Pittsburgh Steelers’ CBA Report for the 2020 Season

SPEX 670

Matt Newhall
Executive Summary

The Pittsburgh Steelers is losing many players to remain under the salary cap for the

2021 season. The problem is determining how competitive they will be in the season after adding

new players to replace the ones the Steelers lost. The costs are simple to evaluate but the benefits

are more complex. Determining the benefit-cost ratio will help determine how successful they

will be during the 2021 season.

Introduction and Problem Statement

For my project, I decided to perform a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) on the potential roster

for the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 2021 season. A National Football League or NFL team's

roster comprises 53 players that either play offense, defense, or special teams. Some players have

multiple roles, such as being a backup on offense or defense but starting on special teams. Due to

the salary cap, teams will only have $186,658,555 to spend on players for the 2021 season. The

salary cap is not a rigid limit because some of the previous cap space from the previous season

will impact the 2021 salary cap depending on how much the team spent. While the roster

consists of 53 players, only the top 51 salaries affect the salary cap for the season.

The problem that the front office of NFL teams faces is where to allocate the cap space

due to the salary cap. Some teams invest in a couple of superstars, which does not allow for

much depth. The opposite is also true because having depth but no superstars will lead to a less

competitive team. Finding the sweet spot of star power and depth is what every front office is

trying to achieve year in and year out. Forming a full roster within the constraint of the salary

cap is resulting in more difficult signings for the front office and coaching staff. The limited
amount of money to spend on players results in careful consideration of each player's cost and

benefit.

Methodology

For my CBA project, I wanted to determine the costs and benefits of putting together an

NFL roster. I chose the Pittsburgh Steelers because they are my favorite NFL team, thus the one

I have the most knowledge of before any research. I started my data gathering once the league

year started on March 17th, so any transactions the Steelers made after this date will not be

applied to this analysis. However, this is not to say I did not sign the same player as the

organization in my analysis. I utilized Pro Football Focus's NFL Draft Simulator for simulating

which rookies the Steelers would be able to draft in the upcoming 2021 draft.

I used OverTheCap.com for calculating my cost and determining what action to take for

specific players. Benefits were more abstract and more challenging to calculate compared to the

costs. For the benefits, I used Pro Football Focus (PFF) and Pro Football Reference (PFR) to

gather PFF grades and snap percentage, respectively. Snap percentage is how many plays a

player was in the game for divided by the overall number of plays. I decided the best way to

measure benefits was by the formula:

Benefit Score = PFF Grade * (Offensive/Defensive Snap Percentage + Special Teams Snap

Percentage)

This formula takes playing time into account, so players who have high PFF grades but

low playing time regress to the average. The Benefit Score does not punish players who

prioritize playing offense or defense, such as Ben Roethlisberger and TJ Watt. I analyzed the

costs and benefits through Microsoft Excel using the functions that are built into the program.
Pros and Cons

I identified four stakeholders during the CBA analysis: the front office, the coaching

staff, the NFL, and the fans of the Steelers. The pros and cons center around star power added to

the team versus roster depth for the internal stakeholders. The pros for the front office are the

most obvious, including keeping some of the fan favorites on the team and revenue from the

media deals. The biggest con is that there was not a megastar signing to help with drawing in

new fans. The pros for the coaching staff include keeping players who already know the

offensive and defensive scheme and adding depth to the roster if anyone gets injured. The con is

the same as with the front office in that there was no megastar signed to add more talent to the

team.

The pros and cons for the external stakeholders, the NFL, and the fans, are harder to

identify since it is more challenging for them to affect the Steelers. The biggest pro for the NFL

is that the Steelers are competitive since they are one of the most recognizable franchises. The

only con that I could consider is that the Steelers did not add a megastar for the NFL to use to

promote their games. The fans biggest pro is that the Steelers kept many the players that the fans

enjoy having on the team. The con is I was not able to keep all of the fan favorites due to

remaining under the salary cap.

Stakeholder Mind Map

https://mm.tt/1838523610?t=MFrizrvGjE

The two stakeholder groups that have the most significant impact on the success of the

Pittsburgh Steelers are the coaching staff and the front office. Both are internal stakeholder

groups, so they have more say over decisions that affect the Steelers than external stakeholder
groups. The coaching staff can impact the team's success by poor play calling and situational

awareness, which separates the excellent coaching staff from the bad ones. The front office can

impact the team's success by signing, drafting, or trading players that do not fit the team and

mismanaging the salary cap. These are not the only ways for the coaching staff and front office

to impact the team, but they seem to be the most meaningful.

