Tallest NFL Players

How tall are the tallest NFL players?

American football rewards mass and strength more than height alone, so the tallest players in its history are not as extreme as basketball's giants. The thirty players on this list run from Richard Sligh at 213.4 cm (7′0″) down to a cluster of players at 203.2 cm (6′8″). Their average is about 205.5 cm (6′9″), roughly 28 cm taller than the average American man born in 1996, who stands about 177 cm in the NCD-RisC data on our United States average height page.

The list covers notable players with a recorded height on Wikidata, past and present, and it includes men who played in the American Football League before it merged with the NFL. Sligh and Ernie Ladd both fall into that category.

Thirteen players share 206 cm in the full ranking, so ties dominate the table. NFL heights are listed in whole inches, and one inch is 2.54 cm, so the list is really a ladder of a few rungs: 7′0″, 6′10″, 6′9″, 6′8½″ and 6′8″.

Richard Sligh: the only 7-footer

Richard Sligh is listed at 7′0″, and his Wikipedia biography describes him as the tallest player in professional American football history. He came from North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central) and was picked 253rd overall, in the 10th round, of the 1967 draft. He played eight games as a defensive tackle for the Oakland Raiders, then an AFL team, and was a reserve when the Raiders lost Super Bowl II to the Green Bay Packers. The expansion Cincinnati Bengals took him in the 1968 allocation draft but waived him before the season.

The same article lists the next three tallest players as Matt O'Donnell at 6′11″ and Morris Stroud and Dan Skipper at 6′10″. O'Donnell does not currently appear in this site's thirty-player ranking, so on Wikipedia's ordering he would slot into second place.

The 6′10″ pair: a tight end and a tackle

Morris Stroud played tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1969 to 1974. Wikipedia says that at 6′10″ he is believed to have been the tallest tight end in NFL history and the second-tallest player at any position. He was on the roster for the 1969 AFL Championship Game even though he did not play in that regular season. His biography records a 40-yard dash time of 4.57 seconds, quick for a player listed at about 250 pounds.

Dan Skipper is a modern example, and one with a precise measurement. Listed at 6′10″, he measured 6′9⅝″ at the NFL Scouting Combine before the 2017 draft, according to the measurables table in his Wikipedia biography. That gap of three-eighths of an inch is typical: league listings round to the nearest inch, while the Combine records to the eighth. Skipper played college football at Arkansas, where he set a school record with seven blocked field goals, and now works as an offensive assistant for the Detroit Lions.

Why most of the tallest players are offensive tackles

Look down the full list and one position keeps recurring: offensive tackle. Ogden, St. Clair, Villanueva, Dunlap, Lucas, Dotson, Skipper and Brown all played there. A tackle's job is to keep pass rushers away from the quarterback, and arm length and a big frame are the tools for it.

Many of these tackles took unglamorous routes into the league. King Dunlap was a seventh-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles out of Auburn in 2008 and later played for the San Diego Chargers. Demar Dotson, from Southern Mississippi, signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent in 2009, and Cornelius Lucas did the same with the Detroit Lions out of Kansas State in 2014 before moving through the Rams, Saints, Bears, Commanders and Browns. Max Pircher, an Italian tackle listed by NFL.com at 6′7″ and so just outside this top thirty, began with the Swarco Raiders Tirol in the Austrian Football League and joined the Los Angeles Rams in 2021 through the NFL's International Player Pathway program.

Trent Brown's Combine numbers show the scale involved. His Wikipedia biography lists a measured height of 6′8½″, a weight of 355 lb, 36-inch arms and a wingspan of 7′3⅜″. NFL.com lists him at 6′8″ and 380 lb. He went from Georgia Military College to Florida, where at 6-foot-8 and 363 pounds he was the Gators' biggest offensive lineman in a decade, before the San Francisco 49ers drafted him in the seventh round in 2015.

Three Hall of Fame tackles and ends

Jonathan Ogden (206 cm) was the Baltimore Ravens' first-ever draft choice, fourth overall in 1996, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. NFL.com lists him at 6′9″ and 345 lb. Over 12 seasons and 177 games he made 11 Pro Bowls, was a first-team All-Pro six times and won Super Bowl XXXV. In 2003 he helped open holes for Jamal Lewis's 2,066-yard season.

