RYOE is rushing yards over expected: how many yards a runner gained compared to what an average back would have gained from the same handoff, given where every blocker and defender was standing. Next Gen Stats builds the expectation from player tracking. A carry the model expects to gain 4 yards that goes for 9 is +5 RYOE; over a season the total says whether a back is making his own yards or being handed them.
Updated Sept. 16, 2026.
Through Week 1, Kenneth Walker III (Kansas City Chiefs) leads the NFL with +101 rushing yards over expected on 23 carries, the most of any of the 255 qualifying starts through the same week since Next Gen Stats began tracking in 2016. Rhamondre Stevenson (New England Patriots) is last at -22.
Expected rushing yards come from Next Gen Stats' model of where every player on the field was at handoff. Positive means the back gained more than the blocking and the defense's positioning predicted.
| # | Player | Team | RYOE | Att |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenneth Walker III | Kansas City Chiefs | +101 | 23 |
| 2 | Kyle Monangai | Chicago Bears | +50 | 10 |
| 3 | Derrick Henry | Baltimore Ravens | +30 | 24 |
| 4 | D'Andre Swift | Chicago Bears | +28 | 18 |
| 5 | Saquon Barkley | Philadelphia Eagles | +27 | 15 |
| 6 | Cam Skattebo | New York Giants | +25 | 18 |
| 7 | Jahmyr Gibbs | Detroit Lions | +23 | 29 |
| 8 | Christian McCaffrey | San Francisco 49ers | +16 | 10 |
| 9 | Ashton Jeanty | Las Vegas Raiders | +13 | 23 |
| 10 | Chuba Hubbard | Carolina Panthers | +13 | 10 |
| 11 | Jonathan Taylor | Indianapolis Colts | +10 | 19 |
| 12 | Jeremiyah Love | Arizona Cardinals | +10 | 11 |
| 13 | James Cook | Buffalo Bills | +7 | 13 |
| 14 | Jadarian Price | Seattle Seahawks | +7 | 10 |
| 15 | Jaylen Warren | Pittsburgh Steelers | +6 | 10 |
Yards per carry is the oldest running-back stat and the most misleading, because it belongs as much to the offensive line and the play design as to the runner. RYOE tries to split the credit. At the moment of handoff, the model sees the positions, speeds and directions of all 22 players and predicts the gain; the back is credited or debited for the difference.
The number is small per carry and noisy over a game, so it is read over a season. Elite seasons are +1.0 RYOE per attempt or better; most starters sit between -0.5 and +0.5. Backs who repeat positive seasons are the ones with real vision and contact balance; backs who post one great year behind a great line and then fall off were being carried by the expectation, not beating it.
RYOE is tracked from 2018 in Next Gen Stats' public data, so it cannot be used for historical comparisons the way EPA can. Success rate on carries and rushing EPA per attempt are the pre-tracking alternatives.
Derrick Henry's 2020 season, 2,027 yards, came with the highest RYOE of the tracking era: he beat the expectation by more than 400 yards, meaning a replacement back behind the same blocking projects to about 1,600. That gap is what the stat is for.
RYOE = actual rushing yards minus expected rushing yards, summed over carries. Expected rushing yards come from Next Gen Stats' model of tracking data at handoff. RYOE per attempt divides the total by carries. Rush percentage over expected is the share of carries that beat their expectation.
Per attempt, +0.5 or better over a full season is very good and +1.0 is elite; only a handful of backs reach it in any year. Season totals above +150 put a back among the league's best runners; below -100 means the offense is gaining less than the blocking provides.
Next Gen Stats, the NFL's player-tracking system, which records every player's position ten times a second. The expected-yards model was built by the winners of the 2020 Big Data Bowl and the league publishes the outputs weekly.
That is the purpose. The expectation is built from where the blockers and defenders are at handoff, so a hole the line opens raises the expectation and a stuffed box lowers it. The back gets credit only for what he adds beyond that.
Category: Stats & Analytics. Part of the StickToTheModel NFL Encyclopedia.