On Monday, we looked at the AV-adjusted average age of each team’s offense in 2017.
On Tuesday, we did the same for defense.
Today, let’s look at the average age of each team overall in 2017. For reference, here are last year’s results. You won’t be surprised to see Cleveland grade out as the youngest team in 2017 by over a full year. The Browns also failed to win a game, so youth didn’t work out for that team.
But the second-youngest team in football was the Jacksonville Jaguars, who nearly won the AFC. The Jaguars held a lead in the AFC Championship Game, before losing to the third-oldest team in the NFL… the Patriots.
The table below shows the average age of each team last season.
Why were the Jaguars so young? Let’s take a look at the full Jacksonville roster, sorted by AV:
Yes, the team’s best player (Campbell) was one of its oldest. But Jacksonville also got 8+ points of AV from players who were under 23 years old at the start of last season, in Robinson, Jack, Ngakoue, Fournette, and Ramsey. Not coincidentally, those were 5 of the team’s first three picks in the 2016 and 2017 drafts, and hitting on those players makes a huge difference! The 6th was 2017 third round pick Dawuane Smoot, who was just a role player as a rookie.
And the Jaguars have a pretty young passing game: the team’s quarterback and top five wide receivers all were 25 or younger at the start of the 2017 season. Combined with a young offensive line and a very young running back, and Jacksonville has a really young offense in place for years to come. The addition of Donte Moncrief this offseason won’t change that; he just turned 25 in August.
Jacksonville had six Pro Bowlers on defense, and only one was older than 27 years old in 2017. And that doesn’t include Dante Fowler, who was 23 years old last year but recorded 8 sacks. In other words, don’t expect the Jaguars to be a one-year wonder.
