Sturm: Weekend Cowboys Riffing – Stacking The Positions By Importance

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[h=1]Weekend Cowboys Riffing – Stacking The Positions By Importance
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By Bob Sturm 5 hours ago





55 days since the final game of last season, 63 days until the NFL Draft, 196 days until opening night of the 2018 season…



BEST PLAYER AVAILABLE – AND WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN IT AS AN ABSOLUTE

Every day of every week until the draft gets here, you will hear draft people tell you that you take the best player – regardless of his position and regardless of your team's current situation – in every draft. They mean well. I understand the idea and I agree with roughly 64% of their premise.


But, where the rubber truly meets the road is when we ask what that means. For instance, if a center is your top-rated player in the 1st round for 4 straight years, do you take him every time? Of course, you don't. Nobody says you are to pass on great prospects for very good ones, but – in a world with salary caps and big-picture planning, if you don't think these things through with strict guidelines to influence your conversation, you are not learning lessons to apply from experience.


I think it is important to have a conversation that can be applied to any franchise and any season when it comes to looking at an upcoming Draft. Teams need to ask themselves a simple question: How do we stack the 22 positions on the field by their level of importance?


General Managers must know who to pick when assembling their board and must, before doing anything else, establish which positions on the football field are the most important places to have an elite talent. I am not talking purely about this year's prospects. I am talking about the overall philosophical question: Does a shutdown corner create more value than a guard? Should I draft a player who plays a position with an average NFL shelf life of five years when other positions can often go 8-10 years? Do I debit those who have less influence on the games than others? There is obviously a reason no functional franchise takes a kicker and punter in the early rounds. That is the product of this very discussion.


Teams only get a single first-round pick every year. But, if you have 22 different positions that take 1,000 snaps per season, and the average NFL career is somewhere between 3.3-6 years, you can't fortify each spot with a “premium” selection. The math doesn't work.


You simply cannot have great players at every position. The salary cap is a hard cap without the flexibility to create more space. This is a vital question because top picks get the highest salaries – both in their rookie contracts and then in their new extensions (usually). If you treated all positions identically, there is a good chance you would believe in simply taking “the best player available.” With the salary cap, a team can hand out between 5-8 “big contracts”. That value keeps changing, but basically, I can only pay a half-dozen players in my organization a “top 5” salary at their position or the ends won't meet.


The theory behind the 'Best Player Available' philosophy indicates that if you simply follow it, regardless of fit or positional significance – you assemble a squad of good football players and that should be enough to win in any situation. The trouble is, as we alluded to earlier, your resources. With one first-round pick a year and your fixed salary cap, you will either spend your resources on vital positions with a great effect on the game, or you will spend them on a randomized collection that may or may not make sense in the grand scheme.


The next essential question, then, becomes this one: Which positions most strongly correlate with winning? A great QB seldom finishes 3-13. But, every lousy team in the league has some special players at certain spots.


I like to back up points with statistics. This “riffing” session will not allow for that, however, at least not without getting so dense that nobody wants to continue on. This piece is strictly opinion and the experience of studying drafts for almost two decades – from reading what GMs think in countless books and visiting with as many wise football men as possible – and trying to compose this mental list that also must evolve with the league because this NFL is not the same NFL from 1998 and definitely not the same from 1978. You had better keep evolving with it, or you will be quickly left behind.


Perhaps before you go on in this piece, you should stop reading and collect your own mental list. If I asked you to take the 22 positions on the field (let's limit the list to that and not “specialized reserves” like slot WR or dime DB), give me your top 10 positions of importance. Forget about your current roster for this exercise. Can you win with an average player at this position? Do players at a particular spot normally share responsibilities? Which positions generally skew toward long careers and good health?


Ask yourself, if you can only have “special” players at 5 positions of your choosing, what would they be?


Waiting for you to put your Top 10 list together…..Getting a coffee……Turning on some music……Checking the Olympics…..Scrolling through Instagram……
Ready?


Were I starting a team from scratch as GM, this would be my list. These are the 10 spots of vital importance for putting a winner on the field. Some of these in the top 10 are interchangeable and too close to rank, but you will get the idea.


1: Quarterback – The easy answer at the top is QB. Everyone (hopefully) agrees that nothing helps a team get ahead in the sport of football more than having a difference-making QB. Can you win games with average? Sure. But, get me a Top QB and I will be in the playoffs 67% of the time and possibly make a few runs at the Super Bowl.


2-4: Left Tackle, Cornerback #1, and Edge rusher – This is a 3-way tie for the positions of great priority. Ask just about any GM and they would quickly list those 4 spots on the roster as the “blue-chip” roster spots. To win in this league, you had better have a great pass protector on the blind side, a corner who can help take away the opponent's biggest weapon, and a pass-rusher who can trouble the opponent's most important player – their QB. I used edge rusher because regardless of defensive scheme, 4-3 or 3-4, and position, DE or OLB, the reality is if a player can get 10 sacks a year for 5-7 years, those 50-70 sacks are worth the top pick in most drafts.


The 4 positions above have been widely considered the spots that you are willing to pay the most for in the draft and at contract time. You can also verify this list because it usually has the highest “franchise tag” price, an average of the top 5-paid players at each position. The transaction report tells you what NFL teams will and won't pay for. Football is a team sport but the meritocracy of the marketplace helps us see what the majority of teams believe.


