Playing professional football doesn’t get you a particularly long career, by traditional standards. Playing into your 30s is a good run, playing into your 40s is considered an epic feat of endurance and toughness, and a lot of players don’t make it past five seasons. On the other end of the spectrum of course, draft classes keep getting younger, with players entering the NFL Draft well before their college career is over.

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This creates a substantial age gap among NFL players stretching to as much as 20 years, and it’s always interesting to take a look at both ends of that spectrum, particularly at the beginning of a new season. So, as the NFL regular season begins, here are the oldest and youngest active NFL players for the 2025-2026 season (with plenty of them showing up all season long on Sunday Night Football).

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Who is the oldest active player in the NFL right now?

As of 2025, with preseason cuts over and regular season rosters set, the oldest player in the league is Aaron Rodgers, who turned 41 last December and will turn 42 during the 2025-2026 season. A veteran quarterback with league MVPs and Super Bowl rings to his name, Rodgers is best known for his time with the Green Bay Packers, but this season he’s making a change. After a couple of injury-plagued seasons with the New York Jets, he’s signed on with the Pittsburgh Steelers for what could be his final NFL season. 

But Rodgers is not the only 41-year-old in the league this season. Close behind him on the age chart are Chicago Bears tight end Marcedes Lewis, who turned 41 back in May, and Arizona Cardinals kicker Matt Prater, who turned 41 during the preseason, on August 10. 

Who is the youngest active player in the NFL right now?

The youngest player in the 2025-2026 NFL season is Dylan Sampson, a rookie running back from the University of Tennessee who was selected in the fourth round of the Draft by the Cleveland Browns. As of this writing, Sampson is just 20 years old, and will turn 21 later in September. 

Sampson is the only player from the 2025 Draft class who will still be 20 when the regular season kicks off, but other players aren’t much older. LeQuint Allen Jr., a running back drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars, turned 21 on August 5, while linebacker Nic Scourton, drafted by the Carolina Panthers, turned 21 just days ago, on August 25. 

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Who are the oldest and youngest players in NFL history?

The oldest NFL player to ever step on the gridiron was the legendary George Blanda, a quarterback who played a record 26 seasons for four different teams from 1949 to 1975. At the time he retired from the league, Blanda was 48, a record that’s been approached (Tom Brady was 45 when he retired, for example), but never eclipsed.

The youngest player in any era of the NFL’s history is Jim Snyder, who played one game with the Milwaukee Badgers in 1925 at the age of just 16. In the modern NFL as we know it, though, the honor goes to Amobi Okoye, a defensive tackle who was just 19 when he was drafted by the Houston Texas in 2007.

The NFL returns all this fall with Sunday Night Football matchups every week on NBC and Peacock.