This is what Marshall Faulk just said, but I've heard it a ton from a lot of different people, and it's starting to irritate me, because it's not true. Everyone sees Lewis and Reed, and automatically that means the entire defense is aging.

Lewis is 37 and Reed is 34. Duh, they're aging.

You can also say something like that of Suggs, though Suggs is only 30 which is hardly over the hill, and he's not even on the field this year so far.

However, the rest of the major defensive players?
McPhee - 24
Ngata - 28
Jones - 26
Cody - 24
Kemoeatu - 33

McClellan - 26
Kruger - 26
McClain - 27
Ellerbe - 27
Upshaw - 23

Webb - 27
Williams - 28
Smith - 24
Pollard - 28
Ihedigbo - 29

Out of those 15 guys, one is over 30 and only two are over 28, which is sort of what's accepted as a player's peak age. Even if you include Lewis, Reed and Suggs in that crowd, which I would guess represents 95%+ of the player plays on defense, it's an average age of 27.8 years old. Eliminate to only the pure starters (include Suggs) and it's either 28.4 or 29.2, depending whether you consider Kemo or McPhee a starter. That's an aging defense??? I would bet it's actually less than the average defense age in the NFL for the major players (though maybe not for the starters).

- C -