The quarterback position has evolved. More teams, it seems, are looking for quarterbacks who can move – that’s a bigger part of the game now.
Not that there isn’t still room for a Tom Brady, Dan Marino or Peyton Manning when they come along. Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff, as current examples, don’t have much ability to run.
But the preference is to have somebody with the ability to move. That’s one way to salvage a bad play. And it’s another way to challenge defenses, forcing them to account for the possibility of a quarterbacking picking up a first down on his own. When defenses have to account for a mobile quarterback, it makes the rest of the offense more effective.
The four quarterbacks starting in the conference championship games were all mobile – Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Jayden Daniels. The three quarterbacks taken at the top of last year’s draft (Caleb Williams, Daniels and Drake Maye) can all move.
And if we look at the position as a whole, quarterbacks are running for more yards and touchdowns than ever before.
Below see the league averages for rushing production by quarterbacks – attempts, yards and rushing touchdowns. The five most productive rushing seasons for quarterbacks have all come in the last five years. (In the chart below, the final column shows fantasy points using 6 points for touchdowns and 1 for every 10 yards.)
There have been a varying number of teams and games over the last 50 years, so numbers have been standardized for today’s 17-game schedule. (That is, quarterbacks didn’t actually average 173 rushing yards in 1974 – that’s how many yards they would have averaged had they played 17 games, rather than just 14.)
| AVERAGE RUSHING PRODUCTION BY QUARTERBACKS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Att | Yards | TD | F Pts |
| 1970 | 32.6 | 155.1 | 1.2 | 22.8 |
| 1971 | 35.7 | 151.7 | 2.2 | 28.6 |
| 1972 | 43.0 | 214.6 | 2.9 | 38.8 |
| 1973 | 41.9 | 176.1 | 1.9 | 29.1 |
| 1974 | 39.6 | 173.0 | 2.3 | 31.0 |
| 1975 | 36.6 | 165.0 | 1.9 | 28.0 |
| 1976 | 40.9 | 181.8 | 2.6 | 33.5 |
| 1977 | 39.8 | 146.6 | 2.0 | 26.9 |
| 1978 | 38.5 | 134.7 | 1.4 | 21.9 |
| 1979 | 37.2 | 149.3 | 2.0 | 26.8 |
| 1980 | 40.6 | 161.8 | 2.2 | 29.4 |
| 1981 | 37.1 | 139.5 | 1.7 | 24.2 |
| 1982 | 21.6 | 75.9 | .9 | 13.3 |
| 1983 | 40.5 | 157.2 | 1.6 | 25.3 |
| 1984 | 43.2 | 156.5 | 1.8 | 26.4 |
| 1985 | 43.2 | 148.6 | 1.6 | 24.4 |
| 1986 | 42.9 | 163.4 | 1.6 | 26.1 |
| 1987 | 46.5 | 193.5 | 2.1 | 31.9 |
| 1988 | 49.1 | 185.7 | 2.3 | 32.2 |
| 1989 | 48.5 | 200.6 | 2.0 | 31.9 |
| 1990 | 49.5 | 224.3 | 1.6 | 32.2 |
| 1991 | 41.6 | 146.6 | 1.3 | 22.4 |
| 1992 | 48.3 | 184.7 | 1.3 | 26.0 |
| 1993 | 47.3 | 162.1 | 1.1 | 22.6 |
| 1994 | 44.5 | 139.8 | 1.5 | 22.9 |
| 1995 | 43.9 | 143.7 | 1.7 | 24.8 |
| 1996 | 49.1 | 155.5 | 1.6 | 24.9 |
| 1997 | 50.8 | 183.4 | 1.9 | 29.8 |
| 1998 | 50.3 | 193.3 | 1.7 | 29.7 |
| 1999 | 52.7 | 204.0 | 1.7 | 30.9 |
| 2000 | 59.9 | 261.0 | 2.1 | 38.4 |
| 2001 | 58.1 | 225.1 | 2.0 | 34.6 |
| 2002 | 53.7 | 222.9 | 2.4 | 36.8 |
| 2003 | 46.3 | 162.7 | 2.0 | 28.4 |
| 2004 | 46.6 | 164.6 | 1.3 | 24.2 |
| 2005 | 46.0 | 151.4 | 1.5 | 23.9 |
| 2006 | 47.8 | 173.1 | 1.5 | 26.1 |
| 2007 | 43.3 | 132.8 | 1.3 | 21.3 |
| 2008 | 43.7 | 147.5 | 1.6 | 24.3 |
| 2009 | 44.4 | 142.5 | 1.5 | 23.2 |
| 2010 | 47.1 | 187.9 | 1.5 | 28.0 |
| 2011 | 52.2 | 201.6 | 2.2 | 33.3 |
| 2012 | 52.7 | 218.4 | 2.2 | 35.0 |
| 2013 | 56.7 | 244.8 | 1.9 | 35.8 |
| 2014 | 54.7 | 220.7 | 1.6 | 31.4 |
| 2015 | 54.1 | 218.1 | 2.0 | 34.0 |
| 2016 | 50.5 | 199.3 | 2.2 | 32.9 |
| 2017 | 54.8 | 236.5 | 2.2 | 36.8 |
| 2018 | 62.1 | 268.5 | 2.4 | 41.0 |
| 2019 | 60.6 | 255.6 | 2.7 | 41.5 |
| 2020 | 71.3 | 313.3 | 4.2 | 56.4 |
| 2021 | 67.8 | 295.1 | 3.1 | 48.1 |
| 2022 | 71.8 | 318.6 | 3.1 | 50.3 |
| 2023 | 71.4 | 295.0 | 3.4 | 50.1 |
| 2024 | 73.5 | 344.2 | 3.3 | 54.5 |
—Ian Allan