NFL positions making the most money: Offensive linemen trending way up, defensive backs on downslide

Every NFL offseason, it seems like the market, at least in one position, changes in a significant way. Guards got paid in a massive way this offseason, and wide receivers are beginning to as well. Meanwhile, the safety market seemingly collapsed while the running back market had a rally. 

But that’s just one offseason, and it’s significantly affected by the timing of which players happened to hit free agency. To get a complete picture of how positional markets have shifted, it’s better to look at a larger sample. And because teams can manipulate cap numbers in a variety of ways by using things like restructures, void years and option bonuses, it’s also better to look at cash spending than cap spending. 

The chart below shows the percentage of cash spending at each position for every year since 2014, as well as the trend line for those positions. Those trend lines are labeled “Linear (Position)” in the chart. Basically, the chart shows how NFL teams have allocated their spending over the last decade, as well as in the season to come. 

There are a few very easily noticeable trends here. 

First, you can see that the offensive line, defensive line and defensive back groups are taking up the greatest shares of the cap. The reason for this should be obvious; teams are playing between four-to-six players — or even seven — on any given snap, and thus have more of them on their roster than they do players at any other position. 

The next group consists of quarterbacks, wide receivers and linebackers. Again, the reason is obvious. There is only one quarterback on the field, but the best quarterbacks make significantly more money than anyone else, which bumps the position into the same bucket as receivers and linebackers, where teams typically have between two and four of them on the field at any given time.

And lastly, the running backs and tight ends check in at the bottom. There are usually just one or two of those players on the field, and the depth charts are shorter than they are at most other positions. In addition, running back contracts had been on the decline until this past offseason, while the spread of elite pass-catching tight ends is a more recent phenomenon.

Then we come to the trends. The single-most noticeable one is that…