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Through one quarter of the NFL season, I wanted to take a look at which teams are giving the most playing time to pending unrestricted free agents (I included players with a 2020 Void Year as UFAs).
All snaps are not created equal, and an injury may have thrust a particular player into a larger role, even though that is not necessarily a good thing for the team. Therefore, it is not automatically a red flag if a team has a lot of UFAs contributing significantly (especially if the team has performed poorly thus far).
Nevertheless, teams must plan ahead. Certain position groups with several UFAs seeing a lot of snaps could raise eyebrows for a front office. Draft picks and/or free agency dollars could be earmarked based on early 2019 production.
With that said, I broke down the team-specific positions to keep an eye on.
First, here are the league-wide numbers:
Overall Team Snaps for 2020 UFAs:
Offensive Snaps for 2020 UFAs:
Defensive Team Snaps for 2020 UFAs:
The breakdown for each team with each player is below. I have also included the projected 2020 Cap Space for each team below:
Columns: Player | Position | Off. Snaps | % of Total | Def. Snaps | % of Total
AFC East
NYJ – $53.7M 2020 Cap Space (34 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $45M Effective Cap Space)
NE – $45.7M 2020 Cap Space (46 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $43.1M Effective Cap Space)
MIA – $115M 2020 Cap Space (41 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $110M Effective Cap Space)
BUF – $86.7M 2020 Cap Space (44 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $83.1M Effective Cap Space)
AFC North
PIT – $2.4M 2020 Cap Space (41 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – (-$2.66M) Effective Cap Space)
CLE – $61.2M 2020 Cap Space (47 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $59.2M Effective Cap Space)
CIN – $60.6M 2020 Cap Space (41 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $55.5M Effective Cap Space)
BAL – $68.9M 2020 Cap Space (39 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $62.7M Effective Cap Space)
AFC South
TEN – $50.4M 2020 Cap Space (38 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $43.8M Effective Cap Space)
JAX – (-$10.5M) 2020 Cap Space (46 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – (-$13M) Effective Cap Space)
IND – $108.9M 2020 Cap Space (42 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $104.3M Effective Cap Space)
HOU – $88.8M 2020 Cap Space (39 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $82.7M Effective Cap Space)
AFC West
OAK – $78.7M 2020 Cap Space (33 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $69.5M Effective Cap Space)
LAC – $62.8M 2020 Cap Space (38 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $56.1M Effective Cap Space)
KC – $23.6M 2020 Cap Space (40 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $18M Effective Cap Space)
DEN – $67M 2020 Cap Space (37 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $59.9M Effective Cap Space)
NFC East
WAS – $53.4M 2020 Cap Space (45 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $50.3M Effective Cap Space)
PHI – $39.3M 2020 Cap Space (36 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $31.7M Effective Cap Space)
NYG – $65.2M 2020 Cap Space (37 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $58.1M Effective Cap Space)
DAL – $92.6M 2020 Cap Space (36 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $85M Effective Cap Space)
NFC North
MIN – (-$1.2M) 2020 Cap Space (37 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – (-$8.4M) Effective Cap Space)
GB – $25.1M 2020 Cap Space (41 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $20.1M Effective Cap Space)
DET – $46.4M 2020 Cap Space (36 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $38.8M Effective Cap Space)
CHI – $14.6M 2020 Cap Space (35 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $6.5M Effective Cap Space)
NFC South
ATL – (-$8M) 2020 Cap Space (40 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – (-$13.6M) Effective Cap Space)
CAR – $51.6M 2020 Cap Space (37 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $44.5M Effective Cap Space)
NO – $27.1M 2020 Cap Space (39 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $20.1M Effective Cap Space)
TB – $82M 2020 Cap Space (37 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $74.9M Effective Cap Space)
NFC West
SEA – $75.4M 2020 Cap Space (40 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $69.8M Effective Cap Space)
SF – $26.4M 2020 Cap Space (42 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $21.8M Effective Cap Space)
LAR – $37.2M 2020 Cap Space (39 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $31.1M Effective Cap Space)
AZ – $83.3M 2020 Cap Space (32 Players currently under Contract for 2020 – $73.6M Effective Cap Space)
Each team has their own pressing needs, but they also have financial realities they have to deal with moving forward. The rest of the season will go a long way in determining priority extensions and which players teams will let walk. However, the lineup a team rolls out in Week 1 (again, excluding injuries) is the lineup they determined was optimal after Training Camp. We can certainly learn from these figures through four weeks.
As seen on Colin Cowherd’s The Herd