The 53 Report

Why this exists

Every NFL team has 53 active players. The decisions about who fills those slots, who stays on a second contract, and which draft picks become starters are the most important and least examined work in football.

Drafting a player and keeping a player are different skills. Most teams that draft well don't retain at the same rate. Some teams retain everyone and draft poorly. The gap is real, it's measurable, and the numbers tell a different story than the narrative.

What we cover

• Draft retention by team, snap-weighted, since 2012
• GM ROI: tenure, draft capital, hits and misses
• Regime-change resets: what changes when a front office turns over
• Comp picks, trade-downs, second-contract decisions
• Late-round value and positional drafting tendencies

How we work

All data is public. Our methodology is documented at /methodology, the dataset is open-source, and every published article links to the query that produced it.

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Contact

For tips, methodology questions, or data requests: [email protected].

Cadence

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