What age really costs
Age costs every player a little more each year, and how fast depends on his position. Variance measures that cost for every player and shows it wherever you make a decision. Here is what it looks like, where to find it, and how we know it holds up.
A snapshot as of 28 September 2026. The age curve is measured on every NFL player since 2020, with ages from real birth dates.
The short version
- Running backs lose value fastest, and fall off a cliff around 29. Sell before 28.
- Receivers and tight ends slide more slowly. Quarterbacks barely slide at all.
- A 25-year-old's points dropping after a big year isn't age. Don't sell young players for it.
- Youth is worth more than any curve says, because almost every breakout is 25 or younger. September shows you who: snap share and points through week 4.
Where you see it in Variance
You don't have to do this math. Every age number below is already in your dashboard:
- Trade → "What your players will be worth," at the foot of the page. The players on your roster losing the most value, most lost first: his value now, next season and the season after, how much of the drop is age, and how often players like him kept their starting job. Open it before you trade a veteran.
- The ⌛ age chip. When age will cost a player a quarter or more of next season, he carries it: on players in a trade offer and in his player panel, with the reason on hover.
- The player panel. Open any player: his position's age curve with his dot on it, his age this season, and what age will cost him next season, in plain words.
- Keep or Move → "How age hits each position" shows the four curves with your players marked, and "How long they last" shows how often starters at each age kept the job a year later.
- The Briefing flags a player to sell when age is one of several warning signs.
- Every long-term value already includes this discount, measured by position, not one number for everyone.
The slide: what age costs at every age
What age costs a player over next season, compared with a young player at the same position:
Running backs stop at 31: past that, too few are left to measure.
| age | RB | WR | TE | QB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 8% | 6% | 7% | 1% |
| 26 | 15% | 11% | 13% | 1% |
| 27 | 21% | 16% | 19% | 2% |
| 28 | 27% | 21% | 25% | 2% |
| 29 | 33% | 25% | 30% | 3% |
| 30 | 38% | 30% | 35% | 4% |
| 31 | 42% | 34% | 39% | 4% |
| 32 | past our data | 38% | 43% | 5% |
It builds gradually, a few points with every birthday. Measured on every season since 2020, that is about 8% a year for running backs, 6–7% for receivers and tight ends, and under 1% for quarterbacks. These are the rates Variance uses. There is no single birthday where it suddenly starts. And it compounds: two seasons out, a 28-year-old back keeps about half of what a young back would.
Past 31 for backs and 34 for receivers and tight ends, there are too few players left to measure. There we use a deliberately cautious rule rather than pretending to know.
How we know: tested, not assumed
The curve isn't a rule of thumb. It is measured, and then tested against what players actually did.
- Measured on every NFL player since 2020, using real birth dates, and re-measured every year as a new season finishes.
- Tested against what happened next. Compared with the simpler age rule it replaced, the curve's forecast of next season missed by a fifth to over half less, depending on position. For players 29 and older, where the keep-or-sell decisions are made, the misses for receivers and tight ends fell by about three-quarters.
- Tested two seasons out, on seasons it wasn't built from. Its two-year forecast missed by a quarter to a third less than before.
- Checked across time and scoring. However we split the seasons in two, the running-back rate stays between 6% and 8% a year, and it holds in every scoring format we tried. Receivers and tight ends move more: anywhere from 2% to 9% a year depending on which seasons you measure, and less outside full PPR. Treat their 6–7% as the middle of a range, not a precise number.
It isn't perfect, and no age curve is. But it is measurably closer to what really happens than the rule it replaced, at every position.
