Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: QB out-of-pocket dropback rate

Tyler Loechner

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(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.)

One of the best things about the NFL is that there are so many flavors of play at the QB position, which is undoubtedly the most important position in terms of dictating success on the field.

On the one hand, you have the Tom Brady types, who burn defenses with smart decisions and pinpoint accuracy. On the other hand, you have Lamar Jackson, who dazzles with athleticism. Then there are players like Russell Wilson and Josh Allen who fall somewhere in between.

Today, we will parse some of those QBs with a single stat: The percentage of QB dropbacks that see the QB leave the pocket (out of pocket, or OOP). The expectation is that we will see more mobile QBs with a higher rate. We will look at OOP-related QB stats all week.

Be sure to check out FTN’s Out of Pocket QB stats tool to explore more of the data yourself!

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Russell Wilson tops starting QBs with a 36% out-of-pocket dropback rate

The chart below shows the top 12 QBs (minimum 150 dropbacks) from the 2020 season based on the percentage of their total dropbacks that saw the QB trail out of the pocket.

Player	Dropbacks	Out of Pocket (OOP) Dropbacks	OOP Dropback %
Mitchell Trubisky	244	88	36.1%
Russell Wilson	487	175	35.9%
Patrick Mahomes	495	158	31.9%
Drew Lock	369	117	31.7%
Lamar Jackson	349	106	30.4%
Baker Mayfield	415	123	29.6%
Aaron Rodgers	444	126	28.4%
Josh Allen	499	131	26.3%
Deshaun Watson	527	137	26.0%
Jared Goff	481	116	24.1%
Kirk Cousins	470	108	23.0%
Sam Darnold	354	77	21.8%

A few thoughts from this data:

The only stat where Drew Lock and Mitchell Trubisky find themselves next to Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson. Apparently, sorting QBs by their OOP dropback rate mixes the elite with the bottom feeders. I do find it interesting that some of fantasy’s best players (Wilson, Mahomes, Jackson, Allen, Deshaun Watson) are on this list. But so are Trubisky and Lock. Perhaps if Lock spends more time in the pocket, his success (and the success of Denver’s pass-catchers) can see an improvement in 2021. It clearly doesn’t work for him.
Russell Wilson is always running for his life. It’s kind of a fantasy trope that Wilson has a bad offensive line, gets sacked a lot and spends a lot of time having to be Superman for Seattle. This stat really, really brings that to light. His 175 OOP dropbacks and 36% OOP dropback rate were the most (by far) among all starting QBs.
Jared Goff, Kirk Cousins, and Sam Darnold do not belong on this list. Neither does Drew Lock. Goff and Darnold have new teams in 2021, so a completely new play style — and a completely new look for fantasy — may surface. My money would be on Darnold being able to turn the corner in 2021.