Any offensive line will struggle when it loses its veterans and the New England Patriots are no exception. The Patriots have placed both offensive line captains, Ryan Wendell and Nate Solder, on the season-ending injury reserve, and two of the other veterans, Sebastian Vollmer and Marcus Cannon, are sidelined with short-term injuries.
Enter one terrifyingly young offensive line.
| Pos | Player | Birth Date | Age |
| LT | Cameron Fleming | 9/3/1992 | 23.2 |
| LG | Shaq Mason | 8/28/1993 | 22.2 |
| C | David Andrews | 7/10/1992 | 23.4 |
| RG | Josh Kline | 12/29/1989 | 25.9 |
| RT | Bryan Stork | 11/15/1990 | 25.0 |
| avg | 23.9 |
Kline is the veteran of the group in his third season in the NFL, Fleming and Stork are in their second seasons, and Mason and Andrews are rookies.
I scanned through the Patriots starting line-ups under Bill Belichick and I couldn't find a younger line at any point in his tenure. I'm not 100% certain in this because there's no easy way to find out, but pretty much every line-up featured a player 30+ years of age.
If there's just one 30+ year old in the starting line-up, every other starter would have be under the age of 23 to feature a younger average that this past week's line-up. If you can find a younger offensive line, feel free to post it in the comments.
23.9 years of age. This is the equivalent of someone being born in December of 1991. This would be a player that is younger than cornerback Malcolm Butler, or quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, or rookie Darryl Roberts.
The average age of the line should increase with the return of Vollmer and Cannon in the coming weeks and this line-up was definitely a one-off anomaly.
But kudos to the young players of the Patriots for stepping up in a difficult situation and for playing their hearts out.