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New Orleans Saints roster brimming with young stars poised for breakout seasons

The standing-room-only crowd that lined the practice field at the Advocare Sports Performance facility here Saturday morning was disappointed at the relative lack of star power in the Black & Gold scrimmage.

No Drew Brees, who sat out the scrimmage with a strained oblique muscle.

No Champ Bailey, who was sidelined with some form of top-secret, mystery injury.

And no Jairus Byrd, who is still recovering from offseason back surgery.

A few fans voiced their dejection to each other in the stands. But once the action started, their dismay quickly disappeared. The Saints' roster is bursting at the seams with young talent and several of them put on a show Saturday as the club zipped through its first full-contact, game-like session of camp.

The NFL largely is a young man's game. A player reaches his prime early, usually from his second to fourth season. The sweet spot for an NFL player usually is anywhere from age 23 to 27. And the Saints are loaded with these guys. It's the age when you finally know what you're doing and are still able to do it.

Twelve of the Saints' 22 starters in the 2009 Super Bowl season were in this age range along with punter Thomas Morstead and special teams captain Courtney Roby. The average age of the Super Bowl team was 27.7, according to Pro Football Reference. Last year's squad was 26.6. And this year's squad could skew even younger.

Of the 90 players on the Saints roster, 56 are between the ages of 23 and 27. Eleven of them are projected starters: Terron Armstead (23); Byrd (27); Rafael Bush (27); Junior Galette (26); Jimmy Graham (27); Akiem Hicks (24); Mark Ingram (24); Cameron Jordan (25); Tim Lelito (25); Patrick Robinson (240: and Kenny Vaccaro (23). Several others - Victor Butler (27); Travaris Cadet (25); Josh Hill (24); Khiry Robinson (24) Kenny Stills (22); Nick Toon (25) - are expected to play regular contributing roles.

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