I wanted to take a look at recent rookie contributions to the teams this year to see which teams seem to be getting more expected playing time out of their rookies. To do this I went back and looked at some historical data related to offensive and defensive snaps based on what round a players was drafted in and how much experience he had in the NFL at the time. This gives us a rough estimate of how many snaps a team should be expected to have from his draft picks and UDFA signings made between 2020 and 2024. This is then compared to the current snap counts, adjusted up to 17 games, through last week for every team. A positive number indicates a team getting more snaps than expected for all of their players they selected while a negative number means they are getting less than average snap contributions.

I wasn’t very surprised at the top names on the list. The Bucs lead the NFL in snaps above expectations in large part because they made a pivot a few years ago to focus on getting younger while navigating the contracts of older players. It has worked out well for them. Dallas has more or less avoiding finding outside contributors for years so it’s a good spot for rookies to get a lot of playing time. The Rams and Chiefs push for young talent has been going on for a few years now and both have had solid draft classes.

Arizona’s problems with the draft have been pretty long standing so them coming in dead last was not a surprise. They are still digging out from their prior regime. I had to do a double take on the Vikings but they had a bad run in the top 3 rounds of the draft and they lost their 1^st rounder this year to injury. Carolina and Washington are both digging out of holes and are running with new front offices and coaching staffs this year as are Atlanta and New England. The Jets recently fired everyone involved and they rank 26^th.

Here is how the expected snap contributions align with the team’s records this season.