6'2", 243 pounds — but the average stopped growing in the nineties, and the trenches never did. Every position, measured from real rosters.
Read the full story ↓Averaged across 6,026 players from the current rookie classes, the NFL player stands 6'2" and weighs 243 pounds. That average has barely moved since the 1990s. What moved is underneath it: the position decides the body, and the spread between positions kept widening long after the average stopped.
| Position | Height | Weight | Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offensive linemen | 6'5" | 314 lb | 1,027 |
| Defensive linemen | 6'4" | 291 lb | 843 |
| Tight ends | 6'5" | 249 lb | 439 |
| Linebackers | 6'2" | 240 lb | 881 |
| Quarterbacks | 6'3" | 219 lb | 204 |
| Running backs | 5'11" | 216 lb | 545 |
| Kickers, punters & snappers | 6'1" | 213 lb | 212 |
| Wide receivers | 6'1" | 199 lb | 911 |
| Defensive backs | 5'12" | 195 lb | 964 |
Offensive linemen gained close to sixty pounds on their 1970s counterparts while the all-position average gained about twenty and then stopped. Both lines, by rookie decade:
| Rookie decade | Offensive line | All positions |
|---|---|---|
| 1970s | 256 lb | 221 lb |
| 1980s | 277 lb | 226 lb |
| 1990s | 306 lb | 241 lb |
| 2000s | 311 lb | 244 lb |
| 2010s | 312 lb | 243 lb |
| Today | 314 lb | 243 lb |
One roster record, 24,045 usable players, each counted once at his listed height and weight and grouped by rookie class — so no player is assembled from overlapping sources or counted twice. The current-era table covers rookie classes 2015–2025. Implausible listings are excluded rather than guessed at. How long these bodies last is its own question: how long a pro career lasts answers it with the same archive and the same rules.
More from the record book: how long a pro career lasts, the average NFL retirement age, the NFL sack record, average NBA height, the tallest NBA players ever, the shortest NBA players ever, average WNBA height, how many players are in the NFL, how many players are in the NBA, the average MLB player, the perfect MLB season and every perfect season.
6'2" and 243 pounds, averaged across 6,026 players from the current rookie classes. The single number hides the real spread: the position decides the body, from 195-pound defensive backs to 314-pound linemen.
243 pounds — and that figure has barely moved since the 1990s. What moved is the spread between positions: the average hides a league that split into a 314-pound trench species and a 195-pound coverage species.
Offensive linemen average 314 pounds and 6'5" today. In the 1970s the same position averaged 256; in the 1980s, 277. That is roughly 37 pounds gained since the 1980s at nearly the same height.
6'2". The average height of NFL players varies far less than their weight: running backs and defensive backs sit around 5'12", while linemen and tight ends reach 6'5" — under half a foot of spread against more than a hundred pounds.
6'3" and 219 pounds, across 204 passers from the current rookie classes — taller than the league average, and still giving up about 2 inches and nearly a hundred pounds to the linemen in front of him.
Only in the trenches, and that is the surprise in the data: the all-position average has been flat for about twenty-five years, while offensive linemen kept gaining until they were nearly sixty pounds heavier than their 1970s counterparts. The league did not get uniformly bigger — it specialized.
That is the game this page lives on — every spin deals a real franchise era and its actual roster, and you build the all-time team seat by seat. The record book these numbers come from is the one your roster gets judged against.
