The disappearance of NFL wide receivers over the age of 30

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Pay issues Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs this offseason have highlighted an on-going problem for running backs — are wide receivers next?

The problems for running backs did not start this year with Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley, and Josh Jacobs. Those situations are merely a symptom of an issue that started well over 10 years ago, when teams stopped getting first round and free agency value returns on running backs that franchises were accustomed to prior to the NFL becoming such a quarterback-friendly league. Running backs had a Zoom meeting this summer to try and start figuring out solutions to their contractual problems, but they are at least five years late and didn’t need to wait this long to make their concerns public.

Will wide receivers also wait five years too long before they realize that they could be the next position to be devalued like running backs?

The NFL is disappearing receivers who are over 30

Go back to 2001 and you will find that there were 10 receivers in the league who were at least 30 and had at least 1,000 yards and that’s even before the NFL became so pass-happy. That includes 39-year-old Jerry Rice and 35-year-old Tim Brown on the Oakland Raiders. Two decades ago, being a young receiver was practically a roadblock, as teams trusted veterans way more than rookies: 13 of the top 17 players in receiving yards in 2001 were at least 28 and only three were 25 or younger.

In 2022, 14 of the top-25 receivers in receiving yards were 25 or younger, while only six of them were between 28 and 30. None were older than 30.

Go back to 2001 and dip slightly below the 1,000-yard threshold and you can add three more who were over 800 yards, including 36-year-old Cris Carter, who was targeted 130 times on the Minnesota Vikings. The only receiver in the NFL last season who was over 29 and targeted 130 times was Davante Adams and he was only 30.

An example of a 36-year-old receiver now would be Michael Crabtree. Can you imagine Crabtree being targeted 130 times in the year 2023? A.J. Green is 35 and Julio Jones is 34, two receivers with Hall of Fame cases who have already been aged out of the league, but 20 years ago there were teams heavily utilizing older players like Rice, Brown, and Carter.

And those are just examples in their mid-thirties, but the NFL has mostly eliminated all starting receivers over the age of 30. Actually, we’re still waiting to find out if players like Adams, Cooper Kupp, Tyler Lockett, and Stefon Diggs can be exceptions to an unwritten rule that has all but phased out NFL receivers over 29.

Gradually phasing out receivers over 29

In 2009, the NFL still had a place for receivers over 30, including Reggie Wayne, Randy Moss, Donald Driver, Chad Johnson, and Hines Ward. By 2016, there were six receivers over 30 with at least 1,000 yards. By 2017, there was only one: 34-year-old Larry Fitzgerald had 109 catches for 1,156 yards.

In 2021, the only receivers over 29 who were targeted at least 100 times were Marvin Jones (ranked 25th in targets at age 31) and Cole Beasley (112 targets, age 32). Those were the only two out of 41 players in the league to be targeted at least 100 times.

At this point, why should any receiver, even the ones with a Hall of Fame case, expect teams to give them a new contract or keep them on the roster once they hit 30?

Who needs to carry the torch now?

Whatever faith the NFL had left in running backs was completely lost sometime around 2019, when the Los Angeles Rams paid Todd Gurley a market-setting contract that was more than what they needed to pay and also poorly timed. Gurley never played a single down on his four-year extension, as the Rams released him before it started, but he wasn’t the only example working against the position: Le’Veon Bell’s contract with the Jets and Ezekiel Elliott’s deal with the Cowboys were both nearly as disastrous and were setbacks for those organizations.

Now it is up to a few select receivers to prove that players at the position don’t get too slow, too injured, and too expensive after they turn 30: Davante Adams and Cooper Kupp are at the top of that list, but there are a few more trailing right behind them.

When you look at the top receivers in the NFL a few years ago, what happened to them after turning 29 or 30?

Antonio Brown

He had 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns at age 30, then only 1,152 yards and 10 touchdowns over the next three seasons combined prior to being retired by the league.

Julio Jones

He had 99 catches for 1,394 yards with the Falcons at age 30, but has played for three teams in three years since and been injured every time, totaling only 105 catches for 1,504 yards in the past three campaigns combined. He has not been signed by any team in 2023.

