Which Player at the Same Salary Would You Rather Have?
By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
In early April last year after free agency had started but before the NFL Draft, I did two articles in which I looked at two or three players who had signed identical contracts in the off-season and chose which player I’d rather have on my Dynasty Owner roster. The idea was to strip away the one thing that makes Dynasty Owner different than other fantasy football leagues (real NFL contracts and salaries) and just pit players head-to-head (or in a triple threat matchup) and predict who would have a better season. When Dynasty Owners are faced with a choice between two similar players, especially in startup drafts, it can be a bit of a crutch to use a lower salary as the final determining factor. The same is true if you’re looking at two players in the Free Agent Auction and need to decide which one to bid on.
Unlike last year, there weren’t a lot of players who got identical salaries for the same number of years this off-season. Of course, there are a lot of veterans who are signing for the veteran minimum amount for a player with their years of NFL experience (according to Spotrac, those amounts from the Collective Bargaining Agreement are: 0 years – $750,000; 1 year – $870,000; 2 years – $940,000; 3 years – $1,010,000; 4 to 6 years – $1,080,000; 7+ years – $1,165,000). However, many of them are training camp depth and pitting players who might not even make it out of training camp or are projected to be backups isn’t very interesting. Sorry if you were hoping for a backup QB breakdown of Andy Dalton and Jarrett Stidham ($5,000,000 each), or even Drew Lock and Jameis Winston ($4,000,000 each). For those, pick the backup QB with the starter who is most likely to get injured.
In 2022, I analyzed ten matchups of these player matchups, and the results were pretty good considering that all of the players had signed identical contracts. There was no hedging and taking the easy way out by picking a player who signed for one less season or was making a few dollars less in salary. The results show that I got five correct, only one incorrect and four finished with no clear winner. Four of these 2022 matchups featured players who signed multi-year contracts and six involved players under one year contracts. The matchups were as follows (winner in Bold and my choice underlined):
- Chris Godwin vs. Mike Williams – 3 years/$60 million ($20 million per year)
- Russell Gage vs. Marquez Valdes-Scantling – 3 years/$30 million ($10 million per year)
- James Conner vs. Leonard Fournette – 3 years/$21 million ($7 million per year) – No clear winner
- Josh Reynolds vs. Tre’Quan Smith – 2 years/$6 million ($3 million per year)
- Sam Darnold vs. Baker Mayfield – 1 year/$18.858 million (QB franchise tag) – No clear winner
- Mike Gesicki vs. David Njoku vs. Dalton Schultz – 1 year/$10.931 million (TE franchise tag) – No clear winner
- Deonte Harty vs. Allen Lazard vs. Jakobi Meyers – 1 year/$3.986 million (Restricted Free Agent tender)
- O.J. Howard vs. Hayden Hurst – 1 year/$3.5 million
- Duke Johnson vs. Breshad Perriman vs. Maxx Williams – 1 year/$1,272,500 – No clear winner
- Matt Breida vs. Ricky Seals-Jones vs. James Washington – 1 year/$1,187,500
The one incorrect choice wasn’t a big one, even though Matt Breida ($1,400,000) was the clear winner since neither of the other two players even played during the season. In two of the four matchups with no clear winner, there was one player who had more Dynasty Owner fantasy points, while the other player had a better Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game average. Depending on your point of view, Leonard Fournette ($7,000,000) and Baker Mayfield ($4,000,000) are the winners because they had more Dynasty Owner fantasy points and a better season-long ranking, while others may say that James Conner ($7,000,000) and Sam Darnold ($4,500,000) won by having more Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. In the three-way matchup between Duke Johnson ($1,272,500), Breshad Perriman ($1,272,500) and Maxx Williams ($1,120,000), none of them played much last year. Perriman had 21.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 11 games, while the other two only contributed in one or two games. There’s no winner as none of them were worth having on a Dynasty Owner roster last year.
