Sam Young, the Miami Dolphins’ 6-foot-8, ninth-year reserve offensive tackle, chuckled when he was asked what other position he could play at his height.

“Power forward?” he replied. “That’s about it.”

Dolphins offensive tackle Zach Sterup, at 6-foot-9, was equally amused.

“Maybe like a field-goal block?” he said with smile. “Maybe? I don’t know. We’ll see. I’ll mention it. That’s about it.”

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In a game of inches, when you’re 6-foot-7 or taller your NFL options are extremely limited.

The Dolphins opened training camp with four players on their roster 6-foot-7 or taller — quarterback Brock Osweiler (6-7) and offensive tackles Sterup, Young and David Steinmetz (6-8).

These guys are the outliers, the exceptions.

According to Aaron Schatz of FootballOutsiders.com, only 50 players 6-7 or taller appeared on NFL rosters at any point last season — 30 of those were offensive linemen, 11 were defensive linemen, six were tight ends, three were quarterbacks.

There were just 16 players 6-8 or taller that appeared on NFL rosters at any point last season.

By contrast, 130 players were listed at 6-6, the height of delineation.

Just as left-handed baseball players usually doesn’t play catcher, second base, shortstop, third base or left field, football players 6-7 or taller usually can’t play cornerback, safety, linebacker, running back, wide receiver, center or guard.

“Football is a game of leverage and power,” said Jim Nagy, executive director of the Senior Bowl and an 18-year NFL scout. “And when you’re working with a longer leverage system like that, there’s obviously limitations unless you’re a freak of nature at 6-7.

“There’s very few guys that can generate power and play with leverage when they’ve got the leverage system those guys have.”

The NFL’s tallest player was Richard Sligh, a 7-foot defensive tackle. Sligh, a 10th-round pick by Oakland out of North Carolina Central University in the 1967 American Football League (AFL)/NFL draft, played eight games as a rookie, was selected by Cincinnati in the 1968 AFL Allocation draft, and waived before the 1968 season.

Last season, Dan Skipper, a 6-10 offensive tackle for the Detroit Lions, was the NFL’s tallest player as well as tied for the second-tallest player in NFL history with Kansas City tight end Marcus Stroud.

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The next four tallest players last season were all 6-9 offensive tackles – Detroit’s Cornelius Lucas, Pittsburgh’s Alejandro Villanueva, San Francisco’s Trenton Brown and Tampa Bay’s Demar Dotson.

Length is the big thing for offensive tackles, especially long arms. You don’t need especially quick feet. If you can extend your arms and force a wide arc to the quarterback, get a pass rusher to run one more yard to the outside, it’s a big deal.

“It’s the difference between a strip-sack and a good block,” the long-armed Young, a sixth-round pick by Dallas in 2010, said.

You also have the advantage of long strides.

“Sometimes when we’re run blocking and I’ve got to off somebody on the back side I take three strides and l’m there,” Sterup said proudly.

But it doesn’t work that way for everyone.

Only four wide receivers were listed at 6-6 last season. It’s too tough to be graceful and athletic at t hat height.

Even Osweiler, an optimist, admitted there are limitations at 6-7.

“You’re probably not playing defensive back,” he said.

But he’s hard-pressed at answer how his height limits him at quarterback.

“That’s a tough question to answer because I only know how to play at 6-7,” he said.

Osweiler only sees positives from his height, which he doesn’t think is as especially noteworthy. Osweiler regards height, weight, 40-yard dash time, bench press and all those things as just numbers.

“To me,” he said, “it’s ‘Turn on the film, and can the guy can play football?’ ”

If only it was that simple.

At the NFL Scouting Combine players are given a functional movement score. Teams want know if players are flexible, whether they can bend.

“When you get players that big, that’s the kind of stuff you look at,” Nagy said.

The taller guys, 6-6 and over who aren’t offensive tackles, are viewed skeptically by scouts. For the most part, they have to be freaks to play in the NFL.

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“You won’t hear the term ‘freak’ very often in a draft room,” Nagy said. “You can’t throw that around. You would have to be freakish to be 6-7, 6-8, and play the defensive line and play with leverage.”

Dolphins defensive tackle Jordan Phillips is listed at 6-6, tall for an interior lineman. Phillips survives because of his hands. He uses hand quickness to get his hands on the offensive linemen before they can get their hands on him, and he uses hand strength to knock them off balance and control them so he can move them where he wants.

“People naturally have good leverage on me,” Phillips said, “so I’ve got to have a niche somewhere, so my hands are what save me.”

As a 6-6 tight end, you need to be able to get off the line of scrimmage against strongside linebackers and strong safeties, who use the long trunk of taller tight ends as more area to use their hands and jam them at the line of scrimmage. The tight ends need quickness to beat the jams. Once that’s accomplished it becomes a game of basketball and the advantage switches to the taller tight end, who has the long arms and big catch radius.

“You’ve seen it with Ryan (Tannehill) and Mike (Gesicki),” said 6-6 veteran tight end Gavin Escobar, who was released by the Dolphins on Saturday.

“Just throw it up to him he’ll go get it.”

But those tight ends must be able to beat press coverage.

“When you’re going into a school and you’re a college scout and you know this tight end is a legit 6-5, 6-6, it’s really the first thing you should look at, ‘Is he quick enough to get off of that press, and does he have quickness at the top of the route to create a little bit of space?’ ” Nagy said.

“But most important is getting off the line.”

Curiously, all three of Miami’s tallest offensive tackles – Young, Steinmetz and Sterup – have played guard at times in college and, in Young’s case, the NFL.

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And, of course, all of the players 6-7 or taller played high school basketball. At one end of the spectrum was Osweiler, who was such a star player in Montana that he was offered a scholarship to Gonzaga as a high school sophomore and committed to attend.

On the other end of the spectrum was Steinmetz, who played college football at Purdue but was released by the Dolphins on Saturday. He wasn’t very successful at high school basketball. He’d often foul out in the first half.

“It was right after football so you’ve still got that mentality, you know what I mean?” he said.

Whatever happens with the tallest Dolphins players beyond today, they can all know they were among the NFL’s asterisks.

Asked whether he’d ever played against someone taller, in high school, college or pros, Sterup, who played collegiately at Nebraska, replied, “Not that I know of.”

(Top photo of Dolphins tackle Sam Young by Tim Heitman / USA TODAY Sports)