Return of the "Over the Hill Gang"?

[Bigreds77]

I was 12 years old in 1971 when I became a Skins fan. It was George Allans pep talks & their uniforms that lured me to them. But being 51 now is not the same for guys being called old when I am 18 to 25 years their age.lol

[12thMan]

Are we wearing the gold pants full time or just for the throw backs?

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

i find it amusing that people make a big deal about this.

the difference between the youngest team (25.9) and the redskins (28.1) is slightly more than two years. the average, middle-of-the pack age for a team is 27.2. So the Redskins are, on average, about 10-1/2 months older than the average NFL team.

who the heck cares? Ideally, ever team would have a mix of veterans and young, promising players at every position. The only position where i think having a lot of younger guys really comes in handy is running back, and thats only because running backs generally stop performing at a high level when they reach 27 or 28. At pretty much every other position, id much rather have veterans anyway.

I agree. I wish they would look more into each team and the ages of the players vs. how old the team in general is. What really matters is does the team have 25 or 27 players in their 30's or are the majority of the players around 25 y/o with about 10 - 15 players at age 28. I'm probably saying it wrong because averaging both they probably equal out but youth is the key. You'll get speed and health. Unfortunatly you lose playing smarts.

So what actually is the difference? maybe 1 to 5 players in their 30's?

[MTK]

We have 5-6 guys that really throw off the curve. Galloway, Daniels, Fletcher, etc.

I'm with BHA on this one, not a huge deal.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

i find it amusing that people make a big deal about this.

the difference between the youngest team (25.9) and the redskins (28.1) is slightly more than two years. the average, middle-of-the pack age for a team is 27.2. So the Redskins are, on average, about 10-1/2 months older than the average NFL team.

who the heck cares? Ideally, ever team would have a mix of veterans and young, promising players at every position. The only position where i think having a lot of younger guys really comes in handy is running back, and thats only because running backs generally stop performing at a high level when they reach 27 or 28. At pretty much every other position, id much rather have veterans anyway.

I don't think it's such a big deal when we look at it in one given year. Old teams can play really well in a year, but a year later that same group might be too old.

I think it's more important to look at the trend over the course of several years, and when you do that we see that we are old. In Snyders time, we've usually been an old team because of the lack of draft picks & signing a lot of free agents. Over time that hasn't proven too successful.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

We have 5-6 guys that really throw off the curve. Galloway, Daniels, Fletcher, etc.

I'm with BHA on this one, not a huge deal.

Of those guys, our 2 QBs are pretty old - McNabb & Fletcher. Other than them, I agree that there's youth on the roster in all positions to build on.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

i find it amusing that people make a big deal about this.

the difference between the youngest team (25.9) and the redskins (28.1) is slightly more than two years. the average, middle-of-the pack age for a team is 27.2. So the Redskins are, on average, about 10-1/2 months older than the average NFL team.

who the heck cares? Ideally, ever team would have a mix of veterans and young, promising players at every position. The only position where i think having a lot of younger guys really comes in handy is running back, and thats only because running backs generally stop performing at a high level when they reach 27 or 28. At pretty much every other position, id much rather have veterans anyway.

I think you're missing the point of an average. If every player on every team we play was just 2% better than the person that we were asking to block/tackle them, you might argue that hey, that's not a big difference, we're almost an average team. But because a football game is not one play (much like a roster is not just one player), you'd go 1-15 against a league that has a 2% advantage at 11 positions on 100 plays in a game.

When you multiply two years by the # of players on the roster, either 86 right now or 53 for the season, it helps to put in perspective. If we assume a 53 man roster, we have 116 more years of age on our team than the Texans have on theirs.

Or to ignore the averages for a second, we currently employ 20 players who are or will turn 30 before December 31st of this year, by far the highest number in the league.

For sake of argument, if a team drafts 5 22 year old college players to replace 5 32 year old veterans on the roster, the team gets only 0.9 years younger. But if every other player on the team is one year older (and unless you know how to reverse time, this happens to every team every year), the other 48 players account for an average age gain of 0.9 years of team average age. Basically, by replacing 160 combined years of age with draft picks each year, all a team is doing is offsetting the overall effects of age, not making a net gain.

When you don't have draft picks, teams have a tendency to fill the roster spots that other teams are filling with picks with veterans. So to be one of the 6 or 7 teams that has an average age of more than 28.0, you merely have to pick in the draft less often than 25-28 other teams over a three year period, and then pretty much every team you play has the age advantage.

Last year, we averaged something like 27.5, or right around the league average. It's hard to gain 0.6 years/player in an offseason, but we've certainly earned it.

[BigHairedAristocrat]

I understand your analysis and think you are on the right track by trying to break things down, but i think it misses the point. comparing the average age of teams just doesnt mean much. yeah, the texans are the youngest team in the NFL, but they arent even close to being the best. Look at that list. For the most part, the youngest teams are the worst. With two or three exceptions, the youngest 17 teams are all pretty horrible almost every year. The oldest 15 teams - perennial playoff contenders (again, with one or two exceptions - like us).

in a sense, ideally, you would want every player on your team to be 27-28 years old every year. then, you'd have guys who were old enough to have some experience, but young enough to still have the strength/speed necessary to play at a high level. The key is to retain your draft picks, make wise selections in the draft to replinish your team over time, and make smart, free agent signings.

In the end, the average age of a team, inofitself, is a pretty useless stat.