Week 7 Valuation: Kirk Cousins Leads the Way

Week 7 is in the books and we have updated all of our valuations for the week. If you aren’t familiar with our valuations we recently introduced you can read about it here. The short version though is that we look at player’s snap counts, PFF grades and statistics and re-value everyone’s contract based on their performance while maintaining the general structure of the market for each position. Here is the breakdown for this week.

Team of the Week: Minnesota Vikings, $272.1M

The Vikings fielded the most expensive team in the NFL this week (they totaled about $212M for everyone taking a snap), but they lived up to it this week with a $272M value. Kirk Cousins was the highest valued player of the week while Everson Griffen, Danielle Hunter, Stefon Diggs, and Riley Reiff all came in over $15M. The NFC North is certainly competitive but you could make a case that the Vikings for the last few weeks have been the most complete team in the division.

Best Value Team of the Week: Jacksonville Jaguars, +$126.8M

The Jaguars generally have one of the more expensive units in the NFL but with Nick Foles on IR and a few other notables on the sidelines they have dropped to the bottom third of the NFL in terms of talent taking the field on a weekly basis. Overall they finished 2nd in the NFL this week with a $268.5M roster value which produced $126.8 million in value over their salary of $143 million.

Worst Team of the Week: Washington Redskins, $143.3M

For the most part this just wasn’t a fair game for Washington or their opponents who came in 2nd worst in value this week. They played their game in a monsoon which pretty much rendered everyone on offense inept and offensive gameplan’s that were not exactly going to make the defense stick out either. Washington only posted two players worth $10M on Sunday, but it almost doesn’t feel fair to put them here.

Worst Value Team of the Week: Atlanta Falcons, -$25.9M

The Falcons get the nod for the worst value of the week and were the worst team to not play in a monsoon to boot. Atlanta got blasted this week and the only thing that saved them from being even worse were a few injuries that kept their roster payroll down this week because they wouldn’t have changed the outcome. The Falcons look to be going into selling mode after this week’s game.

Top Players of the Week

Here is our list of the top players this week. The top player is the top valued player at the position while the top value player is the player who provided the most value over his current contract. You can view all of the players values for week 7 at our valuation page and subscribers to our Premium can view each week of the season as well as the current full season value for each player.

OFFENSE

Position Top Player Week 7 Valuation Top Value Player Week 7 Value over APY
Quarterback Kirk Cousins $33,687,000 Gardner Minshew $26,664,096
Running Back Dalvin Cook $13,727,000 Dalvin Cook $12,138,672
Wide Receiver Michael Thomas $20,174,000 Dede Westbrook $15,991,959
Wide Receiver DeAndre Hopkins $20,027,000 Alex Erickson $15,880,000
Tight End Hunter Henry $10,796,000 Hunter Henry $9,200,923
Left Tackle Terron Armstead $17,959,000 Marshall Newhouse $12,920,000
Center Brian Allen $10,203,000 Brian Allen $9,416,266
Guard Joe Thuney $13,293,000 Joe Thuney $12,489,643
Guard Kevin Zeitler $11,843,000 Austin Blythe $11,153,503
Right Tackle Ryan Ramczyk $14,618,000 David Edwards $13,830,870

DEFENSE

Position Top Player Week 7 Valuation Top Value Player Week 7 Value over APY
Edge Rusher JJ Watt $21,774,000 Andrew Brown $13,719,000
Edge Rusher Chandler Jones $21,180,000 Joey Bosa $13,622,582
Int. D-Line Calais Campbell $14,687,000 Kevin Strong $10,436,000
Int. D-Line Geno Atkins $13,697,000 John Jenkins $10,031,000
Linebacker Eric Kendricks $14,120,000 Nick Vigil $11,884,093
Linebacker Benardrick McKinney $13,532,000 LJ Fort $11,674,000
Cornerback Tre’Davious White $17,379,000 Tre’Davious White $14,856,152
Cornerback Marcus Peters $15,187,000 Marcus Peters $12,790,960
Safety Ronnie Harrison $13,217,000 Ronnie Harrison $12,441,095
Safety Xavier Woods $13,081,000 Xavier Woods $12,369,992

SPECIAL TEAMS

Position Top Player Week 7 Valuation Top Value Player Week 7 Value over APY
Punter Jake Bailey $3,074,000 Jake Bailey $2,371,300
Kicker Brett Maher $4,038,000 Brett Maher $3,513,000
Long Snapper Zach Wood $1,669,000 Zach Wood $1,024,000
Specialist Byron Pringle $2,440,000 Byron Pringle $1,900,000