DeAndre Hopkins

His last dominant season came in 2020, when he was 28. Hopkins had 572 yards in 2021 and 717 yards in 2022, which comes with the caveat that he’s only played in 19 games. Now with the Titans, Hopkins will try to prove that he’s going to be a better age-30+ receiver in Tennessee than Julio Jones and Robert Woods were.

Now there are a handful of examples of receivers who will need to have really good seasons in 2023 if they want to both help the future of the position and avoid being released in 2024.

Davante Adams, Raiders, age 31

Adams had one of the best seasons for a receiver over the age of 29 in quite a few years: 100 catches, 1,516 yards, 14 touchdowns. Adams only has a $14.7 million cap hit in 2023, but that number jumps to $25.3 million in 2024. However, that’s probably Adams’ final season on his current contract, as his cap hit goes to $44.1 million in 2025.

Cooper Kupp, Rams, age 30

After leading the NFL in receptions, yards, and touchdowns age age 28, Kupp was on track for another big season in 2022 but missed eight games. One of the major factors for receivers being phased out of the league at a younger average age than ever before is their ability to sustain health and speed for the long-term. In Kupp’s case, speed was never his thing anyway, but he must prove healthy in 2023 in order to stay in the league for more than another year or two.

Stefon Diggs, Bills, age 30

Diggs has averaged 117 catches and 1,453 yards in the last three seasons of playing with Josh Allen on the Bills. He should once again be the focal point of Buffalo’s passing attack, but the addition of first round tight end Dalton Kincaid could be a step towards getting Allen a new favorite weapon. Like other successful receivers, what is great for Diggs’ bank account also kind of works against him on the roster: Does a team want to pay a receiver a $27 million cap hit at age 32 when they could try and find a player in the draft who could do 80% of the same job for 20% of the cost?

Mike Evans, Bucs, age 30

Not being the fastest receiver in the league could actually work in Evans’ favor. As long as teams can trust him to be a big man threat in the red zone, he may continue to find opportunities and he’s had at least 1,000 yards in all nine campaigns of his career. He could also be traded during the season as a rental, as he is a free agent in 2024. However, how vast will the market be for a 31-year-old receiver who might be asking for $20 million per season?

Tyler Lockett, Seahawks, age 31

With DK Metcalf and now Jaxon Smith-Njigba added to Seattle’s receiving corps, the Seahawks are doing no less than keeping their options open in the future. Lockett has a $27 million cap hit in 2024, but none of his $15.3 million base salary is guaranteed.

Keenan Allen, Chargers, age 31

He missed seven games in 2022, he has a $34.7 million cap hit in 2024 (highest in the NFL for receivers), and the Chargers just drafted Quentin Johnston. Is there any chance Allen is on the roster next year?

Odell Beckham Jr, Ravens, age 30

Obviously Baltimore was willing to overlook the fact that OBJ hasn’t had more than 550 yards in a season since 2019 and that he missed the entire 2022 season. Whether their $18 million bet will actually pay off is one of the riskier wages in the NFL this year.

The days of Jerry Rice and Larry Fitzgerald seem over

The oldest receivers in the league today are Adam Thielen and Randall Cobb. Both are 33 and neither of them seems to be a high-end starter, although Thielen put himself in a position to be the top target in Carolina because the Panthers had so few other options. Whether he actually proves to be a threat for Bryce Young remains to be seen.

The way we used to perceive players who were 30 was that they could be in the prime of their careers. Whether that was Reggie Wayne or Roddy White or Fitzgerald, it always seemed like there was a way for teams to still be able to utilize those players and find opportunities for them to be productive. Fitzgerald was a completely different type of weapon in his twenties than in his thirties and he played for a long time.

Now teams see that there’s more value in simply replacing a receiver at or near the end of his second contract with a player on a rookie deal rather than paying him $20 to $30 million on the salary cap. Receivers got paid so much that teams have already been in the process over the last few years of finding ways to pay a lot less, even if the replacements don’t turn out to be quite as good. Just because some teams haven’t yet abided by those unwritten rules, including the Rams, Raiders, and the Miami Dolphins with Tyreek Hill, who is now 29 and another to keep watch on this season, it doesn’t mean that the wheels aren’t already in motion.

We saw that teams like the Rams and Jets who were late to the party on running backs with Gurley and Bell, but just because you missed the memo, it doesn’t mean there won’t eventually be a Zoom meeting about it.