The Tallest and Heaviest Players in NFL History

The tallest NFL player ever is Richard Sligh, a 7-foot defensive tackle who played eight games for the Oakland Raiders in 1967. He is the only 7-footer in professional football history. The heaviest is Aaron Gibson, an offensive tackle the Dallas Cowboys listed at 410 pounds in 2002, the first NFL player officially carried at 400 or more.

Both records come with an asterisk, because NFL rosters are not measured with a tape and a scale every week. Before the lists, it's worth understanding how soft these numbers actually are.

The Short Answer

First, a Warning About Listed Heights and Weights

Every number on this page is a listed figure — what a team put on a roster sheet, not what a neutral party measured. That distinction matters more than most lists admit.

The NFL Scouting Combine is the only standardized measurement most players ever get, and it happens once, before their careers start. A 2019 analysis of all 337 combine participants found that 169 of them — 50.4 percent — were at least a half-inch shorter than their college rosters had claimed. Running backs were the worst offenders at 64.3 percent; quarterbacks the best at 17.6 percent. Schools round up, and so do pro teams.

Even at the top of the sport the numbers wobble. Brock Osweiler was widely reported at 6-8, measured 6 feet 6⅞ at the combine, and turns up as 6-7 in the reference books. Weights are worse, because they actually move. Aaron Gibson's own Wikipedia entry carries 370 pounds in the infobox even though Dallas listed him at 410. Bryant McKinnie's reported 400 pounds in Baltimore was later described as exaggerated.

So treat the tables below as a ranking of what teams said, not of what a certified scale would have said. Where sources disagree, the figure used here is noted. The lists follow the listed heights and weights carried by Pro Football Reference and Wikipedia.

The Tallest Players in NFL History

Note the pattern: of the 15 players listed, nine are offensive tackles and two more played elsewhere on the line. Height is a genuine advantage on the edge of the line, where long arms let a blocker meet a pass rusher before the rusher gets into his chest. It is close to useless at most other positions, which is why the list thins out so quickly outside the trenches.

Richard Sligh: The Only 7-Footer

Sligh played college ball at North Carolina College, was drafted by Oakland in 1967, and appeared in eight games as a reserve defensive tackle that season. That was his entire NFL career. He was on the Raiders roster that reached Super Bowl II, which makes him the tallest man ever to be part of a Super Bowl team.

Nobody has matched him. Since Sligh, exactly two players have been listed at 6-10, and neither of them was a full-time starter for long.

The most decorated tall player is a notch below him. Ed "Too Tall" Jones, at 6-9, spent 15 seasons as Dallas's left defensive end across 224 games, made three straight Pro Bowls from 1981 to 1983, and won a ring in Super Bowl XII. He also took a full year off in 1979 to box professionally and came back. His 106 career sacks by the Cowboys' own count would rank him among the best pass rushers of his era, though the NFL did not make sacks an official statistic until 1982, so his recognized total is 57.5 — a bookkeeping quirk that has kept plenty of 1970s defenders off lists like Every NFL Defensive Player of the Year Winner.

Morris Stroud and the Rule Named After Him

The other 6-10 player from the old days did something no one else on this list managed: he got the rulebook rewritten. Morris Stroud was a tight end for Kansas City from 1969 to 1974 and a member of the Super Bowl IV champions. On field goal attempts he would stand under the crossbar and try to swat the ball down as it descended.

It worked often enough that the NFL banned it outright. Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1 now prohibits any player from leaping to deflect a kick as it passes above the crossbar, and the penalty awards the kicking team its three points. It is the closest thing pro football has to a goaltending rule, and it exists because one very tall tight end kept reaching up.

The Heaviest Players in NFL History

Aaron Gibson is the one everyone cites, and for good reason: the 410 the Cowboys put on their 2002 roster made him the first NFL player ever officially listed at 400 pounds or more. He was a first-round pick out of Wisconsin in 1999 and played for the Lions, Cowboys, Bears and Bills before finishing his career in the Arena Football League. His listed weight elsewhere is 370, which is a fair illustration of the whole problem with this list.

Terrell Brown's 403 came from a Rams weigh-in during his rookie offseason in 2013 and was widely reported at the time. Nate Newton, the six-time Pro Bowl guard on Dallas's 1990s dynasty, was listed as high as 401 and is the heaviest player on this list with a genuinely great career behind him.

The 464-Pound Asterisk

Desmond Watson, an undrafted defensive tackle out of Florida, signed with Tampa Bay in 2025 listed at 464 pounds — far heavier than anyone else who has ever been on an NFL roster. He never played a regular-season game. The Buccaneers placed him on the non-football injury list because of his weight, waived him, brought him back to the practice squad, and released him again in November 2025.

He belongs in the story, but not in the ranking. The heaviest player to actually take an NFL snap is still Aaron Gibson.

Why Offensive Linemen Keep Getting Bigger

Look at the two tables together and the same conclusion falls out: nine of the 15 tallest and nine of the 13 heaviest were offensive linemen. That was not always true, and the shift happened fast.

Three Hall of Fame tackles, one per era, tell the story:

Dierdorf was one of the best tackles of the 1970s at 275 pounds. Today, 275 would be light for a tight end. Across the 2023 season, the average NFL offensive lineman measured roughly 6-5 and 315 pounds across nearly 300 players — heavier than every one of Dierdorf's contemporaries and about 40 pounds more than a prime Anthony Muñoz.

