NFL Positions Explained: All 22 Players on the Field

Rule 5 of the NFL rulebook puts eleven players on each side, and Rule 7 requires the offense to set at least seven of its eleven on the line of scrimmage at the snap. Nearly everything else a broadcast calls a position (Mike linebacker, slot receiver, three-technique) is coaching vocabulary laid on top of those two sentences. The names are conventions. They are also remarkably stable, and a fan who knows about two dozen of them can read any depth chart in the league.

The short version: twenty-two players are on the field for every snap, eleven a side. An NFL offense is a quarterback, five linemen (two tackles, two guards and a center) and five others drawn from the running backs, fullbacks, tight ends and wide receivers. A defense is a mix of linemen, linebackers and defensive backs, classically four, three and four. A third unit, special teams, takes the field for kicks and brings the kicker, the punter and the long snapper with it. This page describes the professional game throughout, and says so wherever the NCAA rulebook does something different.

Every NFL position in one pass

Count the jobs and the answer depends on how finely the list is cut. A depth chart built the traditional way shows eleven offensive spots, eleven defensive spots and a handful of kicking roles, which comes to roughly two dozen. Lump the two guards together, and the two cornerbacks, and it falls to about fifteen. Neither count is official. The league defines positions for one purpose only, which is handing out jersey numbers.

Position	Unit	Where he stands at the snap	The job in one line
Quarterback	Offense	Behind the center, or a few yards back in the shotgun	Takes the snap, then hands off, throws or runs
Running back	Offense	In the backfield, behind or beside the quarterback	Carries the ball, catches short passes, blocks blitzers
Fullback	Offense	In the backfield, ahead of the running back	Leads the runner through the hole as a blocker
Wide receiver	Offense	Split out toward the sideline or in the slot	Runs routes and catches passes
Tight end	Offense	On the line next to a tackle, or detached	Blocks like a lineman and catches like a receiver
Offensive tackle	Offense	The two outside spots on the line	Blocks the edge rushers
Guard	Offense	Either side of the center	Blocks interior linemen and pulls on run plays
Center	Offense	Over the ball	Snaps it, then blocks
Defensive tackle	Defense	Inside, across from the guards and center	Clogs the run and pushes the pocket
Defensive end	Defense	Outside the tackles	Rushes the passer and sets the edge against the run
Linebacker	Defense	Behind the defensive line	Tackles runners, covers backs and tight ends, blitzes
Cornerback	Defense	Across from the wide receivers	Covers receivers
Safety	Defense	Deepest on the defense, or down near the line	Guards the deep field and supports the run
Kicker	Special teams	Behind the holder, or at the tee	Field goals, extra points and kickoffs
Punter	Special teams	About 15 yards behind the line	Punts on fourth down, usually holds on kicks
Long snapper	Special teams	Over the ball in kick formations	Snaps to the punter or the holder

A club keeps 53 players on its roster during the regular season so that it can staff all three units and survive injuries. Only eleven take part in a play. A twelfth man on the field at the snap costs five yards.

• 22Players on the field
• 11Players per team
• 7Minimum offensive players on the line
• 53Players on a regular-season roster

From the NFL playing rules and the league's roster limit. The seven-man line is a minimum and applies to the offense only.

The offensive eleven and where each stands at the snap

Start at the ball. The center crouches over it, a guard on each shoulder, a tackle outside each guard. Those five are the offensive line, and in most formations they are the five players who wear numbers from 50 to 79 and may not catch a pass. The left tackle has carried extra weight since the passing game took over, because he guards the side a right-handed quarterback cannot see while he sets up to throw. The differences among the five spots are laid out in our guide to tackle, guard and center.

Five linemen do not satisfy Rule 7, which wants seven on the line. The other two are usually a tight end, set next to one of the tackles, and a wide receiver split far outside on the opposite side. Coaches call that receiver the X. Everyone else is, for the rulebook's purposes, a back: the quarterback, the running back, and any receiver standing a step off the ball, which is where the Z (the old flanker) and the slot receiver line up. Apart from the man taking the snap under center, a back has to be at least a yard behind the line. That step is why a receiver glances at the nearest official before the snap and points to the turf. He is confirming whether he counts as on the line or off it.

The arrangement has a wrinkle that catches teams out a few times a season. Of the players on the line, only the one at each end is eligible to catch a pass. Put a receiver on the line outside a tight end and the tight end is "covered," which turns him into a sixth ineligible lineman for that play.

