Ranking NFL teams' under-25 talent: Texans, Lions lead list - ESPN

A big part of determining which NFL teams are set up for future success is looking at how much young talent is on each roster. It's important for a couple of reasons. Young players are still developing and could become even better, more productive players as they hit their peak years. They also come on cheap rookie contracts that help teams stay under the salary cap and give them room to sign older veteran free agents.

This year, the team with the most valuable young core might be obvious: the Texans. C.J. Stroud has already shown he can succeed in the NFL but still has a few years left on his rookie contract. And he shares a locker room with last year's Defensive Rookie of the Year, a promising young pass rusher who may only get better in Will Anderson Jr.

It's important to note that you don't need to have youth to be a current Super Bowl contender. But young talent establishes how much success a team is likely to have over the longer term. So here is our ranking of every NFL team by its talent under 25 years old for this season. All ages are as of Sept. 1, 2024. (We didn't do this exercise last year, so we went back and retroactively projected what the 2023 ranking would have been based on the same formula.)

Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAX | KC | LV | LAC | LAR | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH

As is our standard, we have created these rankings based on a combination of factors:

Number of starts made by players under 25 years old

Number of snaps played by players under 25 years old

Quality of play of players under 25 years old, age-adjusted to capture the fact that a 21-year-old player of X ability will likely improve more