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Factoid

Receivers and age

Best receiving production comes between 25 and 29

I posted the deal yesterday about wide receivers and ages. Specifically, I look at the ages that wide receivers posted the best numbers of their careers. And we saw very few receivers putting up their best numbers either before 25 or after age 30.

But one reader in Wisconsin didn’t like that approach. He wanted to see more numbers in general – not forgetting about a player’s production at age 29 just because he happened to compile his career-best numbers at 27.

With that in mind, let me slice the numbers slightly differently. This time, I took the top 200 seasons (by wide receivers) in the last 20 years. Then I looked at the number of players in each group in that list. It turned out like this:

TOP 200 RECEIVER SEASONS SINCE 1995
Age of playerNo
21-year-olds2
22-year-olds6
23-year-olds11
24-year-olds15
25-year-olds25
26-year-olds26
27-year-olds22
28-year-olds20
29-year-olds21
30-year-olds14
31-year-olds14
32-year-olds9
33-year-olds5
34-year-olds7
35-year-olds2
36-year-olds1

Notice that ages 25 and 26 are the most popular, and the only five groups were at least 20 players are all in the ages of 25 to 29.

While Odell Beckham Jr. was a notable exception last year, you see hardly anyone under 23 represented. Similarly, it really tails off after age 31.

—Ian Allan

Fantasy Index