2023 Free Agent Offensive Tackle Rankings

Projecting NFL Plus/Minus value added for the 2023 offensive tackle free agent class

The 2023 offseason has begun, with free agency moves already happening. Officially, the window for signing unrestricted free agents begins on March 15th with the start of the new league year. But already teams have an opportunity to extend their own free agents, and released players also are available. The franchise tag window - another important tool for retaining elite players - goes from February 21st to March 7th.

Obviously you care about more than simply the next year’s value for players signed to multi-year contracts, but it’s increasing difficult to project performance beyond the next season for players switching teams, and subsequent performance is highly correlated. In reality, most free agent signing provide most of their value to their new teams in the first season, which is why even longer term contracts are primarily structured as glorified one-year deals with a little extra guaranteed money.

This analysis using ensemble modeling, or combining multiple model types to reduce noise while gaining incremental benefits in prediction accuracy. Specifically, the projections use linear and tree-based models, in roughly equal proportion. The key metric of determining value is my NFL Plus/Minus figure, which uses advanced stats, clustering and historical on-off splits to estimate player value in a universal, points-based figure.

In this analysis, I’l detail my methodology for projecting 2023 value for free agents. I began by identifying some potential values among wide receiver free agents earlier this week, and now I’ll turn to offensive tackles. Receivers and tackles might seem like opposites on the offensive side of the ball, but they share some macro similarities in terms of team building. Elite players for both positions are more difficult to find in free agency, and they top the contract tables for the most expensive offensive non-quarterbacks. What’s unique about tackles - I’ll discuss in more detail later - is their staying power as they age.

Both right and left tackles are grouped together in this analysis sticking with the convention of PFF, where I get the grading data that partially drives NFL Plus/Minus calculations for pass and run blocking. In recent years, the market value for right tackles has risen and narrowed with left tackles, reflecting a broader opinion that the two positions aren’t dramatically different from a value perspective.

For tackles, the model features (or independent variables) are, in order of importance:

• Previous-year pass blocking NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Previous-year run blocking NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Year-before-previous pass blocking NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Draft position

• Age

• Games played (last two years)

• Year-before-last run blocking NFL Plus/Minus per game

There are two additional features (“new team” and “trade”) to differentiate free agent projections on a new team versus players who are in the middle of contracts with the same team or acquired via trade. As we saw with my macro analysis of free agency by offensive position, players who switch teams via free agency generally perform worse than the equivalent player who remains with the same team, and also underperform players acquired via trade.

TIER 1 OFFENSIVE TACKLE FREE AGENTS

This offensive tackle free agent class has been labeled as weaker by a wide swath of analysts, and my projections back up that assumption. There are only six 2023 free agents who I’m projecting to add value by their NFL Plus/Minus estimates.

The table below lists those six receivers, with their 2023 points-added projection (“Proj +/-), actual numbers for the last two seasons, games played the last two seasons, snap percentage last year, age as of Week 1 of the 2023 season, and draft position.

You can find all the tackle and wide receiver free agent projections on the paid subscriber Google Sheet. I’ll add the other positions as I work through the process this week.