Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: The tackle-breaking running backs

(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.)

We wrote Tuesday about how not every rushing attempt is an equal opportunity for RBs to rack up the yards because certain running backs face “stacked boxes” (8 defenders near the line of scrimmage) more often than others.

One of the best ways for RBs to cut through cluttered lines is to cause the defender to miss a tackle. It’s easier said than done, but some running backs cause forced missed tackles at a significantly higher rate than others.

Today’s Stat of the Day article will take a look at the RBs who forced the most missed tackles per touch last season.

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Nick Chubb is the one true RB king of forcing missed tackles

The chart below shows last season’s RB leaders sorted by forced missed tackles per touch (minimum 100 total touches).

Player	Touches	Forced Missed Tackles	Forced Missed Tackles Per Touch
Nick Chubb	206	70	0.34
Mike Davis	224	60	0.27
Alexander Mattison	109	29	0.27
Tony Pollard	129	31	0.24
Antonio Gibson	206	49	0.24
Dalvin Cook	356	81	0.23
Melvin Gordon	247	56	0.23
Kareem Hunt	236	52	0.22
Austin Ekeler	170	37	0.22
Alvin Kamara	270	58	0.21
Aaron Jones	247	53	0.21
David Montgomery	301	64	0.21
Clyde Edwards-Helaire	217	46	0.21
Devin Singletary	194	40	0.21
J.K. Dobbins	152	30	0.20
Derrick Henry	397	78	0.20
Josh Jacobs	306	60	0.20
James Conner	204	39	0.19
Zack Moss	126	24	0.19
Ezekiel Elliott	296	56	0.19

Nick Chubb, the star of several of our RB-focused Stat of the Day pieces, finds himself atop yet another one of our deep dive into advanced metrics. But Chubb isn’t just No. 1 on this list — he absolutely blows the field away. Chubb’s 0.34 missed tackles per touch is so far ahead of the rest of the competition that it’s best to put it into chart format to visualize the dominance:

Mike Davis was second among RBs last season with 0.27 forced missed tackles per touch. This impressive showing in an advanced metric makes Davis doubters (yours truly) think twice. He is in a good spot in Atlanta.

Antonio Gibson popped in this metric, ranking fifth among qualifying RBs last season. If Gibson can survive the goal line vulture named Peyton Barber, he could be a dominant fantasy RB1 in 2021.

Austin Ekeler is going to be a steal in 2021 fantasy drafts. He didn’t play much last season — and was almost never used near the goal line — and the Chargers offense is ascending as a whole. Ekeler has top-three fantasy RB potential this season. Don’t miss out.

One interesting note: Tony Pollard (0.24) was much better than Ezekiel Elliott (0.19) in this metric, though both RBs ranked in the top 20. As an excellent athlete that has proven himself worthy of more than just a few touches per game, Pollard should be viewed as a legitimate threat to Elliott’s stranglehold on touches in Dallas.