Behind the line, the quarterback either puts his hands under the center or stands about five yards deep in the shotgun. His job has a page of its own in our guide to what a quarterback does. The running back sets up behind or beside him. A fullback, on the teams that still carry one, stands between the two and goes first, a division of labor described in running back against fullback.

Which five eligible players a coach sends out is the first decision of every play. The grouping the league leans on hardest is one back, one tight end and three receivers.

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• Offensive linemen5
• Quarterback1
• Wide receivers3
• Tight end1
• Running back1

One running back, one tight end and three wide receivers, the grouping coaches call 11 personnel. Other groupings change the last three rows and never the first two.

Show the numbers

The eleven in the NFL's most common offensive grouping

Item	Value
Offensive linemen	5
Quarterback	1
Wide receivers	3
Tight end	1
Running back	1

Coaches name those groupings with a two-digit code, backs first and tight ends second, which is the subject of our page on 11, 12 and 21 personnel.

The defensive eleven, and how the same jobs get relabeled

A defense has three levels and no obligation to fill them any particular way. Up front are the linemen, with a hand on the ground. Behind them stand the linebackers. Behind those, the defensive backs, known collectively as the secondary.

In a 4-3, the arrangement most fans learn first, four linemen play in front of three linebackers. The two tackles work inside against the guards and center. The two ends line up outside the offensive tackles and are paid to reach the quarterback. The linebackers carry names coaches invented so they could shout them: Sam on the strong side, where the tight end is, Mike in the middle, Will on the weak side. Two cornerbacks take the wide receivers, and two safeties sit behind everybody.

The 3-4 keeps the secondary and reshuffles the front seven. One heavy nose tackle plays over the center, flanked by two ends who are closer in build and assignment to a 4-3 tackle than to a 4-3 end. Four linebackers stand behind them, and the outside two do most of the pass rushing.

Here is the part the labels hide. A 3-4 outside linebacker and a 4-3 defensive end have the same job on most snaps, which is to beat an offensive tackle around the corner. One stands up and one puts a hand down. The league noticed that it was using two names for one role, and the word "edge" is the result. Which front asks what of whom is worked through in our guide to the 4-3 and the 3-4.

Neither base front is on the field as often as its reputation suggests. Against three wide receivers a defense takes a linebacker off and sends in a fifth defensive back, the nickel. A sixth makes it dime. Since three-receiver sets are the offense's everyday look, the sub package has become the real starting lineup for most teams, as our explainer on nickel and dime defense sets out.

Package	Linemen	Linebackers	Defensive backs
4-3 base	4	3	4
3-4 base	3	4	4
Nickel from a 4-3 (4-2-5)	4	2	5
Nickel from a 3-4 (2-4-5)	2	4	5
Dime (4-1-6)	4	1	6

Every row adds to eleven. That is the only arithmetic the defense has to respect.

What the rulebook says about positions: numbers, eligibility and the seven-man line

The NFL does define positions in one place, Rule 5, and it does so by jersey number. The purpose is practical. Officials have to know at a glance which offensive players are allowed to catch a forward pass, and the number on a jersey tells them.

Position group	Numbers permitted in the NFL since 2023
Quarterbacks	0-19
Kickers and punters	0-49 and 90-99
Running backs, fullbacks, tight ends, H-backs and wide receivers	0-49 and 80-89
Offensive linemen	50-79
Defensive linemen	50-79 and 90-99
Linebackers	0-59 and 90-99
Defensive backs	0-49

On offense, 0 through 49 and 80 through 89 are eligible numbers. A player wearing 50 through 79 or 90 through 99 is ineligible wherever he stands, unless he walks to the referee before the play and reports. The referee then announces it to the defense and the stadium. That is how an extra tackle lines up as a tight end near the goal line, and how Mike Vrabel, a New England linebacker wearing 50, caught touchdown passes in Super Bowls XXXVIII and XXXIX.

The 2021 and 2023 changes

For decades the bands were narrow enough that a number identified a job. Wide receivers wore numbers in the teens or the 80s, running backs and defensive backs 20 through 49, linebackers the 50s and 90s. In 2021 the owners adopted a Kansas City proposal that opened single digits and most low numbers to running backs, receivers, tight ends, linebackers and defensive backs. In 2023 a Philadelphia proposal made 0 legal for every group except the two lines, and widened the range for kickers and punters. Double zero, which Jim Otto wore at center for Oakland, stayed off the list.

The effect on the viewer is real. A number 1 can now be a quarterback, a receiver, a cornerback or a linebacker, and the old habit of reading a formation by its numbers works only for the linemen.

