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:
...dave
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.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.
...dave