Jacksonville’s 1-15 season in 2020 was disappointing, but it was a bit predictable. The Jaguars entered the year with the youngest roster in football at an average age of 24.9, but that number could be skewed by young players on the team that don’t see significant action.
The best way to measure is in terms of snap count, and for the Jags, those numbers tell the same story. According to a Football Outsiders analysis, Jacksonville had the youngest roster in football even when adjusted for snap count.
Using the measure of Snap-Weighted Age, the analysis showed that the Jaguars had the lowest average SWA in the NFL in 2020 at just 25.4. Offensively, they were a bit older on average, likely due to veteran offensive linemen like Andrew Norwell and Brandon Linder who saw action on most snaps. Still, with young skill position players like D.J. Chark, Gardner Minshew, James Robinson and Laviska Shenault, the Jaguars ranked 24th in the league in offensive SWA with an average of 26.1. On defense, they were dead last at 24.9, and they were 31st on special teams at 25.
Jacksonville’s youth is demonstrated by the amount of cap space it had available this offseason. It has few large veteran contracts on the books, and many of its key contributors are still on rookie deals. Obviously, this didn’t contribute to much success in 2020, but with the aforementioned young players on offense, as well as guys like Josh Allen and C.J. Henderson on defense, there seems to be nowhere to go but up.
