NEW ORLEANS – They’re like your favorite cabernet or chardonnay. Many improve with age, barring conditions largely outside of their control. They’re relatively subdued but pack a punch.
They are NFL offensive linemen, perhaps the lone position group in football that gets better with time. The Philadelphia Eagles – with right tackle Lane Johnson as the clearest current example – are proof ahead of their Super Bowl 59 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“It’s like a fine wine almost,” Eagles offensive line coach and run game coordinator Jeff Stoutland told USA TODAY Sports. “As they get older, they understand more of the importance of technique. Because an offensive lineman’s life is all technique, and I mean that.”
The best years of former center Jason Kelce’s career came in his 30s. Detroit Lions right guard Kevin Zeitler (34) is having the same trajectory. When healthy, the San Francisco 49ers’ Trent Williams – 37 at the start of next season – is one of the most dominant players in football.
“I would relate it to probably almost being the elder statesmen in the jungle , the sense that you understand what it takes to win fights, battles and leverage and power,” former NFL offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth, who earned his first All-Pro nod 10 years into his career in his age-34 season, told USA TODAY Sports. “And if you think of, like, movies you’ve seen with, like, the old lion or the old bear educating the young one – they’re full bigger and stuff, but that’s not what wins the battles.”
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Now a studio analyst for Amazon, Whitworth compared an offensive lineman’s improvement to older UFC fighters who have an advantage over their younger competitors. They’ve been there before.
After the Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers in the NFC wild-card round last month, USA TODAY Sports asked Johnson himself to start positing the theory: do offensive linemen get better with age?
“Oh, that’s a good question,” Johnson said. “I would say yes because we’re not having to cover a whole lot of ground, we just got to be quick inside of a short area beside some backside cutoffs. So you can make up a lot with wisdom.”
In that game, Johnson, who will turn 35 this year, executed a spin-move block he called “a last-second parachute.”
“The funniest thing I saw today was (expletive) Whitworth with my jersey on,” said Johnson, who noticed Whitworth shown on the jumbotron enjoying the game with Kelce and other former Eagles players. “I said, ‘By the end of this game, I might just look like his (expletive), might get some grey in my beard.’”
In youth football and the early stages of development, the build of an offensive lineman is universal, ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky said, whereas receivers and linebackers have multiple body types capable of playing the position. Size is the primary reason a young player starts playing offensive line, thus they are constantly playing catch-up with their skill development.
“Then the more that their size and strength doesn’t really go away,” Orlovsky told USA TODAY Sports, “they’re big and strong for a great majority of their life.
“It’s really, for them, just consistently building their skill group and their intellect group. And so I think the older they get, they get more skillful, they get smarter, and that’s one of the reasons why I totally agree with that.”
As Stoutland said, technique is everything.
“You cannot be a great player if you don’t have the right stuff technically,” Stoutland said. “And you ask any of these great players and they’re gonna back me up on that.”
Whitworth said he doesn’t even have to watch a clip of film to know whether a lineman had a good game if somebody else says he played with great technique.
“The reality of our position is it’s about O-linemen who get in either positions where they’re too weak or positions where they freak out and their fear of failing, they take bad steps, bad hands, they overreact to things, they lean, all those type things,” Whitworth said. “Those are the things that actually make them lose, not any of the other stuff that’s skill set-driven. So it’s really about the ability to control your body.”
Chiefs offensive line coach Andy Heck believes in the concept based on his personal experience as a 12-year tackle and guard with three teams.
“It took me, I felt like, seven years until I felt like I was playing at my best,” Heck told USA TODAY Sports. “It was the best combination of coaching, technique, maturing strength-wise, knowing people I’m going against.”
But the body starts to wear down eventually. For some people, it’s faster than others.
“There comes a point where your experience and your craftiness can carry you,” Heck explained, “but you’re still diminished as an athlete.”
Washington Commanders right tackle Andrew Wylie, who played for Heck in Kansas City for five seasons, also said his time in the league informed him of that belief.
“I think you figure out what type of player you are,” Wylie told USA TODAY Sports. “When you’re young, that first contract, those first three years, you’re really trying to figure out what works for you in this league. It could be your thing and it doesn’t work against specific rushers, either. But I think you just figure out the player you are and sometimes that takes a little while.”
Players being more proactive with their offseason work is one reason offensive linemen can often have greater success in the back halves of their careers. Strength is important, but mobility is equally vital.
“As players age, they say they get stiffer,” Johnson said. “They lose explosiveness.”
Johnson could only think of his former Eagles teammate, Jason Peters, the two-time All-Pro who signed with the Seattle Seahawks’ practice squad at the age of 42 in October.
“What year did he come in? (2003)? Holy (expletive),” he said.
Experience can be a driving factor of improvement for any player. But offensive linemen have time on their side more than positions that are involved in high-speed collisions or require more explosiveness on a per-down basis.
“The longer you play,” Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata told USA TODAY Sports, “the more you can refine your craft.
“(Johnson) is a prime example. Jason Kelce is a prime example of it. (Expletive), (Peters) is a prime example. Although I will say there should be a limit, a mandatory requirement to retire,” Mailata added with his trademark humor. “(Expletive), I don’t know how he’s still playing, man. He loves the game. That’s one thing I took from him.”
Whitworth said that when he entered the league in 2006, he came from a college strength and conditioning program at Louisiana State that consisted of lifting heavy weights and running.
“What I’ve seen more of the young guys that come in now is, they’re actually the opposite of us,” Whitworth said. “They’re super mobile and athletic and all these things, but they don’t necessarily have what I call foundational strength and power and what I would call your ‘man strength,’ like ‘grown-man’ strength.”
Watching his rookie tape with the Cincinnati Bengals makes Whitworth want to “throw up.”
“So I spent most of my career reversing all that and trying to move better to get limber and doing yoga and Pilates,” he said.
None of this is to say that younger offensive linemen are incapable of playing better than their elder linemates. The first-team All-Pro right guard and right tackle, Quinn Meinerz of the Denver Broncos and the Lions’ Penei Sewell, respectively, both were fourth-year players in 2024.
“I think you’re talking about some very special people, some outliers,” Heck said of the offensive lineman category of “improved with time.” “Those are great players – they were always great players. Maybe it took a year, two, three, to really notice that because they were still hung up on the other great players that were still going. Sometimes the recognition does come later because it takes a while for everyone to be like, ‘You know what? Come to think of it, that’s two or three years in a row he’s been doing that.’
“To be doing that at their age, unbelievable. Players are taking better care of themselves today than they were 20 years ago, that’s for sure. But they’re also freaks of nature, all the guys you just mentioned.”
Whitworth laughs that the main highlight from the movie “The Blind Side” is Michael Oher blocking an unassuming defender off the field and over a fence. Plays like that are the worst indicator of whether an offensive lineman is good at his job. Observing consistent performance over an extended period of time is a more accurate way to assess a player at the position.
“So when you’ve watched guys do it for eight, nine, 10, 11 years, there’s no question how good they are,” Whitworth said. “And that’s why all of a sudden their star goes. Because people have heard their name, moved on. Heard their name, ‘Ah, maybe I’m a little interested.’ Heard their name, and (maybe) their team has success now, they pay a little more attention. And then they get to an age where they go, ‘Man, I’ve heard this guy’s name like five, six times. God, he must be good cause he just keeps coming back.’
“And so I think that’s really why you see these veteran offensive linemen that finally get their due and their respect is because they’ve been that way the whole time.”