In NIL Era, EDC Closely Watching Increasing Age of NFL Draft Prospects

Ravens GM Eric DeCosta made this statement during the Liar’s Luncheon when asked about the age of players in the upcoming draft:

“There is a new, I think a change changing dynamic that we’ve seen with the draft.  Players are older.  I think the average age of the players is not necessarily older… but i think what we’re seeing now there are more older players in the draft, so we’re seeing more 24 and 25-year old players… That’s problematic in some ways for us because these guys are coming in older they’ve probably got less upside.  They’re probably not three-contract players in some cases, they’re two-contract players.  And in some cases they have more injuries, cause they’ve been playing college football longer so they’ve taken on more injuries, and so… we’re trying to get a handle on that I think in some ways.  It’s tough for us to assess what that means.  It’s kind of something that we’ve really seen over the last three years.  This will be the third year, so ’24, ’25, ’26.  We’ve seen… actually… probably… players we might have had 4 percent of our players on the draft board 24 and a half or older prior to 2024.  Now that number is up to 18 percent, so we’ve seen a 14 percent increase in older players on the draft board.  That’s something that we don’t really understand fully what that means.  I don’t think it’s a good thing, certainly, but you know, historically we’ve tried to draft younger players when we can.  That’s been something we feel strongly, but now we’ve got 18 percent of the draft board that’s over 24 years old, so that’s going to change the way that maybe we target players.”

Anyone who’s followed DeCosta during the draft process knows that he puts a big emphasis on a player’s age as a prospect.  He’s said several times that if the Ravens have a tie between two prospects to draft at a given pick, they’ll take the younger player as the tie-breaker.  In the new era of (legal) payment of college players, many more draft eligible players opt to return to college.  They’ll get paid more money than they’d make on a practice squad, or even on a rookie contract in some cases.  In the end the NFL will have the same number of prospects every draft; it’s just that the average age of those prospects is trending up.

DeCosta specifically mentions the number of contracts given to a theoretical draft pick, and also specifically mentions the age of 24.  A second contract could be anything, but the most common length of top free agent signings this off season is three years.  That is a full contract’s length between a 21 and a 24-year-old rookie.

Let’s take a look then at the top section of this year’s draft through the lens of what DeCosta said.  We will use Pro Football Focus’s big board, which is as good as any that is available to the public at no cost.  There are 100 picks to be made in rounds one to three, so it’s reasonable to use their top 100.  Of course the match won’t be exact; we’ll have ten or so players drop (perhaps because of age, but more likely because of medicals and/or character concerns), but it’s enough to do some rudimentary analysis.

Looking at the data, only seven players, and thus 7% of the board, are over 24 going into the draft.  If you include players over 23 however, that number jumps up to 21% of the board.  Only one of them is in the top quartile of the rankings (Akheem Mesidor at #20).  The average age may be increasing, but old prospects are already pushed down the public draft board.  I didn’t want to list everybody; suffice to say, once you get down into projected day three picks you start seeing a lot more older players.

The impact of the age of this draft then will probably be felt most in Round 5.  The Ravens have four picks in that round, and based on their history, they’re going to use those picks.  Do they draft older players than can help them win now, or do they select projects that could end up stars in a few years?

I imagine it depends on the position they’re drafting.  They need, for example, a starting center.  That could end up being Corey Bullock, sure, but the ideal is to get one of the plug-and-play guys said to be in this draft, preferably in round three.  I’m talking about Sam Hecht, Jake Slaughter, and Logan Jones, not to mention Jager Burton (23.6 years old), Trey Zuhn (23.5), and Pat Coogan (23.4).  Elsewhere, for example TE, they may want to go younger as Mark Andrews has the starting job.  This is also considered a deep TE class, and names to keep an eye on are Justin Joly (21.7 years old), Jack Endries (22.0), and Eli Raridon (22.1).

We’ll see if the Ravens stick to their younger-players or go with some seasoned NIL college stars in a few days.

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