Running back Frank Gore continued to defy his critics in 2016 when, at age 33, he rushed for 1,025 yards and eight touchdowns on his way to finishing as the 12th-highest-scoring player at his position. It was his sixth straight year of playing all 16 games and Gore’s ninth 1000-yard season on the ground.
After missing the first four games due to his Deflategate suspension, Tom Brady still made a strong run at winning the league’s MVP award and definitely proved to be a huge fantasy asset. Brady averaged 21.42 fantasy points per game at the age of 39, making him the oldest quarterback ever to average over 18 points per contest in a single season.
Larry Fitzgerald, 33, became the third-oldest player in NFL history to lead the league in receptions (107) a year ago. The Cardinals’ wideout has hit that mark along with 1,000-plus yards receiving and six scores in each of the last two years.
Seeing players offer this kind of production well into their 30s is not unheard of, but it is extremely rare. Can it be found again in 2017?
Age 30 is the wall everybody talks about for running backs, but plenty of research, including a nice breakdown on running back decline here on PFF years ago, supports that Father Time has not been impacted by the evolution of the game. The decline actually starts coming after the age-26 season.
For quarterbacks, the sweet spot in production is from 25 to about 36 years old. Franchise quarterbacks are very hard to come by and even harder to replace. NFL teams invest highly in the position and these players are often given longer leashes than others at different positions. That leads to much longer careers in many cases.
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