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Welcome to the Terrible Take, a daily segment telling Steel or Nation what's on our minds.

I'm Melanie Freelander.

At the East West Shrine Bowl this week, I have met multiple players in their fifth year of college or even graduate school.

Some have joked about their advanced age.

With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the 20-20 NCAA football season,

the option of a super senior year, an extra year of eligibility allowed by the NCAA to any

player who was on a roster in the fall of 2020 was a welcome opportunity for

athletes to solidify their draft value. This had a ripple effect to some degree. Players returning for their

fifth or sixth year of school to complete their fourth full season took roster spots and scholarship

money from potential recruits, forcing some to consider Division II programs. The other potential impact potential age on draft day? Or does it? Perception is never as accurate as data so I crunch the

numbers using age values from pro football reference. In 2017 the average age of

all drafted players from round one to Mr irrelevant was 22.3. The next five years,

22.2, 22.4, 22.2, 22.25, and 22.6. You get it, not much of a difference. We don't have age data for this year's

draft yet, but it's unlikely to be significantly higher given that a fair number of players

that were eligible for that extra year have already completed it. And maybe age isn't the

absolute predictor of success at the next level. Let's look at some of those older

players taken in the early round since 2017 when Cooper Cup was selected in the third round at 24 years of age.

Pretty ancient for a wide receiver, right? I would argue that the Rams don't have any

...