Who Was The Youngest NFL Player?

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at who was the youngest player in NFL history. We’ll also explore some of the other youngest players in the league today.

Introduction

In the National Football League, the age of a player is determined as of September 1 of the year in which the regular season starts. So for the 2020 season, players had to be born on or after September 1, 1997. This means that any player who turned 23 years old or more during calendar year 2020 is not eligible for the 2020 season.

The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with its players stipulates that three drafted players each year may be “designated” as “redshirt” players. These are players who were drafted in the fourth through seventh rounds, or who signed as undrafted free agents. Redshirt players are allowed to participate in preseason games and practices, but they are ineligible to play in the regular season or postseason. They can be activated at any time during the season, but once they play in a game, they lose their redshirt status and are treated like any other player on the roster.

The youngest player in NFL history isPlacekicker Thomas Sorensen, who was born on August 16, 1998. Sorensen played one game for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he was 19 years old.

Early Life and High School Football Career

Emmitt James Smith III was born on May 15, 1969, in Pensacola, Florida. His mother, Mary Smith, was a schoolteacher, and his father, Emmitt Smith II, worked for the local phone company. When Smith was just four years old, his parents divorced. He and his two sisters stayed with their mother in Pensacola while their father relocated to Detroit, Michigan. As a result of the divorce, Smith had little contact with his father during his childhood and adolescence.

smith began playing organized football at age seven in a Pop Warner League. He quickly developed into a star player and was soon earning the nickname “Emmitt The Flash” for his speed on the field. When he was eleven years old, his mother remarried and the family moved to Dallas, Texas. It was there that Smith enrolled at Edwin J. Pope High School.

As a freshman at Pope High School, Smith played running back on the junior varsity football team. The following year he made the varsity squad and rushed for over 1,000 yards as a sophomore. As a junior he again topped the 1,000-yard mark and was named to the all-district team. He capped off his high school career by rushing for 2,013 yards and 34 touchdowns as a senior in 1986. That year he was named both the district’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) and Offensive Player of the Year.

College Football Career

Amari Cooper played three seasons of college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, from 2012 to 2014. As a freshman in 2012, he had 59 receptions for 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns. In 2014, his junior year, he had 124 receptions for 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns, which led the nation, and was a consensus first-team All-American. He also won the Fred Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s best receiver. After his junior year, he declared for the 2015 NFL Draft.

NFL Career

In 1998, quarterback Peyton Manning was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts as the first overall pick in the NFL Draft. Manning became the youngest player in NFL history to start a game at quarterback, and went on to have a Hall of Fame career.

Retirement

The youngest player in NFL history is still playing today. In October of 2019, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver John Ross III became the youngest player in the league at just 23 years and 97 days old.

Ross was drafted with the ninth overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft by the Bengals. He played college football at the University of Washington, where he was a two-time first-team All-Pac-12 selection. He also set an NCAA record for the fastest time in the 40-yard dash at the 2017 NFL Scouting Combine.

Ross has had a bit of a rocky start to his NFL career, as he’s dealt with various injuries that have limited him to just 14 games over his first three seasons. However, he did show some promise in 2019, catching 27 passes for 506 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Only time will tell if Ross can stay healthy and build on his 2019 season, but at just 23 years old, he has plenty of time to develop into a great player in this league.

Personal Life

Williams was born in Beaumont, Texas. He attended West Brook High School in Beaumont, where he played football and basketball. Williams played college football at the University of Texas at Austin, and was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft.

In 2004, Williams helped lead the Saints to their first NFC Championship Game appearance in franchise history. The following season, he was named a First Team All-Pro by the Associated Press after leading the league in sacks with 12.5. In 2006, Williams was voted by his peers as one of the Top 100 players in the NFL.

Williams’s career came to an abrupt end when he ruptured his patellar tendon during a game against the San Francisco 49ers in 2008. He missed the rest of the season and was subsequently placed on injured reserve. After being released by the Saints in 2009, Williams signed with the Miami Dolphins, but was forced to retire after suffering another knee injury during training camp.

Since his retirement from football, Williams has opened several mutual funds and investment firms. He is also a part-owner of a sports management company and has worked as an analyst for Fox Sports 1 and ESPN.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is no one definitive answer to the question of who the youngest player in NFL history is. Depending on the source, you may find that either Rudy Johnson or Andy Alcot was the youngest player to ever step on an NFL field. However, as we have seen, there are many factors that can affect a player’s eligibility for the NFL, and so it is possible that there is another player out there who holds the record for being the youngest to ever play in the league.