Welcome to The Athletic’s second annual NFL 40 under 40 list, a collection of the rising stars in football, the young league and team power brokers you should know this season.
Here are some parameters we used in creating this list, after soliciting nominations and advice from people working in and around the NFL: To be eligible, individuals had to be younger than 40 before Aug. 1, 2021. At times, established names were bumped to profile up-and-comers. For example: The NFL has six head coaches younger than 40, and after including the Giants’ Joe Judge and the Bengals’ Zac Taylor on last year’s list, we dropped them today in favor of a few rising coordinators.
