Last year, I looked at AV Retention Rates, a measure of how sticky a team’s composition was from year to year. We’ll get to the methodology in a minute, but let’s start with two examples.

Cincinnati was very consistent from 2014 to 2015. Andy Dalton was the quarterback both years, and Jeremy Hill, Giovani Bernard, and A.J. Green were the three leaders in yards from scrimmage in 2014 and again in 2015. The offensive line was unchanged, with Andrew Whitworth, Andre Smith, Clint Boling, Kevin Zeitler, and Russell Bodine as the main five in both years, although Smith and Zeitler missed some time in 2014. The big change on offense wasn’t external, either: it was the return from injury for both Tyler Eifert and Marvin Jones, which dropped Mohamed Sanu down in the pecking order.

On defense, Geno Atkins, Domata Peko, and Carlos Dunlap were starters on the defensive line both years, with Rey Maualuga manning the middle and Reggie Nelson and George Iloka at safety. Adam Jones and Leon Hall were two of the three cornerbacks to play 60%+ of defensive snaps in both years, with the main change in the secondary being being Dre Kirkpatrick replacing Terence Newman (Minnesota). On the line, the big change was the return of Michael Johnson from a one-year stint in Tampa, with Wallace Gilberry dropping from 73% of snaps to 58% as a result. And at linebacker, Maualuga, Vincent Rey, Vontaze Burfict, and Emmanuel Lamur were the four to see the most snaps in both 2014 and 2015, though the pecking order changed a bit.

In other words, the 2015 Bengals looked a whole lot like the 2014 Bengals. But in Washington, turnover was the story of the 2015 season. In 2014, Kirk Cousins started 5 games; last year, he started all sixteen. Matt Jones and Chris Thompson combined for over 50% of snaps at running back last year, reducing the heavier load endured by Alfred Morris in 2014. Tight end Jordan Reed caught 11 touchdowns and led the team in targets last year, but started two games and didn’t score in 2014.

On the offensive line, only LT Trent Williams was a holdover. With RG Chris Chester in Atlanta, 5th overall pick Brandon Scherff took over and started all 16 games. Morgan Moses, a third round pick in 2014 who started just one game as a rookie, took over at right tackle, relegating 2014 starter Tom Compton to the bench (he’s now in Atlanta with Chester). Kory Lichtensteiger (center) and Shawn Lauvao (left guard) both started in 2014, but were lost early in the season with injuries, putting Spencer Long (G) and Josh LeRibeus (C) into the lineup.

At safety, Ryan Clark, Brandon Meriweather, and Phillip Thomas were replaced by Dashon Goldson, Kyshoen Jarrett and Trent Robinson. At corner, Bashaud Breeland was the consistent presence year over year, but David Amerson (one of the lone blunders from Washington’s front office last year) and E.J. Biggers were replaced by Will Blackmon and DeAngelo Hall (limited to just 3 games in 2014). The front seven was relatively consistent year over year, though Jarvis Jenkins and Brian Orakpo were gone in 2015, with Preston Smith, Ricky Jean-Francois, Terrance Knighton coming on board.

Of course, going team-by-team can be pretty tedious, so I whipped up a formula to measure retention rates.

I calculated the amount of turnover each team had from 2014 to 2015 using the following methodology:

1) Calculate the percentage of team AV gained by each player in 2015.

2) Calculate the percentage of team AV gained by that player for that team in 2014.

3) Take the lower of those two values.

4) Sum the values of each player for each team to derive a team retention grade for each franchise.

Using this methodology, 71.7% of the Bengals value was retained from 2014 to 2015, compared to just 44.7% for Washington. In the graph below, I’ve plotted each of the 32 teams, with their AV retention rate on the Y-Axis and winning percentage in 2015 on the X-Axis. Washington, seen in the bottom right, has the lowest AV Retention Percentage of any team to make the playoffs, while Cincinnati and many of the best teams from last year are in the upper right corner of the graph.

I have presented the same information below in table form, and also included 2014 win percentage and the difference between team winning percentage in 2014 and 2015 for each franchise. As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Rk Team AV % 2014 Win % 2015 Win % Improvement 1 CIN 71.6% 0.656 0.750 0.094 2 SEA 67.8% 0.750 0.625 -0.125 3 GNB 63.7% 0.750 0.625 -0.125 4 PIT 61.8% 0.688 0.625 -0.063 5 CAR 58.7% 0.469 0.938 0.469 6 MIN 58.7% 0.438 0.688 0.250 7 BAL 58.2% 0.625 0.313 -0.313 8 ARI 57.3% 0.688 0.813 0.125 9 DAL 56.8% 0.750 0.250 -0.500 10 NWE 55.7% 0.750 0.750 0.000 11 DET 55.3% 0.688 0.438 -0.250 12 STL 54.8% 0.375 0.438 0.063 13 PHI 54.4% 0.625 0.438 -0.188 14 HOU 54.1% 0.563 0.563 0.000 15 IND 53.6% 0.688 0.500 -0.188 16 BUF 53.3% 0.563 0.500 -0.063 17 NYG 52.5% 0.375 0.375 0.000 18 NYJ 51.6% 0.250 0.625 0.375 19 DEN 50.9% 0.750 0.750 0.000 20 KAN 50.8% 0.563 0.688 0.125 21 MIA 49.2% 0.500 0.375 -0.125 22 CLE 47.6% 0.438 0.188 -0.250 23 SDG 47.1% 0.563 0.250 -0.313 24 ATL 46.9% 0.375 0.500 0.125 25 JAX 45.5% 0.188 0.313 0.125 26 TEN 45.3% 0.125 0.188 0.063 27 WAS 44.7% 0.250 0.563 0.313 28 NOR 43.7% 0.438 0.438 0.000 29 TAM 42.6% 0.125 0.375 0.250 30 CHI 41.4% 0.313 0.375 0.063 31 OAK 41.2% 0.188 0.438 0.250 32 SFO 40.3% 0.500 0.313 -0.188

The Bengals really stand out here, as the only team over 70%. Only three other teams — Pittsburgh, Green Bay, and Seattle — were over 60%. The Packers and Steelers are rightfully famous for having homegrown rosters, but the Bengals consistent success with homegrown players is an underrated NFL storyline.