Quickly looked at this theory. Does not appear to be true in 2024-2025. I looked at every game with a new starter except Week 18.

Average defensive DVOA is about +4.0%, and that would be worse if not for an outlier Vikings game in Week 3 of 2025 (-77.4% defense in 48-10 win over CIN).

Source: Bluesky by Aaron Schatz · View original