In his latest Forbes article, Validea.com CEO John Reese looks at 5 dividend plays that offer much more than just dividends. Reese looks at dividend investing as it relates to football and discusses how dividends are just one piece of the investing equation, just like one player on a football team is only one piece of the puzzle. As Reese puts it, “In investing, certain numbers also don’t always tell the whole story. That might sound strange coming from someone who runs quantitative strategies, but it’s true. A stock paying out a high dividend yield may, for example, be just like that running back who had a great season behind an incredible offensive line–take away the catalyst, and the result will be much different.”

Reese explains that free cash flow yield can be an excellent differentiator to use in identifying dividend payers with the best long-term potential. A major advantage of using free cash flow in conjunction with dividend yield, according to Reese is that “a company that generates lots of free cash–that is, money left over after it pays for its operations and necessary capital expenditures–gives itself lots of options. It can buy back its own shares, expand in its business through acquisitions, pay down debt, or maintain or increase its dividend.”

To view the full article, head over to Forbes.com. To use Validea’s proprietary guru analysis engine to identify high yield stocks that also pass the tests of some of history’s greatest investors, take a free trial.