5-6: “X” Wide Receiver and 3-Technique DT – The ability to stretch the defense, make things easier on others, and act as the dominant target that opponents cannot stop no matter what definitely makes this a spot that teams prioritize if they find a special talent. The Cowboys have felt Dez Bryant is that talent for years and there is no question that when he was at his best, opponents could not deal with him. Fletcher Cox or Aaron Donald destroying plays on the interior is, again, a study of positional scarcity. It also creates this question: How many human beings on a planet of 7 billion have the ability to move with the quickness of those guys at the size of 6'4 and 310 pounds? Not many. If you see a special one, you pounce.


The remainder of my top 10 will mirror spots 2-4.


7-9: Right Tackle, Cornerback #2, Opposite Edge Rusher/Will LB (depending on scheme) – The NFL is won on the edges at the line of scrimmage. I need secure borders on my OL and I need to cause havoc on my opponent's edge. I believe most personnel departments would agree.


10-12: Center, Middle LB, and Free Safety – Yes, I cheated and picked 12. I did so because it's important to have a great long-term solution at these spots. They are, along with the QB, a team's coaches on the field. I need a center to help see the defenses, call protections, and organize the reads so the QB isn't doing everything. I need my play-calling defenders at MLB and FS to also help see the game, obsess with film study and understand what the opponent is trying to do. I need these guys to be extremely bright as well as talented football players.


That leaves 10 spots that I would not suggest are high-priority. Are they important? Of course. Just not AS important. Another way to look at it is this: Which positions could you find a really decent group of starters that were all taken after the 2nd round? Tight Ends, Guards, Running Backs, Linebackers, and Safeties. How often do you find amazing pass rushers or Quarterbacks on Day 3? Almost never.


So, we have to define priority spots. In other words, spots I am unlikely to draft in the 1st round, unlikely to hand out one of my “big contracts” and yes, maybe even find them on Day 3 of the draft. This point will hit close to home with the modern-day Dallas Cowboys structure.


The 10 spots I would not rank as blue-chip premium positions, therefore NOT generally worth spending premium resources (1st round picks, top free agent contracts) on:


Offense: Wide Receiver #2, Running Back, Tight End, Left Guard, and Right Guard and since we are going with 11 personnel, also, slot receiver.
Defense: 1-Technique DT, Non-Pass Rush Linebacker, Strong Safety, Slot Corner


Before you storm the castle, I am not saying you don't want great players everywhere. I am saying that if I have this belief in my core of the positions most likely to make the difference between winning and losing, this list should be my tie-breaker. Do I take the best corner or the best guard in the draft? My list says corner is more vital than guard. That breaks the tie. Simple.


Now, if I can get the best TE or the 3rd-best left tackle, this equation is less simple. But since we are trying to attach values to everything, I will try to err on the side of the more premium position if it is close.


This is where we maybutt heads, because the Dallas Cowboys obviously disagree. They have taken a Right Guard (Zack Martin, who was technically a tackle prospect that they never planned on playing at tackle) and a Running Back (Ezekiel Elliott) in 2 of the last 4 drafts and seem thrilled with both picks because both have been All-Pro players.


Did it work out? Yes. Will we feel as good about it in 2024? Will Ezekiel Elliott be a better player then or will Jalen Ramsey be the proper pick? And was that only because elite corners remain elite past their 30th birthday on a far more frequent basis than running backs?


As for Martin, there are no regrets. He is a guard, but he was the BPA and has proven to be the player of their dreams. But, because he was a great player and pick, now you must (get to) pay him “elite” money at his position (I assume his next deal will be roughly 5 yrs/$60m). Your dream is that a pick is so great that you wish to lock him up for his prime, too. But in a hard-capped league, you can only afford to pay 5-8 players “elite” money at their position and you are already paying C Travis Frederick, LT Tyron Smith, and WR Dez Bryant (pending for now). We assume DE Demarcus Lawrence and now RG Martin receive these elite deals, with RB Ezekiel Elliott not far behind, with one of the biggest RB deals in the league already, you have most of your “core” contracts in place. The good news is that they are all in their primes, though Dez has begun to make us wonder and Tyron Smith's back a concern. But that is fine.


The issue then becomes Dak Prescott's deal and how much of your elite money you can sink into your Offensive Line and the running game? More importantly, when I look at the contenders every year, it sure looks like those top teams pay guards and centers the leftover money rather than the top. Pittsburgh does have a similar plan with David Decastro and Maurkice Pouncey, but I think you have to be careful about pouring too much money into spots on the field where most football people think “you can't over-invest at that spot”. There are exceptions to every rule, but if I give you $100 to feed yourself for the week, please don't spend it all before Tuesday's dinner.


As this riff comes back around, this is why I have already engaged in arguments online about the Cowboys and their Offensive Line. They are already paying Tyron Smith the most money of any Left Tackle in football after spending a first-round pick on him. Travis Frederick is the highest-paid center in the NFL and was also a 1st round pick. Zack Martin will likely be the best-paid right guard in the league and was also a first-round pick. La'el Collins earned a first-round evaluation by almost everyone, but the Cowboys were able to get him very cheap. That said, there are just 2 right tackles in the NFL making more per year in their contracts than he is (Lane Johnson and Ricky Wagner). With those 4 massive cash outlays, I am not willing to spend yet another 1st rounder on the 5th and final spot on my OL – unless he is far and away the best player left available. In other words, Quenton Nelson? Sure. Otherwise, let's address some weaknesses this spring in the 1st round and figure out left guard without using the most valuable offseason chip available.


The priorities of the roster (most notably Dak Prescott's weapons and the defense in general) need the blue-chip prospect much more than the star-studded O-Line needs its 5th.
 
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