Why the defense faces almost no such limits

Formation rules bind the offense: seven on the line, the interior five ineligible, everyone set for a full second, at most one man in motion and not toward the line. Break one and it is a five-yard foul. The defense has none of this. It may put all eleven on the line or none, stand anyone anywhere on its own side of the ball, and move until the snap. The exceptions are narrow and belong to the kicking game, where the rules restrict how many rushers can overload one side of the snapper on a field goal and forbid lining up directly over him.

College football writes the offensive requirement differently. The NCAA rulebook limits a team to four players in the backfield and asks for at least five on the line numbered 50 through 79, with an exception for obvious kicking formations. It allowed 0 three years before the NFL did.

Reading a depth chart and its football position abbreviations

A depth chart is a grid: positions down the side, players across, starters in the first column. "First string" means that column. Second string is the backup at each spot, and third string is the player behind him, who at most positions is inactive on game day or works on special teams. The charts NFL clubs print in their weekly game releases are usually labeled unofficial, and they should be read that way. Coaches have no interest in telling an opponent who is actually going to play.

Abbreviation	Position	Variants on a chart
QB	Quarterback	QB1, QB2 for starter and backup
RB	Running back	HB (halfback), TB (tailback)
FB	Fullback	Sometimes folded into RB
WR	Wide receiver	X, Z, slot; LWR and RWR
TE	Tight end	Y for the in-line tight end
OT	Offensive tackle	LT, RT
OG	Guard	LG, RG, or simply G
C	Center	None
DT	Defensive tackle	NT for a nose tackle
DE	Defensive end	LDE, RDE
EDGE	Edge rusher	Listed as DE or OLB on older charts
LB	Linebacker	MLB, ILB, OLB; Mike, Will, Sam
CB	Cornerback	LCB, RCB, NB or NCB for the nickel
S	Safety	FS, SS
K	Kicker	PK for placekicker
P	Punter	None
LS	Long snapper	None

Two things on a real chart tend to confuse. The first is "OR" between two names, which means the staff has not chosen a starter or does not wish to say. The second is what the chart leaves out. A team's third cornerback may play more snaps than its third linebacker and still be listed as a backup, because the template was drawn for a base defense that the team rarely uses.

Who lines up against whom

Football is eleven individual assignments running at once, and the same pairings recur on nearly every down.

1. 1Center against nose tackleThe center snaps the ball and immediately has the defense's heaviest player on him, usually with help from a guard.
2. 2Guard against defensive tackleA tackle lined up on a guard's outside shoulder, the three-technique, is the interior's best pass rusher.
3. 3Offensive tackle against edge rusherThe premier one-on-one in the sport, fought in space with nobody to help on most passing downs.
4. 4Wide receiver against cornerbackThe outside receivers draw the two starting corners, either at the line in press or from seven or eight yards off.
5. 5Slot receiver against nickel cornerThe inside receiver has room to break either way, which makes this the hardest coverage job on the field.
6. 6Tight end against linebacker or safetyThe offense wants a slow linebacker on him. The defense answers with a safety and gives up size.
7. 7Running back against linebackerOn pass plays the back either blocks a blitzing linebacker or runs a route against one.

Typical pairings against a standard pass rush and man coverage. Zone coverage, stunts and blitzes change who ends up on whom after the snap.

The offense spends much of the week trying to break these pairings in its favor. Motion is the main tool. Send a receiver across the formation before the snap and watch who follows: if a cornerback trails him, the coverage is probably man to man, and if the defenders merely shift a step, it is zone. Offenses have read coverage that way for as long as motion has been legal.

A tight end is the piece that breaks the grid most often. Line him up next to the tackle and a linebacker has to respect the run. Flex him into the slot with the same eleven on the field and that linebacker is suddenly covering a 250-pound receiver thirty yards from help. The defense can swap in a defensive back to handle it, and then the offense runs the ball at the smaller player. Nothing about this is exotic. It is the basic argument of every Sunday.

Skill positions against the trenches

"Skill position" is a scouting phrase for the players who handle the ball as a matter of routine: quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end. The linemen on both sides play "in the trenches." The split is awkward and a little insulting to the linemen, since pass protection is among the most technical jobs in the sport, and it leads to one odd fact. The center touches the ball on every offensive snap and has never once been called a skill player.

An offensive lineman is not forbidden from touching the ball in every circumstance. He can recover a fumble and advance it, except on fourth down and after the two-minute warning, when only the player who fumbled may carry the ball forward. He can catch a forward pass once a defender has tipped it, because a defensive touch makes every offensive player eligible. What he cannot do is be the first to touch a forward pass, or wander downfield before one is thrown.

