Giants among most loyal teams in NFL, Jets among the least loyal

The two New York football teams are not exactly enjoying banner starts to the NFL season: The New York Giants are losers of two straight and 2-2 while the Jets are 1-3. The bad news is that it could get much worse for both teams and that heads might potentially roll. But one New York team is notoriously loyal to players and coaches while the other franchise has a tendency to change management like some change their underwear.

Not shockingly, the Giants are among the most loyal teams in the NFL, ranking seventh in the league according to a recent study by Olivet Nazreen University. Veteran players stick with the team for 4.86 years, a high number in a league where personnel turnover is incredibly high. In addition, the Giants have held on to their head coaches for 5.11 years, again a number considerably higher than the league average.

The irony is that if the Giants don’t make the playoffs this season (they last made the postseason in 2011) then it might be general manager Jerry Reese who will be let go at the end of this season.

On the flip side, the Jets are among the worst in the NFL in loyalty, coming in at No. 24 overall.

The average career length for a player is 4.37 years and the average length of a head coach’s tenure is 2.88 years. Truthfully, Bill Belichick’s five minutes as head coach of the Jets (was it even that long?) likely skewed this number a tad bit.

The study looked at three key factors in determining franchise loyalty:

• Average veteran career length: The average time a veteran (four-plus years) spends on a single team divided by the number of years the team has been in the NFL. We wanted to make sure expansion teams had an equal playing field in the loyalty rankings.
• Team quality by veteran player: This is the team win/loss percentage multiplied the total combined veteran years for that team. This is our way of evening the playing field with teams that kept players because they performed well.
• Average years per head coach: The average amount of years a team employs a head coach. Loyalty doesn’t just end with players, so we wanted to factor this in as well.

The numbers are culled since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970, which coincidentally the Jets are credited for after their Super Bowl III win. Go figure.

The most loyal team in the NFL goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers followed by the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears. Not shockingly, the Cleveland Browns came in dead last in the study.