Seahawks value ratings: The good, the bad, and the weird

Like virtually anyone that writes about sports – the Seahawks in our case – we defer to the experts for detailed analysis. But sometimes, you gotta wonder. I mean, what are they looking at?

The genesis for this article came from spotrac.com, a site about which I cannot say enough wonderful things. Except for maybe just a little bit this one time. Many sites have their own formulas to create a single number – or value – for a given player. This is fantastic for fans, fun even, for a little more alliteration. It helps us win bets with friends when we say that Darrell Taylor gave the Seahawks better value than Uchenna Nwosu.

I know, you’re scratching your head as you push that teeny little “x” in the corner of the page. Do me, and yourself, a favor and give me a couple more minutes to explain. Make that three if you read slowly, or five if you’re a Niners fan. When you look at their production, it’s obvious that Nwosu’s value was much greater than Taylor’s. Except for you, Niners fan; I know you appreciate Taylor a whole lot more, and I understand that.

Seahawks players had some very interesting valuations in 2022

Now the thing is, Spotrac isn’t primarily a stats site: their focus is on the financial aspects of the NFL. Hence, you see a lot of links to their site whenever we write about free agency and contracts. Along with overthecap.com, they are an absolutely fantastic resource for any fan that wants to dig into that side of the sport. And any sport, not just the NFL.

Just to liven things up a bit, Spotrac created Value Rankings. They can explain it much better than I, so here is the complete description of their ranking system, from their value rankings of the 2022 Seahawks:

"An up-to-date look at the value rankings of all active NFL players based on a mathematical comparison of their current average salary against their cumulative “production points”. These points are made up of major statistical categories relevant to that player’s position. From there, we generate a z-score for each player among their position, to rank them with a “value”.  This True Value rating is what you see below."

In a nutshell, they looked at the production of the player, then factored in their salary, and voila! The value ranking, or True Value rating, is the result. Obviously, a player with great stats at a low salary is going to have a very high-value ranking. Likewise, a player that underperforms on a big contract is going to look like a bust.

Now, in most cases, yes, if you underperform on a big contract, yep, you’re a bust, alright. We’re not talking about players who were injured, so you three malcontents who want to snipe about Jamal Adams, take it outside. There now, that’s all better. Now we can get to the good, the bad, and yes, the weird.