2025 season · Running backs, 36 qualifiers

Light Box Rate Leaders

Light Box Rate — 2025 NFL leaders, updated Oct 2, 2026. Jacory Croskey-Merritt (WAS) led the league in light box rate at 67.4%, ahead of 35 other qualifying players. Based on verified play-level charting from FTN Data via nflverse, regular season only. Through the 2025 season.

Light box rate is the share of a running back's designed runs that met a box of six or fewer defenders, counted by FTN's charters. Scrambles and quarterback runs are excluded. A light box is space the offense earned — usually by spreading the field or by a passing game the defense respects — so the stat describes what a back was given, not what he did with it. Rank 1 saw the most light boxes. It is not the inverse of the stacked box board, which counts eight or more defenders from Next Gen Stats tracking. In season every figure here is season to date, and before Week 4 it rests on two or three games — a gap of a few points between neighbours is noise until the sample grows.

Light Box Rate, 2025 NFL season
#PlayerLight%LightRunsListen
1Jacory Croskey-MerrittWAS67.4%118175
2Bijan RobinsonATL66.8%191286
3Travis EtienneJAX66.5%173260
4Ashton JeantyLV65.8%175266
5Christian McCaffreySF65.3%203311
6Jonathan TaylorIND65.3%211323
7Chase BrownCIN65.1%151232
8Jordan MasonMIN64.2%102159
9Jahmyr GibbsDET63.8%155243
10Josh JacobsGB63.7%149234
11Bucky IrvingTB63.6%110173
12Kareem HuntKC61.3%100163
13Tyler AllgeierATL60.8%87143
14Tony PollardTEN58.7%142242
15David MontgomeryDET57.6%91158
16J.K. DobbinsDEN57.5%88153
17RJ HarveyDEN57.5%84146
18Kyren WilliamsLAR56.4%146259
19Tyrone Tracy Jr.NYG56.2%99176
20Kenneth Walker IIISEA56.1%124221
21Javonte WilliamsDAL56.0%141252
22D'Andre SwiftCHI51.1%114223
23Woody MarksHOU51.0%100196
24Zach CharbonnetSEA50.5%93184
25De'Von AchaneMIA50.4%120238
26Kyle MonangaiCHI50.3%85169
27Breece HallNYJ48.8%118242
28Saquon BarkleyPHI47.9%134280
29Blake CorumLAR46.2%67145
30Rico DowdleCAR44.1%104236
31Quinshon JudkinsCLE42.4%97229
32Jaylen WarrenPIT41.7%88211
33Kimani VidalLAC40.6%63155
34TreVeyon HendersonNE36.1%65180
35James CookBUF34.0%105309
36Derrick HenryBAL29.0%89307

FTN's box count, not Next Gen Stats'. The two count defenders differently, so this board and the stacked box board are not two ends of one number.

New to this stat? What light box rate means.

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