Anyone who pays attention to the NFL knows that Tom Brady is 41 as he heads into the season. He’s hardly the only geezer Ray Nitschke Jersey , in football terms, still on the field or hoping to be when the season kicks off next month.
Indeed, Brady isn’t even close to the oldest guy suiting up these days. His former teammate in New England, Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, is 45.
There are plenty of players currently on rosters who are older than Rams coach Sean McVay, now 32. Hey, that’s in the midst of the prime competing years for most positions.
Here’s a look at six 30-somethings who could be impactful this season. We’re steering away from the kickers, who tend to age a lot more slowly than anyone else.
Drew Brees, Saints quarterback — There are no signs of Brees slowing down at age 39. He’s in the perfect offense, which he knows so well he could probably run it from a rocking chair.
Helping mightily are skill position players such as Alvin Kamara, Mark Ingram when he returns from a four-game suspension for violating the NFL policy on performance-enhancing substances, Michael Thomas, Ted Ginn Jr., and Benjamin Watson (37 himself).
Also aiding Brees: A defense can’t throw anything at him he hasn’t seen — again and again.
“I understand that I don’t have a whole lot of time left,” says Brees, who’ll be 40 in January and whose contract expires after the 2019 season. “You’ve got to work and have high expectations and sacrifice and do maybe even more now than I ever have.”
Andrew Whitworth, Rams left tackle — Whitworth was a stud for Cincinnati for 11 seasons, but the Bengals must have believed he was through in 2016 because they let him walk as a free agent. Now 36, he comes off an All-Pro first year in which the Rams were dominant on offense.
Despite all those years in the trenches, Whitworth looks as sharp and powerful as the day he came out of LSU in 2006. He has a shot at his first Super Bowl with a supremely talented roster around him.
Julius Peppers, Panthers defensive end — Like Brees, Peppers will someday wind up with a bust in Canton, Ohio. At 38, he’s no longer an every-down player, but he’s an every-day leader.
Peppers can provide ample force as a pass rusher if he’s mixed in efficiently, something Carolina is quite good at with its D-line. That’s essential in the league’s best division, facing Brees and Matt Ryan twice a season.
Peppers was placed on the physically unable to perform list in July, but the Panthers don’t seem too concerned about his availability — or production — when the games count.
Terence Newman, Vikings cornerback — Now this is really impressive: a DB who will be 40 before the season kicks off http://www.dolphinsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-jerome-baker-jersey , yet can handle the speed- and agility-based duties in an increasingly fast-paced game.
Newman enters his 16th pro season — he was the fifth overall selection by Dallas in 2003 — and this will be his fourth year in Minnesota. The league’s oldest defensive player likely will see some time at safety on a game-changing defense. To see any time at all in an NFL secondary at such an advanced age is stunning.
“You have to figure out something else that you want to do, once you get to my age,” Newman said when he re-signed in May. “I think this will be my last year. No matter what happens, this will be it for me.”
Vernon Davis, Redskins tight end — Once among the elite tight ends of the NFL, Davis remains at 34 enough of a force on the field and a positive influence off it to be a factor for Washington. He averaged 15.1 yards a reception for the Redskins a year ago, third best in his distinguished career.
Alex Smith often targets his tight end — Travis Kelce became a star catching Smith’s passes in Kansas City — and Davis knows just about everything about playing the position.
L.P. Ladouceur, Cowboys long snapper — At 37, this is his 14th year with the Cowboys; how many fans would recognize the Canadian in Big D without his jersey on?
Long snappers always are unsung, fitting the cliche of only getting noticed when they mess up. Ladouceur almost never does, and he’s now the longest-tenured Cowboy with Jason Witten retired.
Many of the feelings in Minnesota this week were a little colder and darker than the usual wintry conditions, even with Super Bowl 52 coming closer into view.
The Vikings fell one win short of landing on the NFL’s biggest stage, leaving the local mood a bit less festive than the hysteria that would’ve enveloped an unprecedented appearance by the home team in the big game.
The Philadelphia Eagles will be here seeking their first Lombardi Trophy instead, trying to deny the New England Patriots a sixth Super Bowl title that would match the most of all time.