Body type follows the job so closely that a roster can be sorted by weight and come out nearly sorted by position.

Position	Typical NFL playing weight	What the build is for
Cornerback	About 180 to 200 pounds	Changing direction with a receiver at full speed
Wide receiver	About 180 to 220 pounds	Speed off the line, with outside receivers at the heavier end
Safety	About 195 to 215 pounds	Range in the deep field and enough mass to tackle a back
Running back	About 200 to 225 pounds	A low center of gravity and the ability to absorb contact
Quarterback	About 210 to 240 pounds	Standing in against a rush and seeing over the line
Linebacker	About 225 to 250 pounds	Taking on blockers, then running with tight ends
Tight end	About 240 to 265 pounds	Blocking a defensive end on one play, outrunning a linebacker on the next
Edge rusher	About 245 to 275 pounds	Leverage and length against a tackle fifty pounds heavier
Defensive tackle	About 290 to 330 pounds	Holding ground against double teams
Offensive lineman	About 300 to 330 pounds	Anchoring against a bull rush

Those ranges are approximations of what the league looks like and nothing more; there is no weight rule at any position, and every roster has players outside them. The spread is the point. A 185-pound cornerback and a 325-pound guard are on the same payroll and would be useless at each other's jobs.

The positions that only appear on kicks

Fourth down brings on players who may not have broken a sweat all afternoon.

The kicker handles field goals, extra points and, on most teams, kickoffs. The punter kicks the ball away on fourth down from about 15 yards behind the line, and on nearly every club he doubles as the holder on placekicks, kneeling seven or eight yards deep to catch the snap and set the ball down with the laces facing the goalposts. The long snapper delivers both kinds of snap, a job with no margin: a punt snap is expected to reach the punter in well under a second, and a field goal snap has to arrive with its laces already turned the right way.

Those three are the only true specialists on a modern roster. Everybody else in the kicking game has another job.

• Returners. A kick returner and a punt returner, often the same player and usually a backup receiver, running back or cornerback.
• Gunners. The two players split wide on the punt team. They are released at the snap and are first downfield to pin the returner. The defenders assigned to hold them up are called jammers.
• The personal protector. The punt team's last line of defense, a few yards in front of the punter, who also calls the protection and takes the snap on a fake.
• The holder. A role, not a roster spot. The punter in most cases, a backup quarterback in the rest.

The kickoff was rebuilt in 2024, with both teams lined up downfield and nobody but the kicker and the returners allowed to move until the ball lands or is touched, a change traced in our account of the NFL's kickoff rule changes. The roles above survived it. What a coverage player does at each spot on each kick is covered in our guide to special teams positions.

One consequence is easy to miss. Because the specialists play nowhere else, the remaining special teams spots are filled by the bottom of the depth chart, and a fourth linebacker or fifth safety often owes his roster place to how he covers punts.

Hybrid jobs the old charts do not show

The depth-chart grid was designed for an era of two backs and two receivers. Four jobs that matter a great deal now have no clean box on it.

The slot corner. The nickel back covers the inside receiver, who can break left or right with no sideline to pin him against. He also has to fit the run like a small linebacker, because he stands where a linebacker used to. Teams treat him as a starter in everything but name.

The edge rusher. A 4-3 end and a 3-4 outside linebacker merged into one evaluation. Scouts and front offices grade the job, and care little about which stance the player uses.

The move tight end. Coaches distinguish the Y, an in-line tight end who blocks next to the tackle, from the F, who lines up in the slot, in the backfield or out wide and is a big receiver in practice. The H-back named in the numbering rule is a close cousin: a tight end who sets up a step behind the line and blocks on the move.

The box safety. A strong safety who plays most of his snaps within a few yards of the line, in the space coaches call the box. He tackles like a linebacker and covers tight ends, and some defenses now use three safeties at once to get two of them down low.

The common thread is the passing game. Each hybrid exists because offenses spread the field and defenses needed someone fast enough to cover and stout enough to tackle. The chart has not caught up, and probably will not, since a grid cannot show that the same player is a linebacker on first down and a rusher on third.

Premium positions and why four of them are valued above the rest

Front offices do not treat the 22 spots as equals. Four are paid and drafted ahead of the others: quarterback, offensive tackle, edge rusher and cornerback.