The cliff: running backs at 29
The slide is gradual. For running backs, something else happens on top of it: many simply stop having real seasons. Every back who had a real season at 29, and what he scored the next year (full-PPR points):
| season at 29 → next | who | held | lost ¾ or more |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 → 2021 | Cordarrelle Patterson 69 → 233 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 → 2022 | Devonta Freeman 147 → 0 · Devontae Booker 144 → 0 · David Johnson 80 → 9 · Damien Williams 61 → 0 · Giovani Bernard 58 → 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2022 → 2023 | Melvin Gordon 84 → 20 · J.D. McKissic 56 → 0 · Ameer Abdullah 54 → 41 | 1 | 2 |
| 2023 → 2024 | Derrick Henry 247 → 336 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 → 2025 | Alvin Kamara 265 → 101 · James Conner 255 → 33 · Aaron Jones 242 → 119 · Kareem Hunt 155 → 145 · Austin Ekeler 132 → 13 · Samaje Perine 82 → 78 · Gus Edwards 64 → 0 · Ezekiel Elliott 58 → 0 | 2 | 4 |
| five seasons | 18 backs | 5 | 11 |
Eleven of the 18 lost three-quarters or more of their production the next year. ("Held" means he kept three-quarters or more.) The typical 29-year-old back kept about an eighth of his production, and 7 in 10 never had another real season. Backs at 28 mostly slid rather than vanished, which is why 28 is the last good time to sell.
A drop after a big year isn't age
Anyone coming off a big year tends to come back toward normal the next year, at every age. Receivers with a big season (150+ points) at 25, the age everyone calls their prime:
| big season at 25 → next | typical change | examples |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 → 2021 | −25% | Calvin Ridley 281 → 71 · Terry McLaurin 223 → 213 |
| 2021 → 2022 | −42% | Deebo Samuel 335 → 166 · Chris Godwin 240 → 223 |
| 2022 → 2023 | −8% | A.J. Brown 300 → 290 · DJ Moore 199 → 288 |
| 2023 → 2024 | −49% | Brandon Aiyuk 249 → 62 · DK Metcalf 225 → 191 |
| 2024 → 2025 | −14% | Justin Jefferson 317 → 202 · Amon-Ra St. Brown 316 → 324 |
That isn't age at 25; some of the touchdowns and long plays just don't repeat. The steadier question is whether he kept his starting job, and in the leagues we track, receivers kept theirs about 55–70% of the time right through 29. That is what "How long they last" on Keep or Move shows.
Breakouts: who, when and how
An age curve is built from players who were already producing, so it can't see the ones who come from nowhere. Since 2021, 66 running backs, receivers and tight ends went from under 50 points (full PPR) to 150 or more in a season.
Who: mostly rookies, mostly early picks
- 60 of the 66 were 25 or younger, and 49 were rookie seasons.
- Of the 17 who broke out later, 11 did it when their playing time jumped.
- Draft round is the best early guide. Rookies drafted 2020–23 with a 150-point season in their first three years:
| round | RB | WR | TE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 5 of 5 | 15 of 21 | 2 of 2 |
| 2nd | 9 of 10 | 11 of 23 | 3 of 8 |
| 3rd | 5 of 12 | 7 of 18 | 1 of 13 |
| 4th–7th | 10 of 52 | 9 of 68 | 1 of 36 |
Late-round backs hit about 1 in 5 (Kyren Williams, Jerome Ford, Dameon Pierce). Late-round tight ends almost never do.
When: September tells you
Running backs, receivers and tight ends with under 50 points the season before. "Snaps" is his average share of his team's snaps.
- Through week 4, a player averaging 60% or more of his team's snaps and 10 or more points a game broke out 33 times out of 46: about 7 in 10, and it held in both halves of our data. By season it ranged from 4 in 10 (2022) to 9 in 10 (2023).
- You need both. The points without the snaps went 4 of 16. And the snaps without the points don't help: among players under 10 points a game, a big snap share made no difference in 2024–25.
- It catches about half of all breakouts. The other half start slowly, and no early sign we tested found them.
In 2023, ten players cleared both bars in September, among them Puka Nacua, Sam LaPorta, Tank Dell and Kyren Williams. Nine broke out; Michael Wilson didn't. 2022 was the weak year: of ten, four broke out.
