big part of Cincinnati’s Super Bowl run in 2021. Safety Vonn Bell, edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, defensemen Larry Ogunjobi and DJ Reader, and cornerbacks Chidobe Awuzie, Eli Apple and Mike Hilton were key figures in this unit.

The Packers have been the least active team in free agency for the past three seasons and have by far the least spending on free agents at $18.9 million. No other team has spent less than $51.5 million, which is pretty testament to how the Packers have built their rosters over the past few seasons. Part of that, of course, is how much cap space they used on Aaron Rodgers.

The Packers jump from bottom to top when they organize the data by per million AV produced. They didn’t spend much on free hands, but when they did, they were quite successful. Small sample size is a factor here. The Packers have only spent more than $1 million in cash on seven outside 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 and produced 14 AV. He then signed a five-year, $50 million extension in 2022.

The Bengals fell to 19th in the AV per million ranking. Trae Waynes’ contract, signed in 2020, took a toll on Cincinnati’s physique. The Bengals paid Waynes $30.86 million in cash over two seasons. He only played in five games and only produced 1 AV.

Most of the teams that ranked high in the AV per million list spent less on free agency, but were very efficient in how they spent their money. One exception is the Texans, who have taken a rather intriguing free-hand approach. Over the past three seasons, Houston has signed 39 outside free agents who have earned at least $1 million in cash, including 36 over the past two seasons. None of these 36 free agents have earned more than $5.5 million in cash. They didn’t have any track records of their own, but they did find some value in the middle and lower tiers of free agents.

The Titans had a couple of big mistakes, like Vic Beasley (0 AV for $9.5 million in cash) and Bud Dupree (9 AV for $33.93 million), putting them at the bottom of this ranking.

The teams were successful in targeting edge rushers in the free agent market. Leonard Floyd, Matthew Judon, Hendrickson and Robert Quinn all rank in the top 10 of all AV produced during their free agent contracts.

The Patriots have received a lot of criticism for their 2021 free-agent class, namely the huge contracts they awarded tight ends Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith. Those two deals certainly impacted New England’s AV per million. However, they did have two big wins in that group – Judon and defenderDaph Godchaux, both of whom cracked the top 10 in total AV production for free agents over the past three seasons. The Pats finished 16th in AV per million.

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

The Campbell deal in 2021 is one of the best deals signed in the last three seasons.

Agholor caught 48 passes for 896 yards and eight touchdowns with the Raiders in 2020, and he leads this season in AV per million. He cashed that in on a two-year, $26 million contract with the Patriots in 2021 and hasn’t produced at the same level in New England. Those are the ups and downs of free agency.

Morgan Fox of the Chargers was just outside the top 10, finishing 11th in AV per million. He ended 2022 with 6 AV and earned just $1.19 million in cash.

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