It is always interesting to look at stability year to year in NFL rosters. It can give you a good indication of what front offices and coaching staff’s really thought of last year’s roster and in some cases what salary cap/budgetary constraints can do to a roster. There are two good times to look at these numbers. The first is now as we get into OTA’s and can get a feel for how many different faces will be trying out for the football team in training camp. The second is two days after the final roster cutdown when we actually see who made the team.

I wanted to give two looks at this. The first is overall roster turnover from last year. What we are looking at is every player who was under contract to the team as of the final regular season game of 2024 (not including the practice squad) and what their status is for 2026. The second will be players who played significant snaps for the team in the 2024. I used a 30% threshold as usually that is the sign of a contributor on offense or defense.

Overall Rate of Return

The Broncos lead the NFL returning 86% of last season’s roster. They rank 4^th on offense and 1^st on defense. The Packers are number two in the NFL and are tied for the NFL lead in continuity on offense while ranking 4^th on defense. The Bills, Lions, and Bengals round out the top five. The most surprising team is the Giants who rank 9^th despite such a poor record. The defending champion Eagles are also a surprise at number 20 as this year was one of the first in recent memory where they lost some players in free agency. The NFL average was 71.4%.

Not surprisingly the other bad team from New York ranked last with just 58% of the team coming back this year. They were 8^th in offensive turnover and tops in defensive turnover. The Titans were number 2, ranking 6^th on offense and 2^nd on defense. The Vikings had the 3^rd most turnover, including being tied for the most on offense with just 51.7% returning.  These are very big numbers for a playoff team. The Raiders and top heavy 49ers rounded out the bottom five,

Here is the list of teams, and you should be able to sort the table by clicking the header.

Top of the Roster Rate of Return

The Giants lead the NFL with 90% of their top players returning in 2025. That number is amazing considering how bad the team was last year. They have all of the players on offense returning (though Daniel Jones did not count at the end of the year so he was a switch) and rank 10^th in returning players on defense. The Giants are clearly banking on the QB being the main problem from last year and that better play will keep the team from spiraling.

The Cardinals come back with 89% of their team which has to be some kind of record for them. For years the Cardinals would go year to year with their roster dealing with salary cap issues at every turn. The Broncos, Bills, and Panthers were all tied for 3^rd with just under 89%.

The Titans had the fewest returning with just 56.7% of the same players from last year. They were tied with the Steelers for the most turnover on offense and were 3^rd for most turnover on defense. The Jets came in second coming in 5^th in offensive turnover and tied for 1^st  with Miami in defensive turnover. Rounding out the bottom were the Vikings, Steelers and Raiders.

Percent of Roster Out of the NFL

Finally we can get an idea of what the rest of the league thought of everyone’s roster when you look at the percent of players out of the NFL. The Titans led the NFL with 23% of last years team not being under contract to any NFL franchise this year. The Jets were 2^nd at 20.3% while the Vikings and the Browns were both at 20%.