Measuring team age in the N.F.L. is tricky. Calculating the average age of a 53-man roster is misleading 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 would want to calculate a team’s average age by placing greater weight on the team’s most relevant players.
That’s not easy to do for the 2012 season, but we can apply one method to last year’s rosters. Using Pro-Football-Reference’s Approximate Value system, it’s simple to calculate the weighted age of every team last season, by weighing each player’s age proportionately to his percentage of contribution (as measured by the Approximate Value system) to his team.
Let’s take a look at the (weighted) average age of each offense last season:
Offense
| Rk | Team | Avg Age |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seattle Seahawks | 25.7 |
| 2 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 25.7 |
| 3 | Denver Broncos | 25.9 |
| 4 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 26.0 |
| 5 | Cleveland Browns | 26.1 |
| 6 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 26.2 |
| 7 | Cincinnati Bengals | 26.3 |
| 8 | San Francisco 49ers | 26.4 |
| 9 | Green Bay Packers | 26.4 |
| 10 | Buffalo Bills | 26.5 |
| 11 | Dallas Cowboys | 26.6 |
| 12 | Miami Dolphins | 26.6 |
| 13 | Arizona Cardinals | 26.7 |
| 14 | Oakland Raiders | 26.7 |
| 15 | Philadelphia Eagles | 26.8 |
| 16 | Carolina Panthers | 26.9 |
| 17 | Chicago Bears | 26.9 |
| 18 | Minnesota Vikings | 27.1 |
| 19 | New York Giants | 27.1 |
| 20 | Baltimore Ravens | 27.3 |
| 21 | St. Louis Rams | 27.3 |
| 22 | New York Jets | 27.3 |
| 23 | Detroit Lions | 27.4 |
| 24 | Washington Redskins | 27.4 |
| 25 | Kansas City Chiefs | 27.6 |
| 26 | New Orleans Saints | 27.6 |
| 27 | Houston Texans | 27.7 |
| 28 | San Diego Chargers | 27.7 |
| 29 | Tennessee Titans | 27.8 |
| 30 | Atlanta Falcons | 28.1 |
| 31 | Indianapolis Colts | 28.4 |
| 32 | New England Patriots | 28.4 |
An offense where the star eats Skittle is a young one
The Patriots, meanwhile, featured the league’s oldest offense last season. We all know about Tom Brady (34 in 2011) and Wes Welker (30), but Brian Waters (35), Matt Light (34), Logan Mankins (29), and Deion Branch (32) made were older members of the Patriots’ supporting cast. New England has a pair of young tight ends (Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez) and young running backs (Stevan Ridley, Shane Vereen), but the rest of the offense remains old. Obviously Brady and Welker continue to play at a high level, but the team didn’t wasn’t focused on age when it added wide receiver Brandon Lloyd (32).
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