Just not fair: 2025 Cowboys have youngest O-line in the NFL - once again!

Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The Cowboys offensive line continues to get younger after adding Tyler Booker.

In 2010, the most notable thing about the Cowboys’ offensive line was its age. The 2010 starting line of Doug Free (26), Kyle Kosier (31), Andre Gurode (32), Leonard Davis (32), and Marc Colombo (31) totaled 152 combined years of age.

Around that time, ESPN’s John Clayton wrote about the “Theory of 150”, explaining that if the combined age of your starting offensive line exceeds 150 years, you should expect a decline in performance. A combined age of 150 years means the average age of your linemen is 30 years, and as a group, that may be too old:

If a team lets its starting offensive line exceed the total age of 150 years for five starters, the clock is ticking on its remaining success. Three teams hit that mark over a three-year period — the Bears, Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys. The New York Giants hit the 150 mark a couple years ago and, even though they won a Super Bowl, they had concerns along the offensive line.

After the 2010 season, the Cowboys put in place a plan to improve the offensive line, a plan that started with the release of three veterans and the selection of Tyron Smith in the 2011 draft, as Jason Garrett explained.

“We had to make some real hard decisions right at the outset,” Garrett said. “We had some veteran offensive linemen. We ended up releasing three of them in one year. We played with some really young players. We didn’t have the draft choices or the money under the salary cap to go get guys to replace them. We had some hard-playing guys who came in and did everything we asked them to do. We knew we had to allocate resources to this. It also took time as we were taking our lumps against teams that were physically stronger than we were up front.”

The Cowboys’ very deliberate commitment to improve the offensive line paid off for the team. Yes, it did take time, and yes, it did involve some luck in getting the exact iteration of the offensive line the Cowboys would field. But eventually, NFL.com analyst Bucky Brooks in 2017 would call the unit the most feared position group in the entire NFL.

Along the way, they got younger.

And along the way, we started chronicling the yearly age of the Cowboys O-line, with the headlines over the years telling the story:

June 2012: Cowboys Have One Of The Youngest O-Lines In The NFL

July 2013: Cowboys O-Line Will Be One Of The Youngest In The NFL - Regardless Of Who Starts

May 2014: Cowboys Could Field Second-Youngest O-Line In The NFL in 2014

May 2015: Dallas Cowboys Likely To Field NFL’s Youngest O-Line In 2015

May 2016: Incredibly, Cowboys Could Have NFL’s Second-Youngest O-Line In 2016

June 2017: Shockingly, Dallas Cowboys Could Have NFL’s Second-Youngest O-Line In 2017

May 2018: Just not fair: 2018 Cowboys have youngest O-line in the NFL

But then players started getting older. And we stopped writing these articles. Travis Frederick retired in 2020. Tyron Smith left for the Jets in 2024. He and Zack Martin both retired this year.

But today we are back. Because the Cowboys once again have the youngest O-line in the NFL!

When the Cowboys kick off the 2025 season on September 7th, this will likely be the Cowboys’ starting line-up:

Tyler Guyton (24) - Tyler Smith (24) - Cooper Beebe (24) - Tyler Booker (21) - Terence Steele (28)

This lineup will have an average age of 24.5 years (or 122.6 combined years) on opening day of the 2025 NFL season, which makes it the youngest offensive line in the NFL this season. If you’re not a Cowboys fan, that’s got to be a scary thought.

Here’s how all NFL teams compare in total combined offensive line age on opening day 2025, based on the Ourlads.com depth charts (which are usually quite accurate) from 4/25/25 which already include all the first-round picks from Thursday:

Rank	Team	Avg. Age		Rank	Team	Avg. Age		Rank	Team	Avg. Age
1	DAL	24.5		12	MIA	26.9		23	NE	28.2
2	NYJ	24.6		13	IND	26.9		24	PHI	28.4
3	NO	25.3		14	GB	26.9		25	DET	28.7
4	SEA	25.5		15	ARI	27.0		26	CAR	28.7
5	LV	25.9		16	HOU	27.1		27	LAR	29.1
6	PIT	26.1		17	TEN	27.4		28	ATL	29.3
7	KC	26.1		18	CHI	27.8		29	NYG	29.5
8	TB	26.2		19	MIN	27.9		30	DEN	29.5
9	LAC	26.4		20	WAS	27.9		31	CLE	30.0
10	JAC	26.5		21	CIN	28.1		32	SF	30.2
11	BAL	26.5		22	BUF	28.2

As a general rule, you want your line (like any other position other than perhaps QB) to be younger rather than older. For one thing, as players become older, the risk of injury increases exponentially. But as they become older, they also become more expensive once they come off their rookie contracts. The Cowboys have already handed out a mega-million contract to Terence Steele, are still paying off the dead money on Zack Martin’s contract, and a new contract for Tyler Smith will be due soon. But today, four of their projected starters are still playing on rookie contracts, so there is no doubt that younger offensive lines come at a (relatively) lower cap hit.

When the Cowboys decided to “get young” in 2010, it took them four years to put together the backbone of their line (‘11 Tyron Smith, ‘13 Travis Frederick, ‘14 Zack Martin). They are on the same pace with the three Tylers (‘22 Smith, ‘24 Guyton, ‘25 Booker).

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek look (from last year) at the history of the offensive line in Dallas since 2009, and how history may be repeating itself before our eyes.

A color-coded history of the Cowboys O-line. pic.twitter.com/teyxXfkh8E

— OCC44 (@OCC44) August 14, 2024

Can the Cowboys repeat what they started 15 years ago and once again translate one of the youngest offensive lines in the NFL into the most dominant offensive line in the league?

It’s just not fair, is it?