Bob St. Clair (206 cm) joined the San Francisco 49ers as a third-round pick in 1953. The Hall of Fame describes him at 6-9 and 265 pounds, much lighter than today's tackles, and credits him with 10 blocked field goals in 1956 alone. He was named first- or second-team All-NFL nine times and later served as mayor of Daly City, California.

Ed "Too Tall" Jones (206 cm) played defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys for 15 seasons, with a break in 1979 when he tried professional boxing. He made three Pro Bowls. His Wikipedia biography says the nickname came at his first football practice, when a teammate remarked that his pants did not fit because he was too tall to play football.

Tall men at the skill positions

Height is rarer at positions that need speed and agility, which makes the exceptions stand out.

Harold Carmichael (203.2 cm, 6′8″) is the tallest receiver on this list. The Pro Football Hall of Fame says the Eagles took him in the seventh round in 1971 out of Southern University. In 1973 he led the NFL with 67 catches and 1,116 yards, and from 1972 to 1980 he set a then-NFL record of 127 straight games with a reception. He finished with 590 catches, 8,985 yards and 79 touchdowns and made the All-Decade Team of the 1970s. Wikipedia also notes that he shares the record for the tallest player to throw a touchdown pass, with Dan McGwire.

Morris Stroud, the 6′10″ tight end described above, is the other notable example. Few players this tall have lasted at positions where they must run routes against smaller, quicker defenders.

Defensive giants of the AFL era

Two of the most famous tall defenders played in the 1960s American Football League.

Ernie Ladd (206 cm) attended Grambling State on a basketball scholarship before the San Diego Chargers drafted him in 1961. Wikipedia lists him at 6′9″ and 290 lb and records a 52-inch chest and size 18D shoes. He helped the Chargers reach four AFL title games in five years, winning in 1963, and later played for Houston and Kansas City, where he and fellow Grambling product Buck Buchanan formed an enormous defensive-tackle pairing. After a knee injury he became a full-time professional wrestler in 1969.

Ben Davidson (203.2 cm) was a three-time AFL All-Star defensive end with the Oakland Raiders after spells with Green Bay and Washington, and later worked as an actor.

Soldier, tackle, Pro Bowler: Alejandro Villanueva

One of the more unusual careers on the list belongs to Alejandro Villanueva (206 cm). NFL.com lists him at 6′9″ and 320 lb. According to his Wikipedia biography, he played several positions at Army, including left tackle, defensive line and wide receiver, then served as an officer, reaching the rank of captain in the 75th Ranger Regiment and earning a Bronze Star during three tours in Afghanistan. He went undrafted in 2010, had tryouts as a tight end, and after a brief stint with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2014 became a starting tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He made the Pro Bowl in 2017 and 2018 and finished his career with Baltimore in 2021. His biography notes that both of his parents are over 6 feet tall.

Listed heights versus measured heights

Football heights come from several places, and they do not always agree:

• Team and league rosters. NFL.com lists Ogden and Villanueva at 6′9″ and Trent Brown at 6′8″, all matching this site.
• Combine and pro-day measurements. These are taken to the eighth of an inch: Trent Brown at 6′8½″, Dan Skipper at 6′9⅝″. Brown's Combine figure is half an inch taller than his roster listing, Skipper's three-eighths shorter.
• Historical media guides. For AFL-era players such as Sligh, Ladd and Stroud, the figures are as printed in their day and cannot now be checked.

One discrepancy turned up in research for this page: the Italian tackle Max Pircher had been recorded at 204 cm (6′8½″), but his current NFL.com profile lists him at 6′7″ (200.7 cm). This site now uses the league listing, so he falls out of the top thirty.

Comparing NFL size with other sports

The tallest NFL players are a full rung below the NBA's. The NBA's 7′3″ club alone has thirty members, while football has only one player listed at 7 feet. Typical star pass rushers are much shorter still: Nick Bosa, one of the league's best defensive ends, is listed at 6′4″ (193 cm) on NFL.com, about 13 cm shorter than Too Tall Jones.

To see what 6′9″ looks like beside a 6′5″ person, check the 6′5″ conversion page or put any two players into the height comparison tool. The height difference calculator gives the exact gap, and more rankings are collected on the tallest hub.