The Jacksonville Jaguars And Measuring Passing Attack Age

by Chase Stuart on April 1, 2016

Bortles led the 2nd youngest passing offense in the NFL

After a 1-4 start to the season, it might have felt like an odd time to write about how the Jacksonville Jaguars could have the next great offense. But in many ways, Jacksonville’s passing attack only got better as the season went along. Some (the majority?) of the big numbers were more of a function of quantity than quality, but the numbers really were big. Consider:

Blake Bortles finished tied for 2nd in passing touchdowns and 7th in passing yards

Allen Robinson finished tied for 1st in receiving touchdowns and 6th in receiving yards. He also had the highest yards per reception average of any player with 1,000 receiving yards

Allen Hurns also hit the 1,000-yard mark, and had the 6th highest yards per reception average of any player with 1,000 receiving yards. Hurns and Robinson were one of just four duos (Jets, Broncos, Cardinals) to have two players gain 1,000 receiving yards.

That’s an impressive trio by any standard, but what’s incredible is that Hurns was born in November of 1991, and he is the oldest of the three! So how young is the Jaguars passing attack compared to other teams? I have decided to create a passing yards-weighted age grade for each passing attack. And in doing so, I chose to count passing yards and receiving yards equally, which of course has the effect of making the quarterback(s) equal to half of the team’s passing game. I’m OK with that.

So Blake Bortles is responsible for 50% of the Jaguars passing yards, Robinson for 15.8%, Hurns for 11.6%, and so on. With this methodology — you can see it below — the 2015 Jaguars passing attack has a weighted age of 23.9 years:

Player	9/1 Age	Yds	Perc	Age-Weight
Blake Bortles	23.3	4428	50%	11.7
Allen Robinson	22.0	1400	15.8%	3.5
Allen Hurns	23.8	1031	11.6%	2.8
Julius Thomas	27.2	455	5.1%	1.4
Bryan Walters	27.8	368	4.2%	1.2
T.J. Yeldon	21.9	279	3.2%	0.7
Marcedes Lewis	31.3	226	2.6%	0.8
Marqise Lee	23.8	191	2.2%	0.5
Denard Robinson	24.9	164	1.9%	0.5
Clay Harbor	28.2	149	1.7%	0.5
Rashad Greene	22.9	93	1.1%	0.2
Toby Gerhart	28.4	23	0.3%	0.1
Tyson Alualu	28.3	19	0.2%	0.1
Corey Grant	23.7	13	0.1%	0.0
Bernard Pierce	24.3	7	0.1%	0.0
Nic Jacobs	23.9	6	0.1%	0.0
Jonas Gray	25.2	4	0%	0.0
Average		8856	100%	23.9

That’s really young, but to my surprise, it wasn’t the youngest in the NFL last year. That honor would go to the Tampa Bay Bucs:

Rk	Team	Yds	Yds Rk	Age
1	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	8084	19	23.4
2	Jacksonville Jaguars	8856	9	23.9
3	Minnesota Vikings	6492	29	24.2
4	Oakland Raiders	8258	16	24.8
5	Tennessee Titans	7788	22	25.1
6	Buffalo Bills	7206	27	25.4
7	Miami Dolphins	8462	12	25.8
8	Cincinnati Bengals	8208	17	26.4
9	Washington Redskins	8588	11	26.5
10	St. Louis Rams	5864	30	26.5
11	Seattle Seahawks	4098	31	26.7
12	Philadelphia Eagles	8682	10	27.1
13	Detroit Lions	8932	7	27.4
14	San Francisco 49ers	7292	26	27.5
15	Houston Texans	8158	18	27.6
16	Cleveland Browns	8312	15	28.4
17	Baltimore Ravens	8901	8	28.5
18	Carolina Panthers	3909	32	28.5
19	Kansas City Chiefs	6986	28	28.6
20	Atlanta Falcons	9204	5	28.8
21	Green Bay Packers	7650	24	29.1
22	Indianapolis Colts	7856	20	29.4
23	Chicago Bears	7686	23	29.5
24	Dallas Cowboys	7356	25	29.8
25	New York Giants	9019	6	29.8
26	New York Jets	8347	14	30.4
27	Denver Broncos	8432	13	30.4
28	Pittsburgh Steelers	7813	21	30.7
29	San Diego Chargers	9710	2	31.1
30	Arizona Cardinals	9550	4	31.4
31	New Orleans Saints	10410	1	31.5
32	New England Patriots	9624	3	32.7

This list is, of course, going to be heavily influenced by the age of the starting quarterback. That’s up to each reader to determine if that’s an appropriate way to weigh things. That said, let’s take a look at the Bucs in more depth:

Player	9/1 age	Yds	Perc	Age-Weight
Jameis Winston	21.7	4042	50%	10.8
Mike Evans	22.0	1206	14.9%	3.3
Charles Sims	25.0	561	6.9%	1.7
Vincent Jackson	32.6	543	6.7%	2.2
Austin Seferian-Jenkins	22.9	338	4.2%	1.0
Cameron Brate	24.2	288	3.6%	0.9
Doug Martin	26.6	271	3.4%	0.9
Adam Humphries	22.6	260	3.2%	0.7
Louis Murphy	28.3	198	2.4%	0.7
Donteea Dye	22.0	132	1.6%	0.4
Brandon Myers	30.0	127	1.6%	0.5
Luke Stocker	27.1	61	0.8%	0.2
Russell Shepard	25.0	28	0.3%	0.1
Bobby Rainey	27.9	16	0.2%	0.1
Jorvorskie Lane	28.6	13	0.2%	0.0
Average	0.0	8084	100%	23.4

Tampa Bay has an even younger quarterback its own star receiver born in August of 1993. What the Bucs are missing, though, is that second young star wideout, though perhaps Sefarian-Jenkins can develop into that role.

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