The Tallest NFL Players of All Time

The tallest player in NFL history is Richard Sligh, who stood exactly 7 feet tall and played eight games for the Oakland Raiders in 1967. He is the only seven-footer ever to appear in an NFL game, sitting a full two inches above everyone else on the list.

Football rewards size, but the extreme heights that dominate basketball are rare on the gridiron, where balance, leverage and speed matter as much as reach. The handful of players who pushed past 6’9” were nearly all offensive or defensive linemen who turned their frames into an advantage. Here is the full leaderboard of the tallest players in NFL history and the stories behind them. All figures are as of the 2025 season.

The record: Richard Sligh at 7’0”

Sligh was a 300-pound defensive tackle out of North Carolina College when the Raiders took him in the 10th round of the 1967 draft. He appeared in eight games during his lone NFL season and was on the roster for Super Bowl II, making him the only player of exactly seven feet ever to reach the league. His career was brief, but his place at the top of this list has never been challenged.

At seven feet, Sligh stands apart. No other player in NFL history has been measured taller than 6’10”, which is why his record has held for more than half a century.

The full leaderboard of the tallest NFL players

The table below ranks the tallest players in NFL history by listed height.

Height	Player	Team	Position	Era
7’0”	Richard Sligh	Oakland Raiders	DT	1967
6’10”	Morris Stroud	Kansas City Chiefs	TE	1969-1974
6’10”	Dan Skipper	Detroit Lions	OT	2016-2025
6’9”	Ed “Too Tall” Jones	Dallas Cowboys	DE	1974-1989
6’9”	Jonathan Ogden	Baltimore Ravens	OT	1996-2007
6’8”	Trent Brown	New England / others	OT	2015-present
6’8”	Nate Solder	Patriots / NY Giants	OT	2011-2021

The pattern is clear: below the top two, the list is almost entirely linemen. Ed “Too Tall” Jones parlayed his 6’9” frame into a long, disruptive career as a pass rusher, while Jonathan Ogden used his to become one of the best left tackles ever and a Hall of Famer.

Why tall players cluster on the line

Height helps most in the trenches. For an offensive tackle, long arms and a high frame make it easier to keep edge rushers at bay, which is why players like Ogden, Brown and Solder line up there. On defense, a tall lineman such as Ed Jones can bat down passes and disrupt throwing lanes, a skill he turned into a signature. Extreme height is far less useful at the skill positions, where quickness and a low center of gravity win out, so the tallest players almost always end up on the line.

That defensive length can translate into pressure on the quarterback, the same disruption that fuels our leaderboard for the most sacks in NFL history.

How the NFL’s giants compare

Even the NFL’s tallest players would look ordinary in an NBA arena. For a sense of scale, our leaderboard of the tallest NBA players of all time is topped by 7’7” centers, seven full inches above Richard Sligh. The two sports simply value size differently, which is why a seven-footer is a once-in-a-generation sight in football and a common one in basketball.

Height is just one way rookies turn heads; for another, see our list of the youngest NFL players in history.

Why the record matters

The tallest players show how football balances size against everything else. Richard Sligh’s seven-foot frame made him a curiosity in 1967, and no one has matched it since, a reminder that on the gridiron, height alone is never the whole story.

The short version: Richard Sligh is the tallest player in NFL history at exactly 7 feet, ahead of 6’10” players Morris Stroud and Dan Skipper. As of the 2025 season, no other seven-footer has ever played in the league.