All the stakeholder groups play a role in the success of the Steelers, but some are more

important than others. The most important stakeholder group is the front office since the group

makes decisions such as which players to draft and sign and whom to hire as the head coach. The

least important stakeholder group would be the NFL since they have an equal stake in all 32

teams, so it cannot be as important to them as the other three groups. The fans are critical

because they would not make millions of dollars in merchandise sales without them.

The influence of a stakeholder group can take various forms depending on if they are

external or internal. Internal stakeholder groups can more easily affect the process of the team as

opposed to external stakeholder groups. I have previously mentioned how the coaching staff and

front office can affect the process, but the NFL can affect teams by changing the rules of the

game. In recent years, the NFL has changed the rules in a way to help offenses score more points

to make games more entertaining and for safety reasons as well. There is no one way for a

stakeholder group to influence the process of the Steelers.

Assessment of Bias

Every human has biases, and I am no exception. My biases for the CBA project involve

players' productivity and talent and what is a reasonable salary. My perspective is that of a fan

that has no experience as an NFL scout or NFL agent. My bias ultimately influences my analysis
because I do not have real-world experience with scouting professional athletes or contract

negotiations. I can read all about the topics, but there is no substitute for real-world experience.

All this means that the analysis will not be equivalent to an NFL scout and agent analysis.

Bias and perspective affect my CBA project by determining what players I view as worth

their contract. At the heart of my project, I am trying to get the most value out of a player relative

to their contract. For example, I have the Steelers signing Jadaveon Clowney to a 1 year/$10

million contract. Some fans think this would be a terrible choice; others would say it is fantastic.

Why is there any difference when everyone watches the same games? It is all a matter of

perspective and bias that determines how someone views a player. I imagine someone can be

truly objective by not having a single piece of information about the topic. This way, there is no

subconscious bias or preexisting stance on the topic at hand.

My CBA analysis changes based on the perspective of which stakeholder I am acting as.

If I am the owner, I want to maximize my profits which means spending little on free agency like

the Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers. If I am the head coach, then I do not care about

the profit, so I will spend as much money as legally allowed. For my CBA analysis, I want to

make both parties happy, so I will find where the two meets in the middle.

Risk Assessment

The risks that I identified in my CBA report were not finding enough information on the

players' incentives and quantifying the benefits of the players. I was unable to find enough

information on the incentives in the contracts of the Steelers players to use as part of the overall

benefit to the team. It would have helped because there are likely to be earned (LTBE) incentives

and not likely to be earned (NLTBE) incentives, so knowing which incentives were in a player's

contract would help evaluate that player. Since I did not find enough information on the subject,
I changed my quantifying approach to the team. The most considerable risk going into the CBA

was determining the best way to evaluate the benefit to the team. As I mentioned above, my first

thought did not work, but I believe I found a better way to evaluate the benefit a player adds to

the team. I decided to create a metric that takes the grade PFF gives to players and factoring in

playing time.

Timing plays a vital role in risk assessment because circumstances change every day, so

something important yesterday may not be as significant today. For my CBA project, timing

adds little risk because I ignore what transactions the Steelers do in real life. Since I have already

drafted players in my project, I do not have to have the outcome finalized by the start of the

draft. The only date that would impact my project would be the start of the actual 2021 season of

the NFL.

Most of the opportunities I identified in my CBA report were from determining the costs

of this analysis. There were many different strategies for constructing a roster while remaining

under the salary cap for 2021. I opted to sign players to add depth to the positional groups while

drafting a couple of starters and more depth. My biggest signing was Jadaveon Clowney to a 1-

year, $10 million deal: the exact terms the Cleveland Browns signed Clowney to earlier this

month. Having such a wide variety of opportunities allowed me to be creative when determining

the costs of the CBA.

