Happy Birthday, Antoine Winfield

One of our favorite Vikings is celebrating a birthday today, as cornerback Antoine Winfield, who missed a good chunk of last season with an injury, hits the ripe old age of 35 today.

Winfield has been a fan favorite since coming over from the Buffalo Bills before the start of the 2004 season. He's going into his 14th season out of THE. . .dramatic pause. . .Ohio State University, and has been a huge part of the Minnesota defense ever since his arrival.

At 35, Winfield is the oldest current member of the Minnesota Vikings. In a way, that illustrates how quickly this roster has gotten younger, compared to the past couple of seasons. As the roster sits right now, the Vikings have eight players that have hit the big 3-0.

Winfield (age 35)
Sage Rosenfels (34)
Cullen Loeffler (31)
Kevin Williams (31)
Jared Allen (30)
Joe Berger (30)
Michael Jenkins (30)
Chris Kluwe (30)

Of those guys, Allen, Williams, Loeffler, and Kluwe are among the best players in the league at what they do, so I suppose you could say they're "aging gracefully." Hopefully Winfield can regain his form, and the other three are (or should be) backups.

Other than those eight individuals, every player on the Vikings' current 90-man roster is under the age of 30. I'm not sure where that stacks them up on the "youngest teams in the NFL" list, but they've got to be pretty close to the top.