The Vikings Keep Getting Younger

Kirby O'Connor   |  

Jul 6, 2020

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The Minnesota Vikings have added 27 rookies to their roster this offseason. That’s a lot, and it makes sense for a team that saw a decent amount of turnover. Xavier Rhodes, Stefon Diggs, Trae Waynes, Mackensie Alexander, Jayron Kearse, Josh Kline, Linval Joseph, Stephen Weatherly, and Everson Griffen all moved on after playing significant roles for the Vikings over the past few seasons.

So, with this new infusion of rookies, and loss of some older veterans, have the Vikings gotten any younger? Well, last season, their 53-man-roster had an average age of 25.5 years, the sixth youngest team in the league according to an article by Jimmy Kempski of the Philly Voice. Big shoutout to him, as he had already compiled average ages of each NFL team for the last five seasons, and I used that as my basis for this article.

The Vikings have actually gotten younger, or at least stayed the same, since 2016. Kempski has yet to release his calculation for this season because, well, the 53-man has yet to be decided. So, we need to do some projecting of what the final roster will look like. Luckily, I’ve compiled what I think the roster will look like, organized by age of players.

This particular projection gives us an average roster age of 25.3 years. This is assuming some important things. First, that the Vikings don’t bring back Everson Griffen. Griffen, who has presumably been waiting for Jedeveon Clowney to sign a contract to dictate his market value. I, personally, think it’s about 50/50 whether Griff will be back this season.

It’s also assuming that some key depth veterans aren’t replaced by younger players. Most notably, Dakota Dozier, Rashod Hill, Sean Mannion, Ameer Abdullah, Brett Jones, and Anthony Zettel. All of those guys are above the current roster average of 25.3 years, and are possible, not necessarily likely but possible, candidates for cuts.

Although a vast majority of the cuts I made are below the current average, and therefore would only bring down the average age, the ones I cut above the average who would bring it back up are Aviante Collins, Eddie Yarborough, Bralon Addison, and Chad Beebe. Again, all players who are fighting for their roster spot against much younger, and newer options.

So, the difference in average age, using my projected cuts here is only .2 years. That doesn’t seem significant, but if we take that .2 and multiply it across the 53, we get a difference in 10.6 years from last year’s roster.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not much, but it will keep the Vikings in the top ten youngest teams in the NFL, assuming this season is similar to last (I haven’t calculated out the actual average age of each NFL roster, yet.) It also keeps the Vikings on a trajectory of getting younger and younger, something that should, in theory, help the team over the next few seasons as they try to rework their once great secondary and fix their historically dreadful offensive line.

In case you’re wondering, here is the chart of players I cut for this exercise.