San Francisco 49ers: Has the Team Lost an Unusual Number of Veterans?

With Anthony Davis' retirement and the Andy Lee trade, the San Francisco 49ers are continuing a radical and dramatic overhaul of their roster.  As it stands at the moment, only 16 players on the roster predate the 2013 offseason:

• Vernon Davis, the longest-tenured 49er now that Andy Lee has retired, was taken with the sixth overall pick in the 2006 draft.
• Joe Staley was taken with the 28th overall pick in the 2007 draft.
• Ahmad Brooks was picked up off waivers from Cincinnati in 2008.
• Alex Boone was signed as an undrafted free agent from Ohio State in 2009.
• Tramaine Brock was signed as an undrafted free agent from Bellhaven in 2010.
• NaVorro Bowman was taken in the third round of the 2010 draft.
• Aldon Smith, Colin Kaepernick, Kendall Hunter, Daniel Kilgore and Bruce Miller were taken in the 2011 draft.
• Ian Williams and Michael Wilhoite were signed as undrafted free agents in 2011.
• Joe Looney was taken in the fourth round of the 2012 draft.
• Garrett Celek and Tony Jerod-Eddie were signed as undrafted free agents in 2012.

That’s it.  That’s the entire list of 49ers who will enter the 2015 season with more than two years of experience.  That’s the most optimistic number, too—some of the names on that list may not even make the final 53-man roster this season, most notably Garrett Celek.

It’s even worse when you look at the coaching staff. 

The 49ers have lost head coach Jim Harbaugh; offensive coordinator Greg Roman; defensive coordinator Vic Fangio; special teams coordinator Brad Seely; position coaches John Morton, Reggie Davis, Tim Drevno, Mike Solari, Michael Christianson, Paul Wulff, Jim Leavitt, Ed Donatell, Greg Jackson, Peter Hansen and Tracy Smith; strength and conditioning coaches Mark Uyeyama and Kevin Tolbert and director of college scouting Joel Patton. 

In many significant ways, this is an entirely new franchise from the team that lost in Super Bowl XLVII.

However, is that really that unusual?  It feels like the 49ers have experienced a tremendous amount of turmoil, but is that really the case, or is it just bias?  Obviously, 49ers fans are going to notice 49ers players leaving more than any other team—is it really that unusual, in this modern period of free agency and salary-cap considerations, for teams to have such turnover from year to year?

I went back through every team roster and looked at how many players were left from the 2012, 2010 and 2008 squads.  It turns out, the 49ers end up almost exactly in the middle:

Team	3+ Years	5+ Years	7+ Years	Longest Tenured
Cincinnati	29	14	3	Andrew Whitworth
Seattle	25	9	2	Brandon Mebane
Minnesota	23	8	5	Cullen Loeffler
Green Bay	22	16	6	Aaron Rodgers
St. Louis	22	4	1	Chris Long
New England	21	11	5	Tom Brady
Dallas	21	8	5	Jason Witten
Carolina	21	5	4	Thomas Davis
Denver	20	6	1	Ryan Clady
Washington	19	8	2	Kedric Golston
New Orleans	18	9	4	Drew Brees
Pittsburgh	18	9	4	Ben Roethlisberger
Houston	17	6	1	Duane Brown
Atlanta	16	9	5	Roddy White
Baltimore	16	8	4	Terrell Suggs
NY Jets	16	7	4	D'Brickashaw Ferguson
Buffalo	16	7	3	Kyle Williams
San Francisco	16	6	3	Vernon Davis
NY Giants	16	5	2	Eli Manning
Indianapolis	16	4	2	Robert Mathis
Philadelphia	15	5	2	Jon Dorenbos
Cleveland	15	3	1	Joe Thomas
Tennessee	14	5	2	Michael Griffin
Detroit	14	5	2	Don Muhlbach
San Diego	13	7	5	Mike Scifers
Kansas City	12	5	4	Derrick Johnson
Miami	12	5	2	John Denney
Tampa Bay	11	2	0	Demar Dotson
Arizona	10	5	2	Larry Fitzgerald
Jacksonville	10	3	2	Josh Scobee
Oakland	9	4	3	Sebastian Janikowski

Only five teams could theoretically field entire starting lineups from players left from their 2012 lineups; most teams have far less than 22 players remaining.  The average team has 16.6 players left from 2012, 6.6 from 2010 and 2.9 from 2008; the 49ers are very nearly the NFL's most average team in terms of roster turnover, with only Buffalo being more “normal.”

Teams like Cincinnati, Seattle and Green Bay have kept their roster far more intact than other.  In Seattle’s case, this is mostly due to fantastic draft classes in 2011 and 2012; there’s a massive drop-off in the three- and five-year averages, and they could fall some when the class of 2012 enters free agency.  Cincinnati and Green Bay have kept a philosophy of re-signing their own players and cultivating roster continuity.

For whatever it’s worth, it’s worked for those three teams; they are three of the six teams that have appeared in the playoffs in each of the last three seasons. 

Denver and New England have also made at least three straight appearances and have 20 or more returning players from 2012.  The only exception is the Indianapolis Colts, who have a lack of roster continuity between the Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck eras.

Chris O'Meara/Associated Press

On the flip side, the teams without roster continuity are more or less the teams you would expect.  Both the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made two coaching changes in this time period, and with new systems come new players.  Oakland and Jacksonville, too, have seen significant front-office turmoil and poor on-field results, explaining why they keep resetting their rosters.

So, the 49ers’ turnover isn’t particularly strange for an average NFL team.  It’s been a bit sudden for so many players to leave at one time, and you can argue that the quality of the players the 49ers have lost has been significantly greater than average.

However, modern-day roster construction says a team is likely only going to have a handful of players join the five-seasons or more club.  For an average team, the 49ers’ roster is as expected.

Of course, the 49ers haven’t been an average team the past three seasons.  The 35 games they’ve won, including the postseason, is fifth-most in the league over that time period, trailing only Seattle, New England, Denver and Indianapolis.

As you can see, there’s a rough correlation between roster continuity and team success.  This is a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation, as neither particularly causes the other. 

Successful teams tend to have better players and try to keep them around for longer periods of time.  Very successful teams, such as Seattle, New England, Denver, Green Bay, Cincinnati and Dallas are in the top 10 in both wins and players remaining since 2012.  Unsuccessful teams, such as Jacksonville, Oakland, Tampa Bay, Tennessee and Cleveland are in the bottom 10 in both categories.

There are individual exceptions—along with the 49ers, Indianapolis and Baltimore have seen a fair degree of roster turnover and yet have been among the most successful teams, while the continuity in Minnesota or St. Louis has yet to pay dividends.  However, as a general trend, the more wins you’ve had recently, the more players you should have kept.

Brian Bahr/Getty Images

Specifically, a team with San Francisco’s 35 wins should, based on the overall pattern, have about 20 three-year veterans and nine five-year veterans.  Losing Frank Gore, Justin Smith, Patrick Willis and Andy Lee covers the gap between how many veterans an experienced team like the 49ers should have and how many they’ve actually ended up with.

It’s possible the 2013 class will mature and become the veterans, leading to another stretch of extended success for the franchise.  Players such as Eric Reid, Tank Carradine, Quinton Dial and Quinton Patton could form a nucleus that extends the 49ers’ run of success into the future.

As it stands right now, however, the 49ers have a talent gap that most teams with winning records have not had to overcome.  They’ll need some young players to step up big time, because there are some very large shoes to fill.

Bryan Knowles is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.