| dc.description.abstract |
The importance of the left tackle position in comparison to the other offensive line
positions in the National Football League (NFL) has been widely debated amongst sports
commentators, as the left tackle is traditionally the second highest paid player on
a football team behind the quarterback; yet, this debate lacks empirical findings.
This paper aims to quantify the impact of the individual offensive linemen on the
chance of winning a game on a game-by-game basis and then compare the impact of the
left tackle to the other offensive line positions. Using a conditional logistic regression
and the marginal effects from that regression, the results do not dispute the NFL's
current trend in spending more on the left tackle in comparison to the other offensive
line positions. The results show that optimal spending for the left tackle could extend
to 15.976 percent of the salary cap. Thus, the possibility remains that the optimal
spending for the left tackle can range up to fifteen percent of the salary cap, seven
percentage points above the next highest optimal offensive lineman spending.
|
|