How: check it in late September
- Waivers and every player's panel show both, side by side: this season's share of his team's snaps, and the points a game he has scored so far, each with the number of games behind it.
- Our rule was measured in full-PPR points; in your league the panel shows your league's scoring.
- A young player who clears both is worth a waiver claim if he's free, and a trade offer if he isn't.
What didn't help
- A new head coach. Breakouts were no more common on teams that changed coach (8% vs 8% in 2022–23, 6% vs 4% in 2024–25).
- A new team. Players who had just changed teams broke out less often, not more.
- Offensive coordinators we couldn't test: no public data we use records them.
Go deeper: position by position
For each position: what age costs over next season, compared with a young player, and how many players at each age never had another real season (50+ points across at least 8 games) through the 2025 season. Counts are player-seasons, so one player can appear at two ages, and the older rows are small: read the trend, not any single row. For how often starters at each age kept the job in your own league, open Keep or Move → "How long they last."
Running backs
| age | age costs next season | never another real season |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | 8% | 10 of 45 |
| 26 | 15% | 14 of 36 |
| 27 | 21% | 9 of 26 |
| 28 | 27% | 6 of 23 |
| 29 | 33% | 7 of 10 |
| 30 | 38% | 2 of 8 |
| 31 | 42% | 4 of 7 |
Past 31, too few backs to measure. With a 150-point season at 27–28: Derrick Henry (28) 302 → 247 · Alvin Kamara (28) 233 → 265 · Joe Mixon (28) 240 → 0 · Dalvin Cook (27) 237 → 40.
Receivers
| age | age costs next season | never another real season |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | 6% | 12 of 50 |
| 26 | 11% | 10 of 51 |
| 27 | 16% | 15 of 52 |
| 28 | 21% | 10 of 41 |
| 29 | 25% | 6 of 25 |
| 30 | 30% | 7 of 20 |
| 31 | 34% | 4 of 12 |
| 32 | 38% | 5 of 8 |
With a 150-point season at 30–31: Davante Adams (31) 241 → 223 · Keenan Allen (31) 279 → 185 · Mike Evans (31) 240 → 85 · Tyreek Hill (30) 218 → 54.
Tight ends
| age | age costs next season | never another real season |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | 7% | 1 of 17 |
| 26 | 13% | 6 of 24 |
| 27 | 19% | 2 of 19 |
| 28 | 25% | 6 of 22 |
| 29 | 30% | 5 of 12 |
| 30 | 35% | 4 of 12 |
| 31 | 39% | 3 of 9 |
With a 150-point season at 30–32: Travis Kelce (32) 262 → 316 · George Kittle (31) 237 → 162 · Zach Ertz (30) 181 → 116 · Rob Gronkowski (32) 171 → 0.
Quarterbacks
| age | age costs next season | never another real season |
|---|---|---|
| 28 | 2% | 2 of 10 |
| 29 | 3% | 2 of 8 |
| 30 | 4% | too few |
| 31 | 4% | 1 of 4 |
| 32 | 5% | 1 of 7 |
| 33 | 5% | 0 of 6 |
| 34 | 6% | 1 of 6 |
| 35 | 7% | 2 of 5 |
With a 150-point season at 34–36: Aaron Rodgers (36) 384 → 334 · Matthew Stafford (36) 223 → 358 · Kirk Cousins (34) 305 → 155 · Andy Dalton (35) 183 → 24.
What this does not say
- It does not say a 29-year-old back is finished. Derrick Henry and Kareem Hunt held. Most don't.
- It does not treat stars differently from depth players. We tested whether age hits a position's top 12 differently from the rest. The groups were too small (6 to 29 players each) and the two halves of our data disagreed, so we don't publish a separate curve for stars.
- It does not give one exact rate for receivers or tight ends. Theirs moves with the seasons you measure; backs' does not.
- It stops where the data stops. Past 31 for backs and 34 for receivers and tight ends, we use a cautious rule rather than a measurement.