Does Ron Favor Vets Over Rookies?

[CarolinaSamurai]

I'm just curious how well the vets he does use perform. It just seems to me the vets he decides to be stubborn about tend to suck aka Godfrey. I'm fine having veteran leadership I just wish the guys he picked were all great players still, especially if your gonna start them. Granted there not all terrible but he's chosen some horrible guys that are real head scratchers.

[CRA]

I'm just curious how well the vets he does use perform. It just seems to me the vets he decides to be stubborn about tend to suck aka Godfrey. I'm fine having veteran leadership I just wish the guys he picked were all great players still, especially if your gonna start them. Granted there not all terrible but he's chosen some horrible guys that are real head scratchers.

Harper.  We have the slowest S in the NFL.  

Kinda wish Brady didn't miss that wide open throw on him where he got burned for a TD.  At least Ron would have been forced to at least answer a question or two about his lack of ability to keep up with WRs.  

We we have enough run support 

[Paintballr]

Does having an increase in active roster of 65 from 58 have an effect of having "more rookies" on the roster? How about the fact that rookies drafted in the first two rounds are almost expected to start not compared to 1995 when you were lucky if round 1 started.

[KB_fan]

I've not been a Panthers fan long enough to speak too knowledgeably about which vets we kept whom we should have let go sooner.  It's one thing to keep bad vets, it's another to have a clear replacement for them.  If people can provide examples of who we kept and who should have started instead it would be useful.  Hindsight is of course 20-20, making such an assessment somewhat unfair on the coaches who don't have the benefit of knowing how a decision is going to turn out before they make it.

I was struck by Ron's comment the other day about Shaq and how he thinks 5000 reps are a good target for rookies (before they start?) in order to build "muscle memory."  That could explain why Ron was "slow" in starting some of the rookies last season to replace Cason, Decoud, etc. 

[rodeo]

I don't think Ron favors rookies, I think he makes up his mind about the depth chart before the preseason even starts and nothing will change it except for injury. He's more willing to lose games than he is to change his mind.

[KB_fan]

Does having an increase in active roster of 65 from 58 have an effect of having "more rookies" on the roster? How about the fact that rookies drafted in the first two rounds are almost expected to start not compared to 1995 when you were lucky if round 1 started.

Good question Paintballr.

I'm not 100% sure of the answer.  I've been trying to tease that out myself.  There doesn't seem to be any clear correlation between roster size and numbers of rookies.  If anything the higher roster size tends to mean a slightly LOWER percentage of rookies on the team, which would suggest a lower percentage of rookies as a percentage of total games played or total starts.

Here's a graph showing all 20 years of data.  It's sorted in NON-CHRONOLOGICAL order, sorted by roster size from smallest to largest.  3 of the Rivera teams happen to be the largest rosters at the far right. 

In 2012 and 2014, rookies were actually underrepresented on Rons teams as a % of the roster, yet they got major playing time.

See what you make of it.  I don't see any obvious pattern that would suggest that roster size alone explains why Ron's teams have a larger % of rookies playing and starting.  But I've not dug into the data too closely yet.

[KB_fan]

I don't think Ron favors rookies, I think he makes up his mind about the depth chart before the preseason even starts and nothing will change it except for injury. He's more willing to lose games than he is to change his mind.

Never said he "favors" rookies.  And I haven't denied that he's loyal - perhaps too much so - to certain favorite players and perhaps willing to give more chances to them than the fans will.  But GIVEN that character, it is quite surprising just how high a percentage of rookies have been playing on his teams.

[KB_fan]

@Paintballr a few more thoughts in response to your question on roster size.  Ron's teams have been pretty large by historical standards (in terms of "active roster" or numbers of players recording games played) [Note: all stats I used were pulled from ProFootball Reference, which is where I downloaded all 20 years of rosters]

Obviously we've been in a team rebuilding phase, and also in Cap Hell.  There's been tons of turnover from year to year (much less this year), and thus lots of "hits & misses" on the roster, turnover based on trying to find a player that works in a position of need (and also due to many injuries last year).

I'm guessing this could be a big factor infuencing why Ron has played so many rookies - they're cheap, and, of course, Gettleman has proved an awesome evaluator of talent, so Ron's also had a good pool to work with.

So, I don't think higher roster size = higher rookies playing / starting.  But I think BOTH the higher roster size and the higher numbers / % of rookies playing are influenced by issues like the team's salary cap crisis...., and therefore related, but not correlated.  Does that make sense?

[KB_fan]

I just realized it would be helpful to add an additional data series to that graph I posted above related to rookies and roster size.  I've added an additional series showing rookies % of total starts by all players.  (the green line)  Compare the green line to the black line.  The black line is the % of rookies on the roster.  The green line represents rookie starts as a % of all starts.  So, for instance, in 2012, rookies started in higher proportion to their representation on the roster.  It's notable that in 3 of the 4 years Ron has been head coach the % of rookie starts is much closer to their percentage representation on the team, meaning he is starting a higher % of the rookies he has on the team.

note: the lines are linked to the right side axis (the % figures).  The bars are linked to the numbers on the left side axis.

[KB_fan]

Here's the same graph in chronological order, in case it makes things easier to look at and interpret.

note: the lines are linked to the right side axis (the % figures).  The bars are linked to the numbers on the left side axis.