The logic is a single chain. The pass decides most games. One man throws it, so he matters most. The player most likely to wreck a pass is the rusher coming off the edge, and the player assigned to stop that rusher is the tackle. Once the ball is in the air, a cornerback is alone with the receiver. Each premium position is either the passer or one step removed from him.

Wide receiver has all but joined the list. That is a judgment, but the way clubs have spent their first-round picks and their salary cap over the past decade supports it.

The league's own machinery reflects the hierarchy. The franchise tag, which lets a club keep one pending free agent at a one-year price, is calculated position by position from the top salaries at that spot, so the tag for a quarterback and the tag for a running back sit far apart. Our explainer on the franchise tag covers the formula. It has also produced arguments about what a position is. In 2014 an arbitrator had to decide whether Jimmy Graham of New Orleans, who lined up split away from the line on most of his snaps, was a tight end or a wide receiver for tag purposes. He ruled tight end.

At the other end sit running back, off-ball linebacker, safety, the interior offensive line and the specialists. This says nothing about difficulty. It reflects how replaceable clubs believe the production is, and at running back in particular the league has decided that a rookie can supply most of what a veteran does.

From eleven men to separate platoons

Until the 1940s there was no such thing as an offensive player. A man who left the game could not return until the next quarter, so the same eleven played both ways and the kicker was whichever starter could kick. Substitution was a penalty in all but name.

1. 11941College football permits players to enter and leave the game freely for the first time.
2. 21943The NFL adopts free substitution as a wartime measure, with rosters thinned by military service.
3. 31945Michigan coach Fritz Crisler sends out separate offensive and defensive units against Army at Yankee Stadium.
4. 41946The NFL pulls back, limiting clubs to three substitutes at a time.
5. 51949Unlimited substitution returns to the NFL on a one-year trial.
6. 61950The NFL makes free substitution permanent, and separate offensive and defensive teams follow.
7. 71953The NCAA abolishes two-platoon football; it does not fully return in college until the mid-1960s.

Dates from NFL and NCAA rules history. The college game reversed course for about a decade before returning to two platoons in the mid-1960s.

Everything on this page descends from the 1950 decision. Once a player could be removed after any play, there was no reason for a 250-pound tackle to chase halfbacks on defense, or for a team's best passer to risk himself making tackles. Bodies specialized. The offensive tackle and the cornerback, who share a locker room and almost nothing else, are products of that rule.

The last full-time holdout is usually given as Chuck Bednarik, who played center and linebacker for Philadelphia and stayed on the field for nearly all of the 1960 NFL Championship Game, finishing it by tackling Green Bay's Jim Taylor short of the goal line and staying on top of him until the clock ran out.

Kicking specialized last. Lou Groza, Cleveland's kicker through the 1950s, was a starting tackle. George Blanda kicked and played quarterback. Pete Gogolak's arrival in Buffalo in 1964 as a soccer-style kicker who did nothing else marked the change, and the dedicated long snapper followed a couple of decades later, once coaches concluded that a bad snap or two a season cost more than a roster spot.

Position names that faded or changed

Older fans and older books use a vocabulary that the modern depth chart has mostly dropped. The jobs did not vanish. They were renamed, split in two or absorbed.

Old name	What it described	What it is called now
Split end	The receiver on the line, away from the tight end	X receiver
Flanker	The receiver a step off the line on the tight end's side	Z receiver
Halfback	The back who carried the ball most often	Running back or tailback
Middle guard	The lineman over the center in a five-man front	Nose tackle
Defensive halfback	The outside pass defender	Cornerback
Rover	A college hybrid of safety and linebacker, also called the monster	Strong safety or nickel

The middle guard has the best story of the group. In the five-man lines of the early 1950s he played nose to nose with the center. Chicago's Bill George, in a 1954 game against Philadelphia, began standing up and dropping back at the snap to take away short passes over the middle, and the middle linebacker was born out of a lineman's spot. George is generally credited with that first step backward, and the 4-3 defense grew out of it.

Halfback survives mainly in the phrase "halfback option" and in video games. Coaches say running back for the category and tailback for the man lined up deepest, and the reason the fullback, despite his name, now stands in front is a piece of history told on the running back page linked above.

Flanker and split end lasted longer in print than on the field. Coaches had already replaced them with letters, because a letter can be moved around a diagram without implying where the player stands, and a modern offense puts its X in the slot and its tight end out wide whenever it likes the matchup. The names keep loosening. Rule 7 does not: seven on the line, the rest behind it, and eleven in all. Readers who want more on how the game is organized will find it on our American football hub.