Jets Have Sixth Youngest Team in NFL

A website called FootballPerspective.com ranked the teams of the NFL by age. The Jets were one of the youngest.

In each of the last two years, I’ve presented the AV-adjusted age of each roster in the NFL. Measuring team age in the NFL is tricky. You don’t want to calculate the average age of a 53-man roster and call that the "team age" because the age of a team’s starters is much more relevant than the age of a team’s reserves. The average age of a team’s starting lineup isn’t perfect, either. The age of the quarterback and key offensive and defensive players should count for more than the age of a less relevant starter. Ideally, you want to calculate a team’s average age by placing greater weight on the team’s most relevant players.

My solution has been to use the Approximate Value numbers from Pro-Football-Reference.com.

The Jets rate sixth youngest according to this formula. Young is generally better than old in the NFL, but you need good young players. For example, the champion Seahawks are the second youngest. There are certainly some top quality young building blocks like Damon Harrison, Sheldon Richardson, and Muhammad Wilkerson. If the Jets draft well and young guys like Dee Milliner, Geno Smith, Brian Winters, Quinton Coples, and Stephen Hill get better, we could be onto something big.