The St. Louis Rams - From cradle to champs?

The St. Louis Rams are one of the youngest teams in the NFL. Age and experience play roles in every aspect of the game. Age can hurt or help you in anything from learning the playbook to staying healthy. Whether or not youth will be a benefit or a not for the Rams is yet to be seen.

The average team age of Super Bowl winning teams since 1968 is 27.1. After calculating the current depth chart, the Rams current 89 man roster's age average is 24.39. This number will undoubtedly increase as cuts are made to the UDFA's, but it will remain lower than the league average. Much lower.

The youngest team average of a Super Bowl winning team was 25.9 - the 1981 San Francisco 49ers. Joe Montana could have had a little something to do with that.

Age and experience play a large role in determining whether or not a team is successful, but it's about balancing between the players being too young, in their prime, or over-the-hill. Certain positions sour faster than others - see every running back ever. While other positions tend to age like wine - Tom Brady, Peyton Manning. Finding a healthy balance of youth and experience is important and it's important to have youth and experience in the right positions.

The Rams have experience on both lines, at quarterback, and in spots everywhere else. However, do they have a true leader now that Steven Jackson will be toting the rock for the Falcons? Do they even need a true leader? Will their extreme youth haunt them during a season where they will face offensive and defensive coordinators throwing everything they've got at them?

Or could their youth be a benefit? In a perfect world the Rams youth will help them stay fresh and injury free. It would help them stay hungry rather than complacent. All of these questions will be answered in due time, but let us know what you think.

What role will the youth of the Rams play in the 2013 season?