In today’s era of quarterbacking, the big change is the athleticism of the QB. Instead of a luxury, it’s a requirement. And it’s changed how we look at the “rushing” quarterback in 2025.
The way of the quarterback has changed pretty much in every decade of football’s existence. In the 1950s, they were as valuable as running backs are today. They were asked to manage the game and make sure the play was called. In the 1960s, they started to get more responsibilities. As we move into the 70s and 80s, quarterbacks were becoming the biggest stars, with the likes of Joe Namath and Roger Staubach taking over headlines. In the 1990s, quarterbacks took over the league, and offenses were never the same. In the 2000s, records began to fall and football took over as the number one spot in sports across the U.S.
In 1999, Doug Flutie led all quarterbacks in rushing with 476 yards. Steve McNair was second with 337. In 2024, Flutie would have been eighth in rushing amongst QBs, falling behind the likes of Caleb Williams, Anthony Richardson (in 11 games), and Kyler Murray.
Today, it’s a requirement to be able to rush. Even if it's just to evade defenders or to extend a play here or there, QBs need to rush. However, when looking at the very best rushing quarterbacks of all time, many of them play in surprising eras.
10. Steve McNair
Career Rushing Yards: 3,590
We want to apologize to Mr. McNair for catching a stray earlier in the article. He is one of the best rushing quarterbacks in the history of the league. The former co-NFL MVP was incredible for the Oilers, Titans, and Ravens.
In his first season as a starter, McNair rushed more than 100 times and ran for 674 yards. He led the league at 6.7 yards per attempt. Not for quarterbacks, for all qualified rushers. He was an automatic big play as a first-year starter, although he did have a fumbling problem.
As his career went on, he slowed down the rushing. He had 559 yards in 1998, but he never broke 500 yards again. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t incredibly effective. He scored 37 touchdowns in his career, even if the rushing fell off pretty much at the end of his career. He was electric to start his career, and if he was playing today, he probably has double the rushing stats he finished his career with.
McNair settled in as a traditional quarterback because that’s what his era demanded, but he always had that rushing ability. He was a game breaker when he needed to be, including when he rushed for two touchdowns in the 1999-00 AFC Championship against the Jaguars on their way to the Super Bowl.
9. Fran Tarkenton
Career Rushing Yards: 3,674
Going way back to find one of the best ever at a time when the running quarterback was as common as a unicorn. Fran Tarkenton is a Hall of Famer for a reason. He didn’t have many huge rushing seasons, but he was efficient with his runs. He rushed for more than 100 yards in a season every year of his career until he was 36 years old. Most years, he had more than 300 yards rushing.
This is also an era where they only had 14-game regular seasons, so keep that context in your mind when looking at Tarkenton’s stats. He immediately made an impact on the ground, rushing for 308 yards and five touchdowns in his rookie year.
Tarkenton’s runs were very rarely calculated. He was making something out of nothing. That’s how he got the nickname “The Scrambler” and “The Mad Scrambler.” He wasn’t running from inside the pocket up the middle. He was extending plays and breaking free for first downs. He knew he had a good team around him. Tarkenton just needed to extend drives whenever he could.
He’s still the only quarterback in history to have a rushing touchdown in 15 different seasons. He retired as the NFL leader in multiple categories, including rushing yards at the position.
8. Russell Wilson
Career Rushing Yards (As of 2024 season's end): 5,462
Things aren’t going well for Russell Wilson right now, but there was a time when his dual-threat abilities made him a top-three quarterback in the league. He was in multiple MVP conversations, and he helped lead the Seattle Seahawks to their lone Super Bowl win. He did this while being an undersized QB out of NC State that became a borderline Hall of Fame candidate.
Wilson is still in the NFL as of this writing, although that might not last much longer. And he’s still rushing a little bit, but it appears that he is what he is at this point. He will finish this season fourth all-time in rushing yards for a quarterback. That’s not bad! If he plays like two more games, he could move up into the top three.
It’s interesting how Wilson’s rushing was utlized in his career. Looking at his playoff game log shows that Wilson’s long-time head coach Pete Carroll would use it when they needed it. This wasn’t a luxury, this was a Get Out of Pressure Free card. There are as many playoff games with fewer than 15 rushing yards as there were 50+.