Two things drove it. The first is the pass rush. The NFL's 1978 rules changes opened up the passing game, and the defensive end evolved into a specialist sprinter coming off the edge. Mass and arm length are the cheapest counters to speed and leverage.

The second is that the rules made mass affordable. Modern blocking allows extended arms and open hands, which rewards a big frame far more than the tight, elbows-in technique of the 1960s did. The result is a position where 300 pounds went from unusual to the effective minimum in about 25 years, and where a meaningful slice of every 53-man roster — see How Many Players Are on an NFL Roster — is now reserved for men who weigh more than 300.

The Tallest Quarterbacks

Quarterback is the one skill position where extra height is a real asset, since throwing lanes over a 6-5 offensive line are hard to find at 6-0.

• Dan McGwire, 6-8. The tallest quarterback ever to play in the NFL. Seattle took him 16th overall in the 1991 draft, 17 picks before Atlanta took Brett Favre. He appeared in 13 games over five seasons with the Seahawks and Dolphins, starting five, and finished with 745 passing yards, two touchdowns and six interceptions. He is the younger brother of baseball's Mark McGwire.
• Brock Osweiler, 6-7. Listed at 6-8 in plenty of places, measured 6 feet 6⅞ at the combine. He started a Super Bowl-winning Broncos team's stretch run in 2015 and later played for Houston, Cleveland and Miami.
• Justin Herbert and Joe Flacco, 6-6. The practical modern ceiling for a starter, and proof that the tail-end height gains stop paying off somewhere around 6-6.

McGwire's career is the cautionary tale usually attached to this list. Height gets a quarterback drafted — and where a team picks is settled by rules that have nothing to do with body type, as How Does the NFL Draft Order Work lays out. It does not get him a second contract.

The Tallest and Heaviest Players Active Right Now

Entering the 2026 season, the two tallest players on NFL rosters are both rookie offensive tackles listed at 6-9: Markel Bell, taken 68th overall by Philadelphia out of Miami and listed at 346 pounds, and Travis Burke, taken 117th by the Chargers out of Memphis at 315. Behind them sits a group at 6-8 that includes Jordan Mailata, Trent Brown, Mike McGlinchey and Calais Campbell.

The list turned over recently. Dan Skipper, the 6-10 tackle who spent nine seasons bouncing between seven franchises, announced his retirement on January 22, 2026 and joined Detroit's coaching staff a few weeks later. He was the tallest active player in the league for most of the last decade.

On the scale, Daniel Faalele at a listed 380 to 384 pounds and Trent Brown at 380 are the heaviest active players, with Cleveland's Dawand Jones at 374 just behind. Faalele was the heaviest rostered player in the NFL the day Baltimore drafted him in 2022.

This section is refreshed each September once teams set their 53-man rosters, since listed sizes and roster spots both change every offseason.

The Other End: The Smallest Players in NFL History

For contrast, the floor is a lot lower than most people assume.

Jack Shapiro is the record holder. Guinness World Records lists him at 5 feet 0½ inches and credits him with one official league game, against the Minneapolis Red Jackets on November 24, 1929, in which he carried twice for seven yards and returned a punt 12 yards. Other accounts give him 5-1 and two appearances, which is a reminder that 1920s record-keeping was no more rigorous than modern roster sheets.

Pard Pearce, at 5-5 and 150 pounds, remains the shortest quarterback in league history. Darren Sproles is the most accomplished small man on the list — a Super Bowl winner who once held the single-season record for all-purpose yards.

Between Shapiro's 5-0½ and Sligh's 7-0 sits a span of almost two feet, which is a decent summary of how many different body types professional football has found a use for. The same range shows up in the buildings: the league has played championship games in everything from a 1920s college bowl to a domed stadium, as Every Stadium That Has Hosted a Super Bowl shows, and it has produced scores ranging from 16 combined points to 113.

FAQ

Who is the tallest NFL player ever? Richard Sligh, a 7-foot defensive tackle who played eight games for the Oakland Raiders in 1967. He is the only 7-footer in professional football history, and no one has been listed above 6-10 since.

Has anyone else ever been 7 feet tall in the NFL? No. Sligh is the only one. The tallest players since are Dan Skipper and Morris Stroud, both listed at 6-10.

Who is the heaviest NFL player ever? Aaron Gibson, listed at 410 pounds by the Dallas Cowboys in 2002 — the first NFL player officially listed at 400 or more. Desmond Watson was carried at 464 pounds by Tampa Bay in 2025 but never played a regular-season game.

Who is the tallest player in the NFL right now? Two rookie offensive tackles at 6-9: Markel Bell of the Eagles and Travis Burke of the Chargers. Dan Skipper, at 6-10, held the title until he retired in January 2026.

Are NFL listed heights and weights accurate? Not especially. A study of 337 NFL combine participants found more than half measured at least a half-inch shorter than their college rosters listed them. Weights are updated inconsistently and often reflect what a player weighed at some point, not what he weighs now.

Who is the tallest quarterback in NFL history? Dan McGwire at 6-8, a first-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 1991. Brock Osweiler, listed at 6-7 or 6-8 depending on the source, is next.

Who is the shortest NFL player ever? Jack Shapiro, listed by Guinness World Records at 5 feet 0½ inches, who played for the Staten Island Stapletons in 1929.

Why are so many of the biggest players offensive linemen? Length and mass are direct advantages against edge rushers, and the blocking rules reward both. Eleven of the 15 tallest players in league history and nine of the 13 heaviest played on the offensive line.