Data
 2021 Salary Cap Impact
Player Name Signed Cut Drafted
Ben Roethlisberger $ 25,910,000
Joe Haden $ 15,575,000
Stephon Tuitt $ 14,940,750
David DeCastro $ 14,297,500
TJ Watt $ 10,089,000
Jadaveon Clowney $ 10,000,000
Eric Ebron $ 8,500,000
Cameron Heyward $ 7,481,250
Devin Bush $ 5,146,846
JuJu Smith-Schuster $ 5,000,000
Chris Boswell $ 4,773,333
Terrell Edmunds $ 3,403,842
Zach Banner $ 3,000,000
Cam Sutton $ 3,000,000
Derek Watt $ 2,953,333
Minkah Fitzpatrick $ 2,722,878
Avery Williamson $ 2,500,000
Chukwuma Okorafor $ 2,386,091
Joe Haeg $ 2,000,000
Chase Claypool $ 1,503,781
James Washington $ 1,432,247
Kameron Canaday $ 1,290,000
Mason Rudolph $ 1,247,867
Diontae Johnson $ 1,167,535
Justin Layne $ 1,080,545
Benny Snell Jr. $ 1,025,517
Alex Highsmith $ 1,022,591
Ray-Ray Mcloud $ 1,000,000
Jaylen Samuels $ 984,516
Anthony McFarland Jr. $ 960,608
Kevin Dotson $ 944,703
Zach Gentry $ 936,115
Isaiah Buggs $ 892,158
Ulysees Gilbert III $ 881,960
Robert Spillane $ 850,000
Aviante Collins $ 850,000
Dwayne Haskins $ 850,000
Trevor Williams $ 850,000
Carlos Davis $ 803,376
James Pierre $ 783,000
Antoine Brooks $ 780,000
Charles Jones $ 780,000
J.C. Hassenhaur $ 780,000
Steven Nelson $ 6,170,000
Teven Jenkins $ 3,250,000
Javonte Williams $ 1,700,000
Quinn Meinerz $ 1,200,000
Divine Diablo $ 1,000,000
Shane Buechele $ 960,000
Shemar Jean-Charles $ 900,000
Mustafa Johnson $ 840,000
Amari Gainer $ 780,000
 The table above details the top 51 salaries that will impact the salary cap for the Steelers

in the 2021 season. In the cell-shaded red, Steven Nelson was cut from the Steelers to save

money and allow for more spending to add depth. The players in the green shaded cells are

players that I signed for the analysis, while the players in the white cells are already on the team

who were kept for the analysis. The players in the yellow shaded cells are the players I drafted

using PFF's NFL Draft Simulator.

The salary cap impact for the white and red shaded cells was taken directly from

OverTheCap.com, while the green and yellow shaded cells were my approximations based on

research done by PFF and my knowledge of the NFL. Most of my signings involved retaining

some of the players that seemed realistic such as Zach Banner and Avery Williamson. The

biggest signing I made was the addition of Jadaveon Clowney to replace Bud Dupree, who

signed with the Tennessee Titans this offseason.

 Benefit Score
Player Name PFF O/D Snap % ST Snap % Score
Cameron Heyward 89.5 78% 24% 91.69
Minkah Fitzpatrick 76.4 99% 14% 86.29
TJ Watt 91.6 83% 10% 85.15
Alex Highsmith 72.9 42% 59% 74.12
Terrell Edmunds 71.2 84% 12% 68.53
Chase Claypool 75.5 63% 27% 68.03
Stephon Tuitt 75.8 76% 11% 65.79
Cam Sutton 68.9 53% 41% 64.95
Ben Roethlisberger 69.0 92% 0% 63.36
Chukwuma Okorafor 57.4 94% 15% 62.82
Joe Haden 66.6 82% 11% 61.85
JuJu Smith-Schuster 70.0 84% 1% 59.44
David DeCastro 66.2 77% 7% 55.36
Diontae Johnson 70.4 67% 4% 49.85
James Pierre 80.5 3% 50% 42.18
Eric Ebron 57.5 70% 1% 40.62
Robert Spillane 56.1 37% 34% 39.75
Benny Snell Jr. 57.0 26% 43% 39.31
Justin Layne 48.3 11% 57% 33.14
Ray-Ray Mcloud 69.9 15% 32% 32.71
James Washington 63.8 44% 1% 28.82
Jadaveon Clowney 74.9 38% 0% 28.46
Kevin Dotson 66.2 33% 10% 28.35
J.C. Hassenhaur 57.7 28% 11% 22.45
Avery Williamson 51.7 30% 11% 21.31
Derek Watt 37.9 5% 47% 19.50
Dwayne Haskins 48.4 39% 0% 18.88
Jaylen Samuels 44.5 11% 30% 18.07
Devin Bush 59.7 27% 3% 17.83
Joe Haeg 57.3 12% 15% 15.47
Isaiah Buggs 46.5 13% 3% 7.24
Ulysees Gilbert III 53.8 3% 10% 7.16
Mason Rudolph 75.4 7% 0% 5.41
Anthony McFarland Jr. 56.5 8% 0% 4.57
Zach Banner 63.7 5% 1% 4.05
Carlos Davis 60.3 5% 0% 3.43
Trevor Williams 65.4 3% 2% 3.27
Antoine Brooks 64.5 3% 2% 3.23
Zach Gentry 44.4 2% 2% 1.88
Chris Boswell -
Kameron Canaday -
Aviante Collins -
Charles Jones -
Teven Jenkins -
Javonte Williams -
Quinn Meinerz -
Divine Diablo -
Shane Buechele -
Shemar Jean-Charles -
Mustafa Johnson -
Amari Gainer -
 The table above depicts the Benefit Score I have created to determine the best way to

