I keep hearing a lot of people advancing the narrative that the Saints are a younger team this year. With Will Smith, Jonathan Vilma, Lance Moore, and Darren Sproles no longer on the roster that would certainly make sense. But it's not entirely accurate.
The average age of the Saints at the start of the 2013 season was 26.15 years. That includes the practice squad, injured reserve, and PUP players.
The average age of the Saints roster right now is... drum roll please... 26.13 years. It's true! The Saints have gotten younger by 0.02 years!
Okay, so the current team isn't really any younger than the 2013 regular season squad. Our minds have played tricks on us. Here's the thing: even though the Saints cut a bunch of veterans, everyone left on the team is now a year older. It's going to take a lot more than cutting a few veterans to compensate for the natural inflation of age over time and across the entire roster. The team forever continues to get older.
But our comparison is hardly scientific or fair, since we're comparing a regular season roster (2013) to an of-season one (2014). The Saints have yet to draft any players or sign any undrafted free agents. That will add more than a dozen rookie players to the roster, lowering the average age significantly.
That doesn't necessarily guarantee that the Saints will be younger to start the 2014 season, since we have no idea who will make the final roster. But it's pretty likely that many of them will be here when the regular season starts.
So while it might feel like the Saints have gotten younger this off-season, that isn't the case just yet. But there's a good chance they will be when the 2014 season begins.