There’s a youth movement in the NFL. But the Cowboys seem to be trying hard to buck that trend, especially in one specific unit.
Football Outsiders last week released its 2019 report digging into the age of each roster in the league. As they have with every season since 2006, they didn’t just calculate the average age of all the the guys who are technically on the team. They charted the players’ snap-weighted age; that is, they weighted the age of each player according the number of snaps he played in the regular season.
It makes sense: if the aging veterans and hotshot rookies on a squad mainly stand around on the sidelines, it doesn’t really say anything meaningful about a team’s “average age,” at least not in the way that people usually imply. That first-year quarterback who actually starts and plays the whole season? That definitely counts toward a team being considered “young.” But a long-in-the-tooth third-string emergency backup who only ever holds a clipboard shouldn’t skew the team toward being called “old.”
The Cowboys as a whole, in 2019, were the sixth-oldest team in the league, with an average snap-weighted age (SWA) of 26.7. The league average was 26.4, a number nearly all 32 teams were fairly tightly clustered around.
Where it starts to get interesting is when SWA is broken down by unit. The SWA of the Dallas offense in 2019 was 27.0, just two-tenths of a year above the league average. That ranked 13th. The defense skewed even more toward the middle of the pack compared to the rest of the NFL; the Cowboys’ SWA on the defensive side was 26.2, 18th place against the average of 26.3.
But special teams? That unit might as well qualify for early-bird specials and senior matinee discounts.
The Cowboys’ special teamers in 2019 were the third-oldest bunch in the NFL with a SWA of 26.9. That figure is a full year above the league average. Special teams play is generally thought of as a young man’s game (think gunners), but many teams do anchor that phase of the game with a greybeard kicker…
…or a 39-year-old long snapper.
L.P. Ladouceur will embark on his 16th season as a pro in 2020. His age (he celebrated his 39th birthday in March) certainly sets the curve for the rest of the special teams players in Dallas, but his is a position where longevity is a plus, not a hindrance, and extra experience is definitely a plus.
The Cowboys special teams unit got slightly (but suddenly) older late last season with the swapping of Brett Maher for Kai Forbath, as Forbath is two years older. He and new signee Greg Zuerlein are both 32, so the winner of their competition for the upcoming season’s kicking duties won’t change that number for Dallas. With punter Chris Jones turning 31 years old, there’s a good chance that the Cowboys will remain one of the oldest special teams units in the league under John Fassel’s leadership.
The defense may see their SWA rank slide toward the older end of the list moving forward. Yes, Michael Bennett turned 34 just a few weeks after joining the Cowboys last season, but in his nine games with the team, he played just 40% of the defensive snaps. Linebacker Sean Lee will turn 34 before the season begins. Gerald McCoy is 32. Dontari Poe will blow out 30 candles before Week 1; all three will likely see high snap counts and will definitely ratchet up the SWA in 2020.
Of course, any discussion of the Cowboys and their age in 2019 has to include Jason Witten. At 37 and playing the vast majority of the team’s offensive snaps last year, he made Dallas the oldest team at tight end last season. Take him out of the equation, though, and the Cowboys come in under the league’s average SWA at every single offensive position group.
Granted, youth doesn’t automatically translate to a better football team: New England was by far the oldest team in 2019- in all three phases- and they were still, by and large, the Patriots. And three of the four youngest teams- Jacksonville, Cleveland, and Miami- didn’t really scare anybody. So maybe SWA is just interesting trivia, fodder for bar bets.
Still, 2020’s Cowboys offense should feel a lot younger. Fans will no doubt be encouraged by that. The defense may feel slightly older. Maybe some additional veteran presence there is a good thing.
In any case, the special teams will still be wearing their pants too high and yelling at whippersnappers to get off their lawn.
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