Roster age

daves

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The Athletic (Mike Sando) had an article today entitled, "The NFL’s youngest and oldest lineups, and hidden factors across the board". Some highlights and bits pertaining to the Cardinals:

The search for young, up-and-coming teams to challenge the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC led to a startling discovery. The Chiefs are the young, up-and-coming team in the AFC. They’ve fielded the youngest starters in the NFL through the first two weeks of the season after ranking 15th in 2020.

The team with NFL’s oldest starters is pretty good as well. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who defeated an older version of the Chiefs in the Super Bowl last season, are seasoned by NFL standards even beyond 44-year-old Tom Brady. Their starters rank fifth-oldest even when quarterbacks are excluded.

[....]

[Table: Ranking 32 NFL teams’ starters, youngest to oldest:
16. Cardinals: 26.94
22. Rams: 27.47
27. 49ers: 27.71
31. Seahawks: 28.18
NFL average is 27.04.]

[Table: Teams whose starters got youngest by the most:
The Cardinals had the 5th greatest drop in age since last season, with a difference of -0.86 years.]

Cardinals: Arizona did add veterans J.J. Watt and A.J. Green, but the Cardinals also subtracted Larry Fitzgerald while getting much younger in the secondary without Patrick Peterson or Dre Kirkpatrick.

[Table: Teams whose starters aged most from last season:
3. 49ers: +0.74
5. Seahawks: +0.64
6T. Rams: +0.62]

49ers: San Francisco added Josh Norman and Alex Mack while welcoming back Jimmy Garoppolo from injury.
Seahawks: Al Woods, Kerry Hyder and Gabe Jackson added age to the lines.
Rams: The change from Jared Goff to Matthew Stafford is one factor. The offensive line returned mostly intact and is older now.
Takeaway: The Cardinals are younger than their division rivals, and despite the additions of Watt & AJ Green, the Cardinals got younger in 2021 while their rivals got older.

...dave
 

BritCard

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I've never really been concerned with the average age thing. There's not much in it from 1 to 32.

You want good, young players at your skill positions like WR, RB, maybe CB etc and you want a good mix of quality experienced vets. Especially on the O line and D line.

I think Tampa have the 2nd oldest roster in the league but they also have Godwin, White, Davis, Dean, Wirfs, Winfield, Whitehead, Edwards etc

If they have that much young talent and the oldest roster then the number means nothing.
 

Chopper0080

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I've never really been concerned with the average age thing. There's not much in it from 1 to 32.

You want good, young players at your skill positions like WR, RB, maybe CB etc and you want a good mix of quality experienced vets. Especially on the O line and D line.

I think Tampa have the 2nd oldest roster in the league but they also have Godwin, White, Davis, Dean, Wirfs, Winfield, Whitehead, Edwards etc

If they have that much young talent and the oldest roster then the number means nothing.
3rd contract vets are a +advantage market. You generally don't pay as much as 2nd contract FA, sign shorter contracts and lower dollars.

One of the issues with our draft picks is just how long it takes us to figure out what type of player they are. We ran into this with Humphries, Reddick, and now Kirk/Edmonds. For whatever reason (or a variety), these players are taking a long time to show what they are and it ends up being in their contract year. Humphries hadn't shown a lot when we offered him that three year deal and now he will get an even bigger one. Reddick was let walk on a one year deal and now looks like a viable contributor. Kirk and Edmonds will be FAs and look to be on their way to career years. They will feel like this is who they have always been and are finally getting their shot but the cardinals and fans will say it is a contract year situation. Ideally they would have been put into situations to be successful prior to their contract year which would have shown the consistency and growth you want to see when giving players a second contract.
 

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