I did a post on this a few years ago (or last year, I can't recall), but I've updated it.
This research/post is about (a) roster construction, (b) resources as actual Draft Capital tied to on-ball players (not just OL, but iDL and Edge as well), and (c) Day 1/2 "Premium Picks" (1st - 3rd round where you should be drafting on-ball players and where you should expect to find starters and most typically immediate ones).
The teams I looked at compared to us in the old post were us, Baltimore, New Orleans, Dallas, San Francisco, Tennessee, Indianapolis, New England from 2015-2019. I'm not looking at all of those, but lets update the research to the present 5 year interval from 2016-2020 for us, Baltimore, New Orleans, Indy, Tennessee as its my opinion that those 4 teams over this period are a combination (i) the best roster construction approach while (ii) having the best combination of OL + DL/Pass Rush in the entire NFL (San Francisco is just outside of that loop, and their Run Game is propped up by the best OC and Run Game coordinator in the entire NFL). If you took the QB off of that team and put Brady on each of those teams (as a control), its my opinion that every_single_one of those teams would win 12+ games handily. Their rosters are better than ours in key places and they've all been PROFOUNDLY better than us on Teams the last 3ish years (where we've been the worst in the league...which is a HUGE indictment of the bottom of the roster...which is always about roster construction). We've routinely been a bottom feeder in Punt and Kick Coverage while these teams are routinely upper echelon.
This will capture Wirfs for us (we're basically trading the endpoint of DSmith and Marpet for Wirfs - which is actually more Draft Capital investment but less total players).
TAMPA BAY
TOTAL 10199
OL (1274 - 2)
EDGE (510 - 1)
IDL (1200 - 1)
TOTAL (2984 - 4)
BALTIMORE
TOTAL 8395
OL (2272 - 3)
EDGE (795 - 3)
IDL (1175 - 4)
TOTAL (4242 - 10)
NEW ORLEANS
TOTAL 7495
OL (1750 - 3)
EDGE (1408 - 3)
IDL (1200 - 1)
TOTAL (4358 - 7)
INDIANAPOLIS
TOTAL 9050
OL (3210 - 4)
EDGE (1250 - 4)
IDL (0 - 0)
TOTAL (4360 - 8)
TENNESSEE
TOTAL 9875
OL (2220- 3)
EDGE (1070- 2)
IDL (1325 - 2)
TOTAL (4615 - 7)
+++++++++++++++++++++
Conclusions on this should be pretty self-evident.
1) DRAFT CAPITAL DIFFERENTIAL - Its massive everywhere except Tennessee which had some lean years like us. We still have a significant edge over them in Draft Capital however. In terms of edge in Draft Capital (translating it to 2nd round picks) over every single one of these teams, Licht has had the following advantage:
BALTIMORE - 4 * mid 2nd round picks
NEW ORLEANS - 9 * late 2nd round picks
INDIANAPOLIS - 3 * mid/late 2nd round picks
TENNESSEE - 1 * mid 2nd round pick
That is an OBSCENE advantage in Premium Draft Capital over everyone who isn't Tennessee (and mind boggling for NO) during that interval. And an extra mid 2nd is a big deal in its own right.
2) DESPITE THAT PREMIUM DRAFT CAPITAL ADVANTAGE, the investment differential in on-ball players is basically the inverse! All of them have drafted nearly twice as many on-ball players as we have during that interval! All of them have drafted more in each area and with much more capital invested than us (except Indy with IDL).
3) We're old and thin on-ball on the defensive side. They're all pretty much universally the inverse.
4) We're probably about 12th in the league in the OL in 2020 (bulwarked by Brady getting the ball out) and we've been around 16-18 overall the last 3 years. All of those OLs have been better than us and are better than us. We also invest a huge amount of salary into our OL. Only Indy spends more than us (with Tennessee and Baltimore not even close). Outside of Jensen (who I expect/hope will be jettisoned in the offseason), we are extremely young on the O-line, so there is that.
5) Finally, I wouldn't be having this problem if we would have just made some very, very minor changes in draft capital allocation. Imagine if, in rd 2, we took Edge Trey Hendrickson instead of MJ Stewart in 2018 and iOL Erik McCoy over SMB in 2019 ?
Outside of the Agauyo albatross (that will never come off), this conversation wouldn't exist. The numbers above would still be skewed, but it wouldn't look remotely as bad (in the skewing and in the relative health of our on-ball players at all and particularly in light of the available capital and the capital investment).
