Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: The QBs versus men in the box

(Leading up to the 2021 NFL season, FTN’s Tyler Loechner will dive into the fantasy football numbers to bring you his Fantasy Stat of the Day, five days a week.)

Recent Stat of the Day pieces have taken a look at stats around rushing and the number of defenders in the box on rushing attempts. We’ve looked at league average for yards gained based on how many defenders are in the box, the RBs with the highest number of defenders in the box, and the RBs with the fewest defenders in the box.

Today, we’ll wrap up this “defenders in the box” series by taking a look at the league’s rushing QBs to see what type of defenses they are up against when they decide to take off and run.

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Russell Wilson would be the best fantasy player in the world if he ran more

Here are the top 12 QBs from last season (min. 50 rush attempts) based on the average number of defenders in the box on their rushing attempts. This includes the playoffs.

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QB	Attempts	Avg. # of Defenders in Box
Jalen Hurts	63	6.25
Teddy Bridgewater	53	6.28
Deshaun Watson	90	6.36
Russell Wilson	87	6.37
Carson Wentz	52	6.38
Patrick Mahomes	76	6.39
Kyler Murray	133	6.40
Josh Allen	127	6.52
Lamar Jackson	184	6.57
Daniel Jones	65	6.68
Cam Newton	137	6.85

A few thoughts:

QBs have it a lot easier than RBs. All of the QBs in this study had 6-7 defenders in the box on their rushing attempts, on average. The figures are significantly lower for QBs when compared to RBs. This is one reason rushing QBs can really rack up the fantasy points: It’s easier for them to gain chunk yardage with fewer people in the vicinity.
The numbers for Cam Newton, Josh Allen and Kyler Murray are a bit skewed because of all of their goal-line rushes. If we look at just rushes between the 20s, Newton saw 6.55 average defenders in the box — well below his 6.85 total number. Newton, Allen (6.28 between the 20s) and Murray (6.20) were the most impacted by this caveat.
We plead thee, Russell Wilson, if you won’t cook, at least run. Wilson would reach the highest possible point of the fantasy echelon if only Russ could be Russ for 17 straight games. That includes passing (“Let Russ cook!”) and rushing (“Let Russ run!”). Wilson’s passing prowess leads to just 6.37 average defenders in the box when he does decide to tuck it and run. At 32 (turning 33 this season), Wilson’s days of 110-plus rush attempts are likely long gone, but a man can dream.