Out of the five winners, only Hayden Hurst ($7,250,000) had a clearly superior season as he finished as TE20 with 110.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, while O.J. Howard ($1,232,500) only had 36.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and finished as TE58. Josh Reynolds ($3,000,000) scored twice as many Dynasty Owner fantasy points (103.9) as Tre’Quan Smith ($3,000,000) did (51.2) in the same number of games (14). Tampa Bay teammates Chris Godwin ($20,000,000) and Russell Gage ($10,000,000) were definitely better than Mike Williams ($20,000,000) and Marquez Valdes-Scantling ($10,000,000). However, neither Gage nor Valdes-Scantling were worth their salary last season. Finally, Jakobi Meyers ($11,000,000) and Allen Lazard ($11,000,000) were pretty close and ended up getting the same average annual salary contract to switch teams after becoming unrestricted free agents. Both were much better than Deonte Harty ($4,750,000) as evidenced by the salary amounts that they all received.
The ability to figure out which player with the same salary will have a great season could be the difference between winning your League Championship and finishing as the runner-up. It could also determine whether your team makes or misses the Dynasty Owner playoffs entirely. Who knows? Maybe one of these players is the guy who will help your Dynasty Owner team compete for the Chase for the Ring.
In order to help with these comparisons, let’s review how players score Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.
Any salaries and roster percentages listed were current as of the evening of June 15th. All 2023 contract information is currently listed on the Dynasty Owner platform (number of years and salaries), has been taken from Spotrac (https://www.spotrac.com/) and is subject to change and updating.
Franchise Tag Running Back Triple Threat
Saquon Barkley (RB – NYG) vs. Josh Jacobs (RB – LV) vs. Tony Pollard (RB – DAL): 1 year/$10,091,000
Here we have three RBs who had great 2022 seasons, received the franchise tag from their team as a result, and will play for one year at that franchise tag amount of $10,091,000 unless they sign a long-term contract by July 17th. The date is usually July 15th, but since that is a Saturday, the deadline is extended to Monday this season. Here they are sorted by 2022 rank.
| Player | 2023 ADP | 2022 Rank | 2022 Points | Age | 2022 Points per Game |
| Josh Jacobs | 34.0 | RB3 | 337.3 | 25 | 21.08 |
| Saquon Barkley | 23.5 | RB6 | 294.0 | 26 | 18.38 |
| Tony Pollard | 37.4 | RB9 | 252.9 | 26 | 16.86 |
It’s not listed, but all three of them are rostered in 100% of Dynasty Owner leagues. They are also all being drafted very early in Dynasty Owner startup drafts, mainly in the first three rounds. Saquon Barkley is being drafted about a round earlier than both Jacobs and Pollard. All three are good players and at a certain point, I’d take each one in a startup draft depending on my draft position, but I can only choose one here.
Steve’s Choice: Tony Pollard
I’m going against conventional wisdom with this selection by taking the player who had the fewest Dynasty Owner fantasy points last year, the lowest points per game and is being drafted last out of the three in 2023 startup drafts. I realize people are totally skeptical about Mike McCarthy’s play calling abilities, but in McCarthy’s 22 years as an offensive coordinator and head coach, he’s had six different players across 11 seasons run for 1,000 yards or more in a single season. Admittedly, he didn’t have one 1,000 rusher in his final four seasons in Green Bay and two out of his three seasons in Dallas, but a large part of that in Green Bay was having Aaron Rodgers ($50,271,667) at QB and having to split carries between Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott ($15,000,000) for the past three seasons in Dallas.
With little competition for carries in 2023, I’m predicting Pollard will get at least 70% of the rushing attempts for the Cowboys and since the team has averaged 374 carries per season for the last three seasons between Pollard and Elliott combined, that means Pollard should get around 260 rushing attempts in 2023. Pollard has averaged 5.13 yards per carry for his career with a low of 4.31 yards per carry in 2020. If I project that out, Pollard should have between 1,074 and 1,334 rushing yards this season. In his four years in Dallas, Pollard has averaged 30 receptions per season for 252 receiving yards. He has scored 22 TDs with 12 last season, but we’ll take the average and round up to give him a base of 6 TDs. At the low end, that gives Pollard 192.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (1,074 rushing yards, 30 receptions, 252 receiving yards and 6 TDs). At the high end, we’ll give him the 39 receptions that he had each of the last two seasons plus the average of his receiving yards, which is 354 receiving yards. Pollard and Elliott combined for 24 TDs last season, so we’ll give Pollard 12 TDs (rushing and receiving) as his upper amount for 2023. That would give Pollard a total of 279.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which would have ranked him as RB7 in 2022. Not a bad season at all.