And that’s the beauty of Russell Wilson. Rushing was a weapon in his arsenal. He did it often enough to keep opposing teams on their toes (and to get into the top four of rushing yards).
7. John Elway
Career Rushing Yards: 3,407
John Elway is considered by just about anyone to be one of the best quarterbacks of all time. After he was taken first overall by the Baltimore Colts, Elway forced his way to the Denver Broncos and stayed there for 16 years. Still, to this day, Elway as a prospect is compared to the very top prospects that come out. The exquisite ones, like Andrew Luck and Trevor Lawrence, are talked about in the “Elway tier.”
Coming out of Stanford, Elway showed a little promise rushing the ball, but it wasn’t a central part of his game. That changed in the NFL.
He never rushed for more than 304 yards in a season, but he was always consistently using it when the opportunity arose. He used just his pure athleticism to get the rushing yards. He didn’t look as smooth rushing as Doug Flutie or Steve Young, but his intelligence was his strongest rushing asset.
Where he really showcased his rushing ability is on the biggest stage. Elway is one of two players with four rushing touchdowns. Not quarterbacks, all players. Only Thurman Thomas has that many rushing touchdowns. Probably the most important and memorable play of his career was “The Helicopter,” when Elway rushed towards the end zone in Super Bowl XXXII before leaping in the air, getting hit while airborne, and spinning on his way down to the turf. He got past the sticks, giving the Broncos a first and goal, and the Broncos ended up beating the Packers in that Super Bowl.
6. Steve Young
Career Rushing Yards: 4,239
Sticking around that same era, Steve Young brought a rushing ability to the mainstream. There were other players who were rushing, and there were some even doing it better than him (one name specifically comes to mind), but Young was bringing that ability to the biggest stages and to a national audience.
Young started his career in the USFL, and that’s where the rushing ability became a talking point. He ran for 883 yards and nine touchdowns over two seasons. Then, he came to the NFL, but he had to wait to get his next opportunity. He didn’t get to start for seven seasons into his NFL career.
Yet, he still finished his career with 4,239 yards and 43 touchdowns on the ground. Those are insane stats when you consider he didn’t get to play at his athletic peak. Many of the quarterbacks on their list had huge rushing numbers early in their careers before injuries and age caught up with them. That’s not Young’s story, but he still put the two-way quarterback on the map.
Young started 16 games for the first time in 1992, and he rushed for more than 500 yards and won the league MVP. From 1991 to 1993, he rushed for more than 1,400 yards total. He was also scoring touchdowns at an insane clip. In 1994, another MVP year, he hit pay dirt seven times on the ground.
5. Randall Cunningham
Career Rushing Yards: 4,929
Randall Cunningham might be the most underrated quarterback in the history of the game. He was dominant for the Philadelphia Eagles, and we have to wonder how we would look at his career if he rightfully won the MVP in 1988. He actually finished second in MVP voting three times. Only Drew Brees has more second-place finishes.
As a runner, Cunningham was one of a kind. That’s why legendary Eagles coach Buddy Ryan forced veteran starter Ron Jaworski to split time with the young Cunningham, actually giving the fleet-footed one the plays on third and long. Cunningham officially took over in 1987, and it was an electric time to be an Eagles fan.
Cunningham was a marvel. He could take punts when needed. He could throw the ball 60 yards in the air with a perfect spiral. However, it was his legs that drew headlines. Cunningham was running, sometimes for his life, for big numbers every season. Cunningham broke 500 yards rushing every year from 1986 to 1992. He peaked with 942 yards rushing in 1992.
Cunningham had serious issues staying healthy after getting just demolished in Philadelphia. He led the league in sacks taken every healthy year he had in Philadelphia. Every single one. If Cunningham was healthy, Lamar Jackson is probably still chasing the QB rushing record.
4. Josh Allen
Career Rushing Yards (As of 2024 season's end): 4,142
Rushing success rate is an interesting statistic that isn’t used very often. What it measures is how often a rush gets the required yardage to set the team up for future downs. To be considered a successful rush, according to Pro Football Reference, the play must gain at least 40% of the yards required on 1st down, 60% of the yards required on 2nd down, and 100 percent on 3rd or 4th down. Josh Allen has the best success rate of all time, with more than 60 percent of his rushes ending with this result.
