Just The Usual Roster Turnover?

One of the things I've learned with all the number crunching over the past couple years is that sometimes it pays to just throw everything into Excel, pop up some graphs, and see what comes out.  That's exactly what I did with today's post -- with a surprising result.

It certainly seems like the Eagles have had a crazy offseason, doesn't it?  Key veterans ditched, tons of new faces brought in ... it's been a whirlwind.  One of the concerns after so much upheaval has to be the question of how long it will take the team to gel.  Players need to get a feel for each other, especially at places like the offensive line or in the secondary, where so much is based on communication and knowing what the guys around you will do.  If the team gets off to a slow start, that's going to be an easy excuse/storyline. 

Except what's weird is that there hasn't been as much turnover as we'd think.  There's actually an extra column in the Excel sheet underlying the roster experience post I've done a few years running:  years as a member of the Eagles.  I've never used the number, as far as I can remember, but I've tracked it along with overall experience because it just makes sense that player familiarity would have some impact on performance.

Last night I pulled those numbers, sorted them into the proper buckets, and came up with this:

 

It's the typical story.  The first couple years, Andy dumped the roster, so there's a ton of green (first or second-year Eagles).  Then things settled down, with only two real blips since about 2001:  1) the hold-it-together 2005 into the time-to-clean-house 2006, and 2) the purge of the old guys after 2008.

What's interesting, however, is that this year really doesn't look all that different from what we've seen in the past.  Three first-year starters is exactly what we saw from 2002-2004.  The three second-year starters is a one-player bump over those seasons, but no one's all that worried about Asante or DeSean (Quintin Demps on the other hand...).  Based strictly on numbers, this year isn't that unusual.

Now, of course, we're not just talking about numbers.  It's one thing to bring in a new weakside linebacker (again); it's entirely something else to have two new guys on the offensive line matched up with another dude who didn't play last year.  And this version of the chart assumes Sheldon Brown sticks around, Demps beats out Sean Jones, and nothing weird happens at the WR or TE positions.  By the end of the season, things could look a lot different. 

Right now, however, the graph actually suggests Reid has been pretty methodical in turning his roster over every year.  Imagine that.