Following last week’s tome, I decided to take on a shorter topic that I’ve been thinking about as an aid for watching the team this season.
It’s not a secret. Players peak in their mid-to-late 20s, with wide/attacking players peaking closer to the beginning of that range and interior/defensive players closer to the end. While, for individual players, physical development is nonlinear and variable, kids get bigger, faster, and stronger at an unbelievable rate through adolescence into their early 20s. Further, playing time at highly competitive levels factors a ton into player development over that period, so younger players who have had less time at that level get more runway compared to older players to improve in that crucial window.