For reference, Jacobs never exceeded that projected number of Dynasty Owner fantasy points until 2022. Barkley also exceeded that total last year, but that was the first time since 2018 that he did. Therefore, neither one is a lock to do better than Pollard.
Pollard has a great chance to be the lead back with little competition at RB in Dallas for a head coach who wants to run the “damn ball”. Unless you consider Ronald Jones ($1,232,500), Rico Dowdle ($1,040,000), Deuce Vaughn ($993,334), or Malik Davis ($750,000) to be competition. Neither Jacobs nor Barkley has a lot of competition either right now, but I’m most confident in Pollard being able to repeat his 2022 success.
Finally, neither Jacobs nor Barkley has signed their franchise tag tender yet and didn’t participate in their team’s mandatory minicamp. Pollard did sign and was a limited participant at Dallas’ recent minicamp. With Jacobs and Barkley both not happy with their contracts, maybe their teams start looking for RB depth. I like that Pollard appears to be more invested in the upcoming 2023 season, so I’ll take him before both of those other RBs.
Repeat Matchup at Wide Receiver
As mentioned earlier, I did a three-way matchup among undrafted rookie free agent WRs (Deonte Harty, Allen Lazard and Jakobi Meyers) who played last year for the one-year, second round tender salary amount of $3.986 million that can be given to restricted free agents (RFAs). Two of those three players proceeded to have very similar 2022 seasons and sign contracts for the same annual amount (again). It’s time for a rematch! Even though the contracts are for a different number of years and aren’t truly identical.
Allen Lazard (WR – NYJ) vs. Jakobi Meyers (WR – LV): $11,000,000 annual salary (4 years for Lazard and 3 years for Meyers)
Lazard moved on from Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers and the duo will now play for the New York Jets. Jakobi Meyers left New England to be reunited with former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels in Las Vegas. The third member of last year’s triple threat matchup, Deonte Harty ($4,750,000) didn’t get as much salary or as many years (only 2 years) after playing in only four games in 2022 and accumulating just two receptions for 13 yards plus 145 return yards and a lost fumble (3.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). Not even close to as much production as Lazard and Meyers gave their Dynasty Owners.
| Player | 2023 ADP | 2022 Rank | 2022 Points | Age | 2022 Points per Game | Roster Percentage |
| Jakobi Meyers | 182.2 | WR29 | 178.3 | 26 | 12.74 | 78.69% |
| Allen Lazard | 156.0 | WR35 | 174.8 | 27 | 11.65 | 78.28% |
For some reason, despite having fewer Dynasty Owner fantasy points last season than Meyers overall and on a per game basis, Lazard got the longer contract and is being drafted about two rounds earlier in Dynasty Owner startup drafts. Meyers is rostered in a couple more leagues than Lazard, but it’s really, really close so what likely happened is that a couple fewer Dynasty Owners dropped Meyers when their contracts got updated. It was a difficult decision last year and the competition was a close one. In the end, I went with Meyers and picked correctly. With both players moving on and playing for a different team in 2023, maybe my choice will also be different.
Steve’s Choice: It’s not. Jakobi Meyers (again)
The first thing plenty of people will say after reading my choice is “Biased Patriots fan” and on its face, that seems to be a logical response. However, I said this last year and it ended up being pretty spot on.
“…it’s no surprise that I chose Meyers, but I believe Meyers has the past performance to back up this choice. He had more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than both Lazard and Harty in each of the past two seasons and could still be the WR1 in New England, even after the acquisition of DeVante Parker.”
