Most of the best players in the NFL are veterans — stars who have earned big contracts and have enjoyed relatively long careers. They are essential to their team’s success and key components of every playoff run.
They’re also pretty rare.
For the most part, in a league with so much attrition, it’s youth that serves teams best. It’s why the draft is so important; history has shown that the only way for teams to truly succeed in the NFL and become perennial playoff contenders is to have a strong and deep core of young players making up the backbone of the team.
That’s unavoidable in a league in which the average length of a career is less than 3 ½ seasons and the majority of players are 27 or younger. Almost as soon as a player leaves college and signs his first contract, he’s expected to contribute. By his second season, he’s expected to be fairly well-developed. Teams don’t have much time to allow them a learning curve anymore.
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So which teams have the best young cores? FOX Sports took a deep look at the players every team has who are still playing on their rookie contracts to see which franchises have the most promising base of young talent. Our writers ranked all 32 individually, and the final result is an aggregate of all those lists. We’ll count them down for you before the start of the 2023 NFL season, starting with the worst (No. 32) all the way up to No. 1.
No. 32: Los Angeles Rams
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