judge how beneficial a player is to the team. The players in the blue shaded cells are defensive

positions, the players in the orange shaded cells are offensive positions, and the players in the

grey shaded cells are specialists. The first column depicts the PFF grade each player received for

the 2020 season. Some players do not have a number; instead, they have a dash, which means

they did not play enough snaps to receive a grade by PFF or an incoming rookie. The O/D Snap

% column is the percent of plays a player was on the field for offense or defense. The third

column is the percent of plays a player was on the field for special teams. The score column puts

the information of the first three columns into the formula I mentioned in the methodology

section.

Analysis

The goal for the project is straightforward, to create the best roster possible while

remaining under the salary cap set for the 2021 season. While the goal was clear, the analysis

was more difficult than initially thought. This was due to how difficult creating an accurate

measure of benefit was regarding player performance. The first step was to get an accurate

measure of how each player performed in the 2020 season. PFF is seen as the premier grading

system due to how much detail they go into when assigning them. For example, A touchdown

that bounces off a defender's hands and just so happens to land in a receiver's will not be as

highly graded as when a quarterback throws a 40-yard back-shoulder touchdown that only the

receiver can catch.

When you compare the PFF grades of two top receivers whom both play the same

number of snaps, there is no issue using PFF grades. However, the issue arises when you

compare PFF grades between two players who do not play anywhere close to the same number
of snaps. For example, James Pierre's snap percentage between special teams and defense was

53%, while Minkah Fitzpatrick's snap percentage between special teams and defense was 113%,

yet Pierre earned a PFF grade of 80.5 while Fitzpatrick earned a PFF grade of 76.4. This

highlights how I cannot simply compare PFF grades between players who play vastly different

snap percentages. The formula helps strike a balance between the PFF grade and playing time so

that players are rewarded for contributing on offense, defense, and special teams.

The costs of the players are easy to analyze because it is just the amount of their salary

that impacts the salary cap for the 2021 season. Most of the team was already in place, so I only

needed to add more meaningful depth and sign one or two playmakers. The average cost of the

players is $3,490,320, while the average Benefit Score is 37.03. I multiplied the average Benefit

Score by 100,000 to get a score to use in the benefit-cost ratio, which came out to 1.06. This

BCR means that the Steelers will be above average and will most likely end the season 9-8.

Conclusion

The goal of this project was to determine how successful a potential Steelers roster would

be for the 2021 season. The process would involve signing, drafting, and cutting players to field

a 53-man roster that remained under the salary cap that was set for the 2021 season. The costs

were simple to figure out, but the benefits proved much more difficult. I had to create a Benefit

Score to more accurately gauge how beneficial a player was to the team. The benefit-cost ratio

was 1.06 which means the roster will be competitive during the 2021 season.
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https://www.mindmeister.com/1838523610?t=MFrizrvGjE

(n.d.). In Over The Cap. Retrieved from https://overthecap.com/

(n.d.). In Pro Football Focus. Retrieved from https://www.pff.com/

(n.d.). In Pro Football Reference. Retrieved from https://www.pro-football-reference.com/