If Josh Allen were putting up the rushing statistics in 1995 that he is right now, then he would be considered the best in the world. Since he’s doing it alongside the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, he’s considered more of a multi-tool QB. He’s also one of the best throwers in the league, so the analysts focus on the big throws more than the big runs.
Allen has had at least 500 yards rushing in all but one season at the time of this writing, with the one outlier coming in 2020 when everyone was having a strange season. Even in 2018, when he played just 12 games, he had 631 yards rushing.
Where it gets really impressive is the touchdown numbers. Russell Wilson, who might finish third in career rushing yards for a QB, has 31 career rushing touchdowns. Josh Allen has 72! That’s more than double what Wilson had. Allen could break the all-time record of 75 by the end of this season.
3. Cam Newton
Career Rushing Yards: 5,631
Cam Newton is another player that just doesn’t get the attention as one of the best of the previous era that he should. He was as good a player as any at the position for at least a five-year stretch. His run in 2015, when he won 15 games and won the MVP, is one of the best QB seasons we’ve ever seen. And it was capped off 636 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns.
Newton always made his rushing ability a central part of his weaponry. He rushed for more than 700 yards in his rookie year, and since he was built like a brick wall, he was able to handle the hits like a running back. That’s also how he scored 14 rushing touchdowns as a rookie, which held as an NFL record until it was broken by Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen in 2023.
He broke 700 yards in his career on three different occasions, and the Panthers were able to beat teams based solely on giving them multiple looks that allowed Newton to run or pass. He finished his career with 75 rushing touchdowns, more than any other player in the history of the game.
One of the most interesting QB seasons on this list is when Newton signed with the New England Patriots to replace Tom Brady. The Pats changed their offense entirely, and Newton became a rushing QB unlike we’ve ever seen before. He rushed 137 times for 592 yards and 12 touchdowns. It was his last real impact on the field, and Bill Belichick found a unique way to make him effective under center.
2. Michael Vick
Career Rushing Yards: 6,109
Of course, when you think of a rushing quarterback, the likely first name that comes to mind is Michael Vick. He was a cheat code under center. The number-one overall pick in the 2001 NFL Draft looked like the greatest athlete to enter the NFL. He was dominating on the ground at Virginia Tech, becoming a one-man advantage using both his rocket arm and Mach 1 speed.
Still, to this day, Michael Vick holds the record for yards per attempt at 7.0. Teams could put multiple guys in the box, but Vick could make them miss like Saquon Barkley in the open field. He didn’t just have straight-line speed like many other quarterbacks. He could break ankles while rushing full speed.
Vick became the first quarterback in history to rush for more than 1,000 yards when he did it in 2006. The Falcons were desperate for offense that season, so Vick had to use his feet to get the ball down the field. Even during the second half of his career after he was released from prison, he was still incredible on the ground. He had 676 yards and nine touchdowns for the 2010 Eagles.
Vick finished his career with more than 6,100 yards and 36 touchdowns. He didn’t win many big games because the Falcons are always kind of a mess, but he was giving his team as many chances as he could with his legs.
1. Lamar Jackson
Career Rushing Yards (As of 2024 season's end): 6,173
There is no other acceptable answer to this question than Lamar Jackson. He’s only 28 years old, but he already has the record for most career rushing yards for a quarterback. If history is any indication, the roost will come to crow soon, and we should appreciate what we’re seeing with Jackson while we still have it, but there’s no indication that he is anything but a perennial MVP candidate.
Jackson broke Vick’s single-season rushing record in 2019. In his second year in the league, he had more than 1,200 yards and seven touchdowns. He followed that up with another 1,000-yard season.
Today, Jackson is still the best rusher in the league. The Ravens give him multiple packages where he’s basically a running back under center. Some of his rushes come on the scramble, but the large majority of his yards come on designed runs.
Teams know that Jackson is going to run a bunch each game, and they still can’t stop him. He’s already rushed 1,000 times in his career, and he’s looking to do that en route to a Super Bowl title.