The WR Age Cliff – Buyer Beware

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  • Last Updated on August 6, 2025 12:19 pm by Jon Mosales | Published: July 30, 2025

    Age cliffs in football come fast and sometimes without warning.  The key is to be early. Know who to fade and when to know you’re holding on too long, hoping a player can find the fountain of youth and regain his past glory.  It’s not an exact science, but we can get pretty close to knowing when to pull chute and when to hold on for one last ride.  Age might be just a number, but when it comes to fantasy football, the sweet spot abandoning ship for WRs is around 31 years old.  It doesn’t matter the talent level, the name or the pedigree.  The math says once they hit that invisible age barrier, the odds are their production is going to fall off.  Let’s look at some trends and some players who have hit the cliff and more importantly the ones who are headed there.

     

    Lets first look at a pair former superstar WRs in Julio Jones and Amari Cooper and track their decline

    Julio Jones 

    2018 – WR 2 (Age 29), 2019 – WR2 – (Age 30), 2020 – WR 52 (Age 31)

    Amari Cooper

    2022, WR10, 2023 – WR20 (Age 29), 2024 – WR63 (Age 30)

    These two WRs weren’t on the same level, but you can see Jones was able to still thrive at age 30 while Cooper became unrosterable last season.  It’s not just the production that falls off, it’s their bodies as well as Jones played at least 15 games six seasons in a row and then never played that many again.  Cooper trailed off a little earlier than expected and even a trade to BUF from CLE couldn’t save his career.  You never know exactly when the floor will fall out, but there is nothing worse than drafting an aging WR and then starting him half the season while you foolish wait for him to get back on track.  That was what killed fantasy GMs last season with Tyreek Hill as you had to start him even without Tua Tagovailoa and then of course when he came back.  If you used a top-five pick on him last season, you probably didn’t make the playoffs.  Now everyone is telling you it was just a one-off and he’s still just as fast and explosive.  Don’t fall for it.


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    July 30, 2025, 2:13 pm