by Jim GlassShould NFL teams invest the most in offense or defense?
Previously, discussing diminishing returns to passing, I noted that marginal return analysis says investment resources - including NFL salary cap money - should be allocated among different investments to produce the largest return at the margin.
In plain English about football, this means that if your team has two all-pro wide receivers and zero competent linebackers, and you have a choice between adding a third all-pro receiver or an all-pro linebacker, you'd better go for the linebacker. Adding your first good linebacker will give more net points to your team than adding a third top receiver.
This is true even if you believe offense is more important to winning games than defense. Whatever their relative importance in the big scheme of things, you are best off making salary cap investments that produce equal returns at the margin, so that your next million cap dollars invested in offense produces the same net return as the next invested in defense. With diminishing returns to additional investments, if you overinvest in offense you will receive fewer net points than from making that last investment in defense – that third good receiver gives you fewer net points than a first good linebacker. Overinvesting in defense is the same mistake in reverse.
