< Back to front page Text size – +

Youngest opening-day roster for Belichick

Print | Comments () Posted by Greg A. Bedard September 2, 2012 09:27 PM

Tweet
E-mail

By Greg A. Bedard, Globe Staff

Compiled this for my column Monday, so I figured I'd pass it along.

In case you were wondering, this is -- by far -- the youngest opening-day roster that Bill Belichick has fielded. (Of course, they could change out six more guys by then)

The average age of the 2012 Patriots is 25 years, 274 days. The next youngest was, according to STATS, LLC, the 2010 squad (26, 280), followed by Belichick’s first, the 5-11 juggernauts of 2000 (26, 329).

The 2012 Patriots are also the youngest defense Belichick has ever fielded. The average age of the starters is 25. The only other Belichick team to be under 27 was the ’10 version at 25.1, according to numbers used from ProFootballReference.com.

To get an idea on where the current numbers rank league-wide, ESPN's Mike Sando has done some work on that.

Here is the entire chart. The offensive and defense numbers represent the predominant starters over the course of the season. Of course, that means this year's number could go up when injuries hit.