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Introducing Expected Contract Value

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The idea behind Expected Contract Value is to forecast what the decision makers of a team would do with a given contract in a given off-season if all they could do is look at the contract, but had no idea which player the contract belonged to. As it turns out, by simulating this seemingly absurd scenario, we can account for approximately 80% of real-life decision-making. We are basically saying, "Look, we may not be able to legitimately measure or value the performance of football players, let alone project performance into the future. But that’s fine, we can completely ignore performance and health and team situation, and still forecast the decisions a team will make about a contract based solely on the characteristics of the contract. So, ‘football people,’ tell us what you think the player is worth in terms of dollars and cap with respect to performance relative to other players, however you go about determining that, and we will show you how your future decisions will be affected by the method and timing by which you allocate those dollars and cap numbers over a given contract."