I’ll pat myself on the back for predicting that Meyers would be the best of the three WRs with those identical contracts and maintain his WR1 status in New England, even after the Patriots traded for DeVante Parker ($7,625,000). Please don’t think that I’m predicting Meyers will be the WR1 for the Raiders ahead of Davante Adams ($28,000,000) this season though. Barring an injury to Adams, that’s not happening. However, I do think Meyers will be better in 2023 because he has less competition on his new team and performed better in their respective careers and every season except back in 2019.
The last part of the previous sentence is probably difficult for some fantasy football players to believe, but if you look at it objectively, Jakobi Meyers has performed better in the NFL than Allen Lazard. Lazard’s highest Dynasty Owner finish was last year when he was WR35 with 174.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 15 games (11.65 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game). Meyers outscored Lazard by 3.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in one fewer game in Lazard’s best season. In 2021, Meyers finished as WR29 (same finish as 2022) with an average of 10.94 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game, while Lazard was WR49 with 9.50 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. In 2020, Lazard played in four fewer games than Meyers and scored 1.50 fewer Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (11.28 for Meyers vs. 9.78 for Lazard). Only in 2019 did Lazard perform better when Meyers was an undrafted rookie Patriots slot receiver and played behind Julian Edelman.
The main reason that Dynasty Owners are likely picking Lazard earlier than Meyers in Dynasty Owner startup drafts is his connection with Aaron Rodgers. Meyers will have a new QB in Jimmy Garoppolo ($24,250,000) in Las Vegas, while Lazard and Rodgers have worked together for the past four seasons. However, Meyers has outperformed Lazard in the last three seasons and playing with Cam Newton in 2020 and Mac Jones ($3,896,588) for all of 2021 and most of 2022. Call me a Patriots homer if you want, but I’ll gladly take the guy who has been better in each of the past three seasons over the guy who’s never been the top guy for his QB and now has more competition at WR with the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson ($5,138,502) plus Mecole Hardman ($4,500,000), Randall Cobb ($3,000,000), Denzel Mims ($1,358,425) and Corey Davis ($12,500,000) all fighting for targets from Rodgers for the Jets.
Running Backs Making Not Much More than the Veteran Minimum Salary
There are a lot of players who will sign one-year contracts for the veteran minimum salary or get a small signing bonus and make slightly more than that amount. A lot of them are players who Dynasty Owners are familiar with, but still guys who may or may not make their team’s roster out of training camp. However, I did find one pair of running backs to look at who had solid 2022 seasons before signing another one year deal just over the veteran minimum salary amount.
Jerick McKinnon (RB – KC) vs. Latavius Murray (RB – BUF): 1 year/$1,317,500
McKinnon and Murray have plenty of similarities. Both are over 30 years old (Murray is 33, while McKinnon is 31), playing for high-powered offenses, and for teams led by one of the best QBs in the NFL. In terms of personal performance, both had seven games in 2022 with more than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
However, differences exist as well. While McKinnon has played the past two seasons for Kansas City, Murray has bounced around and played for three different teams in that time (Baltimore, Denver and New Orleans) and will be on his fourth team when he suits up for Buffalo in 2023. McKinnon is listed as 5’9” and 209 lbs., while Murray is bigger at 6’3” and 230 lbs. The “tale of the tape” below compares the two veteran RBs.
| Player | 2023 ADP | 2022 Rank | 2022 Points | Age | 2022 Points per Game | Roster Percentage |
| Jerick McKinnon | 131.9 | RB21 | 189.7 | 31 | 11.86 | 100.0% |
| Latavius Murray | 246.0 | RB35 | 140.4 | 33 | 12.76 | 66.39% |
Likely because of the two games he had at the end of the Dynasty Owner regular season with more than 30.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, McKinnon is being drafted far ahead of Murray in 2023 Dynasty Owner startup drafts. McKinnon’s ADP of 131.9 puts him at the end of the 11th round on average, while Murray is a mid-21st round pick with his 246.0 ADP. McKinnon is also on a roster in every single Dynasty Owner league right now, while Murray is available in the Free Agent Auction in about one-third of Dynasty Owner leagues. Those are pretty significant differences for two older RBs who have quite a few similarities and had similar production last season. In fact, Murray actually averaged more Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game than McKinnon did.
