How NFL Players Have Evolved

Are you ready for some football history? The NFL started in 1920 and commemorated its 100th season in 2019 with a season-long celebration of “NFL 100.”

The game has come a long way in 100 years. The most obvious change from 1920 to today is the size of players, but there also have been many changes in the schemes and roles of individual positions.

This evolution, position by position and era by era, has advanced the game. It’s sometimes hard to notice changes on a year-by-year basis, but when comparing 20-year spans, some patterns emerge.

Time will tell where the league goes 20 years from now, but this is how the NFL has evolved over its first 100 years.

Note: All heights and weights are taken from Pro Football Reference.

Average height: 5-foot-10

Average weight: 175 pounds

Top players: Arnie Herber, Dutch Clark, Ed Danowski, Bernie Masterson, Bob Monnett

Bottom line: Statistics for individual players were scarce during the NFL’s formative years, but we do know that the passing game was almost an afterthought during this period.

Nearly every “quarterback” was a running back first and foremost, and it was quite common for one player to lead his team in both passing and rushing yards.

Average height: 6-foot-1

Average weight: 193 pounds

Top players: Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Bobby Layne, Norm Van Brocklin

Bottom line: During this era, quarterbacks began to focus solely on one offensive position, although many, like Sid Luckman, also played both defense and on special teams.

The premier passer was Sammy Baugh, who made the forward pass a weapon instead of just a last option.

In 1940, Baugh led the NFL with 12 touchdown passes, but by 1959, Johnny Unitas had nearly tripled that amount and led the league with 32 passing touchdowns. 

Average height: 6 feet, 2 inches

Average weight: 200 pounds

Top players: Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Namath

Bottom line: By the time the 1960s rolled around, two-way players were a thing of the past, and the top quarterbacks started crossing over into mainstream media.

Joe Namath hosted his own talk show while an active player. Terry Bradshaw acted in commercials and movies, and Roger Staubach was the star player of America’s team.

It was during these years when quarterbacks emerged to become the faces of their respective franchises.

Average height: 6 feet, 3 inches

Average weight: 210 pounds

Top players: Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Brett Favre, Steve Young

Bottom line: Every team was searching for the prototypical quarterback, and that prototype usually had a specific size to it.

Of the 38 quarterbacks drafted in the first round between 1980 and 1999, all but two of them were at least 6 feet, 2 inches.

If a team was going to draft someone smaller — like Joe Montana, who was taken in 1979 — they were going to wait for the later rounds to do so.