Another stat that shows that the Rams have the youngest roster in the NFL

The Los Angeles Rams have 68 players who list at 25 years of age or younger, the most in the NFL by a considerable margin. Last year the average age of NFL teams was 26.08 as LA entered Week 1 and at this time the average age of teams hovers around 24.6. That average is going to change as rosters get cut down and teams figure who their final 53 man personnel will be. Rosters will change throughout the season, average age of rosters will change as well.

You clicked on this article because you want to know how young this Los Angeles Rams roster really is. We’ll get there. First, please allow me to provide a quote from the song and dance man himself, Bob Dylan. “I was so much older then, I am younger than that now.” Age can be a state of mind and that’s a great sentiment, but age is also a very real and tangible thing.

Going into Week 1 of this season the Rams probably are still going to be ranked among the youngest teams (by average age) in the league (they were top top 10 in 2022). That can change really quickly with a signing of Tom Brady at quarterback, and Sebastian Janikowski at kicker (both retired and both well over 40), but outside of a few last minute signings (is Andrew Whitworth coming back?) and some cuts, this team will be what we get. Age(ism) included.

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The Rams will have a young(er) roster once again, and this same franchise has also previously had some of the youngest coaches in the NFL. I cannot help but think of the classic age vs. experience debate. It’s the same debate that went through the minds of Les Snead, Kevin Demoff and Stan Kroenke when they hired Sean McVay. “Was McVay too young to be an NFL head coach?” Everyone wondered.

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Was Jared Goff too young or too inexperienced to lead this team to a Super Bowl win? The Rams acquired Matthew Stafford and sure made it look like Goff was the problem whether that was fair or not. When the final average age of this roster is revealed will it be too young to be a winning roster in the NFL? I do not think we can quantify that by age alone.

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McVay’s motivated to show that he can consistently lead his team to greatness, and that he can consistently get the best out of his players. One could say the coach is getting older all the time but in the right circumstance feeling younger in his mind. Whereas this team and their head coach may be young on paper, that does not mean they are young at heart. The Rams will be asking a lot of these young players to step up and lead like veterans even if they are still rookies.

This is as exciting a year to be a Rams fan as ever because all of us will see these players try to have careers in the National Football League. If we are lucky some of these new players will excel and be on the Rams for many successful and joyous seasons to come, and we’ll get to say “I remember when I first saw them play.”

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The hard reality is that a number of these players will not be life long LA Rams players. Many of these players (regardless of age) will try as hard as they can, to play for any team they can and some may never play a professional snap in the NFL. Many will never get that contract they know they deserve.

For the lucky few they will look back on their time in the NFL and they will realize how old they felt but know how young they really were. Ask Coach McVay:

“I like feel I’m sometimes 80 years old and I’m 37 years old, you know.”

These young men were the veterans at the end of their colligate years. Now they are freshman again, they are rookies, and above all they are young men playing a man’s sport. It will be up to the veteran players like Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald, Cam Akers, Ernest Jones and more to help coach up these young players so they are ready to take on the veterans and the rookies opposite them on gameday. More than ever the outcome of this season will be a reflection of every player on the roster and of every coach on the staff.

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This team from top to bottom is all about each position pushing the other from the youngest man to the eldest statesman, from the head coach to the person that we don’t even know the name of yet. All of this matters, all of this is connected to the lifeforce that is the roster, and the final roster and September 10th cannot get here fast enough. Then we will start to get quantifiable answers. Can’t wait.