Packers Are Youngest Team Again

The 33rd Team crunched the numbers and found the Green Bay Packers’ season-opening roster is the youngest in the NFL. Here is the breakdown.

Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, left, and general manager Brian Gutekunst. / Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

 

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers were the youngest team in the NFL last season and one of the youngest in NFL history to win a playoff game. With just one player older than 30 on the roster and with an influx of another rookie class, they are the youngest team again.

According to The 33rd Team, which compiled the data on Thursday and shared its data with Packers On SI on Saturday:

The Packers have the youngest roster in the NFL with an average age of 25.11 years old. And it’s not close. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are second with an average age of 25.59. That’s a difference of 0.48. There are 11 teams within 0.48 years of the Bucs.

Broken down by offense and defense, Green Bay and Detroit are tied for the fourth-youngest offense (25.42) and Green Bay has the youngest defense (24.79; the Buccaneers are second at 25.17).

When looking only at the starters, the Packers have the youngest group at 25.49, with the New York Giants second at 25.40.

Broken down by offensive and defensive starters, Green Bay has the youngest offense at 24.82 and the Buccaneers are a distant second at 25.23. By comparison, Green Bay’s defense is from the Jurassic era. With 31-year-old Preston Smith part of the No. 1 unit, the Packers are seventh with an average age of 26.17.

Looking at rosters by starters provides a keen insight into the teams that seemingly are built to last.

Examining the NFC North teams, the Bears’ starters are the eighth-youngest (26.12), the Lions are the 13th-youngest (26.42) and the Vikings are the 30th-youngest (or third-oldest) at 27.57.

The San Francisco 49ers, who eliminated the Packers from the playoffs last year and reached the Super Bowl, have the eighth-oldest starting lineup at 27.13 years old.

The Philadelphia Eagles, who will face the Packers in Friday’s season-opening game in Brazil, have the ninth-youngest set of starters at 26.18 years old.

By one formula, the Packers became the youngest team since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to win a playoff game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Packers opted to go young again. In free agency, general manager Brian Gutekunst signed running back Josh Jacobs and safety Xavier McKinney, both of whom are only 26. They released the oldest player on last year’s roster, David Bakhtiari.

For a hot second, 30-year-old Greg Joseph was the team’s kicker. Instead, he was released in favor of rookie Brayden Narveson, who is 24.

The oldest players on the roster are Smith, who is 31, and linebacker Eric Wilson and long snapper Matt Orzech, who are 29.

Meanwhile, 10 rookies made the roster.

“Every rookie that walks through here, we preach to them to look at somebody within our locker room that has done it the right way and has had a lot of success and try to take what you can from those guys,” Gutekunst said.

“I couldn’t think of a better person than Kenny (Clark). We’ve had a number of them around here. Those are choices that guys make along the way. I do have to give a lot of credit to Matt (LaFleur) and his staff and how they approach that with our young players. It really served us well last year. Again, it remains to be seen but I do have a lot of confidence that these guys will handle things the right way.”

At this time last year, the Packers were young and filled with mystery. Now, with the season-opening game against the Eagles just days away, the Packers are viewed as a Super Bowl-caliber team; they have the fourth-shortest odds to win the NFC at FanDuel Sportsbook and ninth-shortest to win the championship.

“We’ve always had really high expectations within this building,” Gutekunst said. “It never really changes for us. The external expectations are kind of irrelevant. We know what we have to do, is just focus on the day-to-day and the process.

“We’ve got a lot of talent. We’ve got a lot of really good guys in that locker room. But it will be up to them, if they put in the work and sacrifices that they need to sacrifice to become a team. But, going through last year, I’m confident they know how to do that. So, now it’ll be just a bit of a choice, but the hunger our guys are showing right now, I think that gives us a lot of confidence and we’re very excited about it.”

The NFL’s oldest overall rosters belong to the 49ers (26.98), Vikings (27.15) and Dolphins (27.30).

In the NFL’s annual examination of rosters after Week 1 of last season, the Packers fielded the league’s youngest roster with an average age of 25.13. The Cincinnati Bengals were second at 25.42.

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