Murray missed a couple of games at the start of the 2022 season as he didn’t sign with the New Orleans practice squad until after the first game of the season, then was signed off the Saints practice squad by the Broncos after playing one game for the Saints (in London). McKinnon also got a late start to the season as he wasn’t used much until Week 14 against Denver and Week 15 against Houston. The Denver game was the first game last year in which he got more than 10 touches in a game.
Steve’s Choice: Jerick McKinnon
Not surprisingly, I’m going with the guy being drafted nearly ten rounds ahead of the other guy. However, the decision was closer than you might think. The one thing holding me back from taking Murray is that I feel like Buffalo is more likely to add one of the available free agent RBs, such as Ezekiel Elliott ($15,000,000), Dalvin Cook ($12,600,000), Leonard Fournette ($7,000,000), or Kareem Hunt ($6,000,000) than Kansas City. Kansas City remains my dark horse candidate to sign Cook if he doesn’t go back home to play for Miami or go to Buffalo and play with his brother James Cook ($1,458,014).
My crystal ball is out for repairs right now, so I don’t know where each of those free agent RBs sign and my recent declarations on the topic are questionable at best. I was someone who was pretty confident that Dalvin Cook wasn’t going to be released by the Vikings and stuff happened that week that showed I didn’t know what the Vikings were going to do (listen to the June 9th edition of the Dynasty Owner podcast if you haven’t already done so and hear it for yourself). If both the Chiefs and Bills sign one of those veteran free agents, McKinnon is more likely to see steady playing time than Murray. McKinnon would still play on third down, while Murray projects as more of a backup RB in that scenario.
Conclusion
So far, these are the best three identical contract signings of 2023 out there to analyze. I’ve found a couple of close ones, so I can do a few additional matchups in my next article, but I’ll have to fudge a little bit on the comparisons. Even the Lazard-Meyers matchup was a bit of a fudge and not 100% identical. Last year definitely saw more players get the same salary who could be looked at as a direct comparison. Hopefully I can still make some additional matchups interesting for all of my fellow Dynasty Owners even if the contracts aren’t identical.
Another thing that’s not identical are the strategies employed by Dynasty Owners in startup drafts. In every 12 team Dynasty Owner startup draft, there are 12 different strategies being employed. Other regular dynasty fantasy football leagues can get a little chalky, especially at the beginning of the draft, but not Dynasty Owner!
If you haven’t gotten into a Dynasty Owner startup draft yet and are done with rookie drafts, or are still waiting for a rookie draft to start, you’re in luck. You can scratch your fantasy football draft itch by joining a Dynasty Owner startup draft this coming weekend (June 17th and 18th) or do a Monday night draft on the 19th. There are more startup drafts coming all summer until the start of the NFL season. Go to your D.O. Store, click on New Team for 2023, and find a time when you can draft this weekend, or a weekend in the future.
While you’re waiting for your next rookie or startup draft, or just looking at your current teams and working on improvements, Dynasty Owner has plenty of content to help you out. Matt Morrison – The Jerk started looking at players who received new contracts for this season in his New Contract Spotlight series. The first one about A.J. Brown was published a few days ago. If you have a startup draft soon, then you have to check out two recent articles by Jay Pounds. One is about the best players by ADP being selected in every round of a Dynasty Owner startup draft and the most recent article had Jay list players who Dynasty Owners shouldn’t be drafting at their current startup draft ADP.
We also have a new writer who you can find on Twitter (@aobgsports) who plays under the team name All Outta Bubble Gum here on Dynasty Owner. He bought a couple of orphan teams for just $10 and is writing about what he’s doing with them. You can follow along by checking out his first article. The next article will be out next week along with another one from Matt. There will be two articles a week from us over the rest of June and all of July for your reading pleasure.
Jay and I also do a weekly Dynasty Owner podcast and we also have a weekly Friday Livestream with me and Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer. Tim’s out this week, but I’ll be on at 11 AM with a couple of special guests. If you want to see and hear Tim, go to the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel and check out last week’s Livestream or one of the live mock draft episodes from earlier in the off-season. Finally, don’t forget to follow Dynasty Owner on Twitter. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner