Panthers - Highest Retention of Free Agents

[KB_fan]

I have enjoyed browsing through the PFF Free Agency Tracking Table the past 2 days

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2016/01/11/pro-2016-free-agency-tracker/

Because it's sortable, one can easily review free agents by grade, position, age, team, status, etc.

One of the things I noticed as I was playing with it, is that the Panthers have kept the largest number of our own players hitting free agency, with 7 players retained (if you count Josh Norman), or 8 if you also include Mike Remmers whom we've tendered.  But of course, the numbers of free agents per team differs, so I wasn't sure we actually had retained the highest percentage of our players until I created a quick Excel table to do the math.

Here's what I found.  Teams are sorted by their FA retention rate, highest to lowest:

Notes:  I've included Franchised players in the "kept" totals. I have not included RFAs who may have been tendered by their team (such as the Panthers' Mike Remmers). Right now the data is pretty raw in that it doesn't distinguish WHY the player was a free agent.  Obviously a team who has a high % of free agents because they've cut bad players is different from a team that has a lot of good younger players hitting free agency as UFAs or Cap Casualties.  If many of the free agents are CUTS, you would not expect or desire a high retention rate.  I may try to play with this table more to distinguish among types of Free Agents and update it over the course of the free agency period.

You could call this "A Tale of Two Super Bowl Teams."  Wow.  Could there be a bigger contrast between the Panthers and the Broncos??!

Given that the Panthers went 17-2 and made it to the Super Bowl, it's pretty exciting that we are keeping the core of our team intact and have such high retention.  I'm thrilled that we're a team our players WANT to stay on, and in CJ & Tolbert's case, were willing to accept less money to remain a part of. 

Obviously, there's a balance.  Bringing in new blood is good.  Growing complacent with a roster or re-signing your own players merely because of sentimental attachment to vets is not a good thing, but I think Dave Gettleman and our Front Office have proven that they're not complacent, and are willing to make hard business decisions, even if it means cutting fan favorites and long-tenured players.  We have overhauled several of our position groups in the past few years (WR, DB, Oline.... and now we're revamping the Dline).  We DID cut CJ (due to cost), but he chose to come back for half of what another team offered him.  Mike Tolbert's new contract is also pretty cheap. 

Generally, when a team is good, as the Panthers were in 2015, continuity is a GOOD THING. 

 

Two more tables to show the bigger picture:

First, a look at how teams rank in terms of Free Agent % - what % of their roster is subject to Free Agency:

The Panthers rank around the middle of the league with just under 32% of the team hitting free agency. 

Note: since Free Agents include not only players who finished the season on the 53 man roster, but also those who were on the IR at the end of the season, I've used a roster size of 60 as the denominator to calculate the FA% for all teams.

 

Now:  An initial look at Turnover % as things stand now.  Subtract Free Agents retained from total free agents and divide by 60 (estimated total end of season roster size).

The Panthers are in a 4 way tie for the 5th lowest turnover rate in the league.  (But all the other teams with lower turnover rate also have a significantly lower # / % of players hitting free agency.)

I'll try to update these tables periodically, and also add more data as I find time about the types and destinations of free agent per team (e.g. players who were Cut or Retired, vs. players who signed with another team...)

 

TL:DR - Anyway you slice it, the Panthers are tops in the league right now in player retention and are proving they value continuity and low turnover.  Given how well the team played in 2015, that's exciting.

Correction:  In doing some additional data entry, I discovered I'd missed 2 players in the tables posted above.  The Jets have 27 free agents and have kept (franchised) 1.  The Patriots have 22 free agents, and have kept 2.  That means the DOLPHINS are the only team that has not (yet) retained any of its free agents.

[TheSpecialJuan]

[TheSpecialJuan]

Really enjoy your posts. Great stuff

[Riverboat Ron]

It's because the Broncos were a team of mercenaries while we're mostly home grown. Whenever you buy guys like Manning, Vasquez, Sanders, Mathis, Ware and Talib you eventually can't pay your own guys.

[PandaPancake]

I think I have a hernia from laughing. I hope I didn't wake anyone

[Cyberjag]

The locker room is a cliche

[Jangler]

Very nice post. 

Would be interesting to see how the Panthers have fared throughout the years on this. Seems like whoever is running the team, we have always tried to keep what works. I'd wager we have always kept more players.

[KB_fan]

22 minutes ago, Jangler said:

Very nice post. 

Would be interesting to see how the Panthers have fared throughout the years on this. Seems like whoever is running the team, we have always tried to keep what works. I'd wager we have always kept more players.

Yes, it would be interesting to see if/how things have changed under Gettleman.  Unfortunately, I don't know anywhere to find that kind of historical data. 

If anyone has any suggestions of where to look, I'd be interested.

[Mr. Scot]

28 minutes ago, Cyberjag said:

The locker room is a cliche

But a good one...

[Growl]

This is actually a bit concerning. Teams in our position who enter the off season determined at all costs to simply repeat out success by fielding the exact same team have a poor precedent.

 

We aren't going to have the same team from last year. Not in the locker room, and if we have it on the field we'll be in trouble.

 

Teams have to grow. We should be less concerned with trying to hold it all together and have a stronger emphasis on bolstering it as a whole. Let's see an upgrade at DE so we can drop more DBs, let's see a second TE so we can utilize dual sets. Anything. But please oh please don't just assume that because made it to the Super Bowl that it somehow means we are contenders once again.

[KB_fan]

I did a bit of updating of the tables I created to include the type of free agents for each team. 

All of these data are as of Thursday a.m. March 10, 08:00 a.m. Eastern.  Obviously the data has changed and will continue to change over time as teams sign players, but at least this gives a bit of a snapshot as to where each team stands on the first full day of Free Agency.

The columns are: 

Total Free Agents, Kept, Cut, Retired, RFAs, UFAs, FAs who signed with a new team.

OUCH:  Dolphins have lost 5 players to other teams.

 

Here's the same table with percentages:

Browns, Chiefs, Dolphins and Eagles all have at least 25% of their FAs signing with another team!

[KB_fan]

Finally for today, here's a look at total signings of free agents, either those from one's own team, or from other teams, sorted in order of TOTAL signings, from most to least.  Which teams have been most active so far in signing players?

 

Surprise, Panthers are 5th most active!  But.... as already discussed, we've been active signing our own players, not yet signing any from other teams.

The Eagles have signed the most free agents from other teams (6 players), with the Dolphins and Titans in second place (5 players each), and the Jags, Texans & Vikings also very active in the free agent sweepstakes (each with 4 players signed from other teams).

[KB_fan]

8 minutes ago, Growl said:

This is actually a bit concerning. Teams in our position who enter the off season determined at all costs to simply repeat out success by fielding the exact same team have a poor precedent.

Understand the concern.  You don't want a stagnant roster.  But, let's wait and see how things stand at the end of Free Agency.

We all knew that DG was not going to be a player yesterday throwing around crazy money.  

I'll re-visit this analysis in 2 or 3 weeks.

[d-dave]

@KB_fan, I love your love of Spreadsheets =)  It mirrors my own!

I think what we'll see is that in Gman's time here, we've tried to keep our good, home grown players and filled in basic needs via Free Agency.  He is careful in who he signs, making sure to bring in the best guys, and only keeping those who perform.

On one hand, that's super logical, on the other, it's extremely difficult to do on a regular basis.