”It’s going to be hard to watch them come play in our stadium next week,” Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph said after the 38-7 loss to the Eagles in the NFC championship game .
This is Minnesota’s second Super Bowl, having hosted it at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome after the 1991-92 season, but it will also likely be its last. The NFL’s sporadic northern stops in the warm-weather-areas rotation are simply fulfillments of promises made to municipalities for pumping public money into new stadiums like the $1.1 billion project that produced U.S. Bank Stadium in 2016. New Jersey had the most recent one four years ago, the only northern Super Bowl played outside to date. Indianapolis hosted two seasons before that. The Detroit area has had two.
After finishing 13-3 in the regular season and winning their divisional round playoff game on a last-play touchdown pass , now known as the Minneapolis Miracle, the Vikings were on track to be the first team to play a Super Bowl on home turf until the Eagles ruined that goal. The Atlanta Falcons are next in line to try next year.
The Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 14 and the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl 19 played in their local market, but neither of those games were actually held in their home stadium. The Vikings came by far the closest of any team.
Maureen Bausch, the chief executive officer of Minnesota’s Super Bowl host committee , was a little worried about the vibe while the Vikings were getting blown out last week. She checked the Facebook page for committee’s crew of volunteers in the fourth quarter and started to smile.
”I thought, `Oh my goodness, are we all going to be sad?”’ Bausch said. ”They’re the most amazing group. They were already posting on there, `You guys, this is too bad, but when we signed on, we signed on to represent Minnesota Tennessee Titans Jerseys Womens , and we are going to give the warmest possible welcome to the world no matter who plays. I was just so moved.”
Yes, despite the disappointment in the air over the home team’s latest deflating loss on the cusp of a Super Bowl, a bitterness in some corners that was exacerbated by stories of Vikings-fan-harassing and full-beer-can-throwing rowdies in Philadelphia at the NFC championship game last weekend, this is still the place where the trite-but-true slogan ”Minnesota Nice” was spawned.
”Once people are starting to let their wounds heal with the loss, in true Minnesota fashion, everybody will be friendly and welcoming,” said Jeff Hahn, the owner of Day Block Brewing Company, a restaurant and brewpub located two blocks from U.S. Bank Stadium . ”We are definitely more laid back than perhaps one of the two teams coming into town, but I think everybody will find that the hospitality here is friendly and nice, and we live in a neat city. I think people will be impressed with how beautiful the city is, even if it’s cold out.”
Threats of signing up to drive for ride-sharing services so they can intentionally drop Eagles fans off in the wrong spots or cancelling Airbnb rentals to travelers from Pennsylvania have most likely been social media users blowing off steam.
The storm that dropped more than a foot of snow on the Twin Cities came the day after the NFC championship game letdown, giving the locals an immediate opportunity to change the subject. There’s enough time before kickoff and enough pride in the chance to show off on the biggest stage in sports that the public face of this Super Bowl site probably won’t be frowning by the time the Patriots, the Eagles and the rest of the celebrity, corporate and football circles descend on the area.
”Treat everyone like you would want to be treated, right?” said Kerry Rauschendorfer, a Minneapolis resident who’s one of the 10,000 volunteers on official duty during the week of the game.
He’ll be working shifts in the skyway system, tasked with helping visitors navigate the maze of more than 8 miles of enclosed footbridges that span almost every street in the downtown Minneapolis core and allow a person to spend an entire day of employment, entertainment and exercise without stepping outside. The grid includes an entrance into U.S. Bank Stadium.
The Patriots and Eagles will be staying at luxury hotels adjacent to the Mall of America, the country’s largest entertainment and retail complex that sits in Bloomington on the suburban site where the Vikings once played before moving downtown and indoors. That’s another place where visitors can have fun and relax without a parka.
Winter around here , however, doesn’t automatically mean hibernation.
The Super Bowl committee’s theme is ”Bold North ” a reflection of the culture that bundles up and embraces the longest of the four seasons rather than running from it. At the NFL’s Super Bowl Live festivities along Nicollet Mall downtown, there’s a bridge for cross-country skiing, biking and tubing through 85 truckloads of snow. A few blocks away, a zip line is set up to take daredevils across a portion of the frozen Mississippi River. In the other twin