For the last 11 years, every Super Bowl champion has had at least 21 players play 40-plus games together on the same team. Every champ. No exception. Think about it in general terms: That’s about half of your first-string offense and half of your first-string defense that have essentially played together for the past three seasons now. That speaks volumes about the influence your veterans have with the mix-and-match pieces that NFL teams add every year through the draft and free agency process. Not only do these coaching staffs have half their starters up to speed on the playbook, they also have 20-something lieutenants on the field that readily spread the team’s message to the new, hungry teammates. That speaks directly to the consistency of continuity in championship teams. It speaks to the importance of chemistry on winning squads. And most importantly, it eliminates most of the Super Bowl competition around contenders because we found through our research that most NFL teams simply do not keep their players together long enough to meet this simple rule. Take last year, for instance: Only 12 of the NFL’s 32 teams kept 21 or more players on their roster for 40 games or more. The majority of those teams—seven among the 12—made the 12- team 2014 NFL Playoffs: • Seattle Seahawks (24 players, 13-3 regular season, Super Bowl champs) • Denver Broncos (21 players, 13-3, Super Bowl runner-up) • San Francisco 49ers (25 players, 12-4, NFC Championship runner-up) • New Orleans Saints (27 players, 11-5, NFC Divisional game) • Carolina Panthers (21 players, 12-4, NFC Divisional game) • Cincinnati Bengals (25 players, 11-5, AFC Wild Card game) • Green Bay Packers (31 players, 8-7-1, NFC Wild Card game)
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