Fumbles in the NFL: All the Stats You Didn’t Realize You Needed to Know

Contents

Fumbles vs. lost fumbles Rates of fumble recovery Who’s responsible for most fumbles?

Greg Auman

NFL Reporter

Let’s talk about fumbles.

What could be better to spice up the doldrums of summer than to delve into statistical trends around the NFL? We’ve already examined why offenses are having more success going for it on fourth down, how defenses are improving on stopping two-point conversions and the decline of home-field advantage.

Now it’s time to focus on fumbles — all kinds of them by all kinds of players. One of the strangest last season happened when Bengals safety Jordan Battle recovered a fumble but then lost the ball a split-second before getting into the end zone for a 60-yard return touchdown.

We hear a lot about how the NFL passing game has progressed in the past 20 years, and that includes a 31% drop in per-game interceptions from 2004 to 2024. But lost fumbles, as it turns out, are down even more sharply: 33% since 2004. NFL teams lost 380 fumbles in 2004; last season, there were just 271, despite every team playing a 17th game.

It’s all part of a general offensive push to limit turning the ball over. Turnovers as a whole are down significantly from 20 years ago: from 3.53 per game in 2004 to just 2.42 last season, a drop from 904 total turnovers to 658.

Let’s take a closer look at this trend.

Fumbles vs. lost fumbles

For starters, it’s important to distinguish between fumbles — any time the ball is loose — and lost fumbles, where the opponent recovers for a turnover. They can be two very different totals.

Consider 2024, when Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield and Atlanta’s Kirk Cousins led the NFL with 13 fumbles. It seems like a terrible number, until you realize that they lost only two fumbles each. All the rest were recovered by the offense, including many by the QBs themselves. Mayfield had the dubious distinction of leading the NFL in fumble recoveries with eight.

There are more extreme examples in recent years. In 2021, Arizona’s Kyler Murray led the NFL with 13 fumbles, but not one was recovered by an opponent, so he also tied for the league lead in fewest fumbles lost in the same season.

One of Kyler Murray’s many talents is recovering the ball after fumbling.(Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images)

Only four of Mayfield’s 13 fumbles last season had anything to do with sacks — there were a few snaps off his hands, a few bad handoffs. He had two fumbles on a single play in the fourth quarter of a close loss to the 49ers. The ball came out on a handoff to Rachaad White, bounced back into Mayfield’s arms, and then he was credited with a second fumble when he quickly tried to throw the ball to Bucky Irving.

“I don’t know if that is a fumble, completion,” FOX’s Kevin Burkhardt said on the broadcast. “Not sure what it is. I know the Bucs have it. Bucky Irving jumped on it just in case.”

Some fumbles are almost nonexistent. Mayfield had one where he ran nine yards for a first down on third-and-4 and as he extended the ball at the sideline, a defender knocked the ball out of bounds, but it still counts as a fumble. Twice he lost the ball as he went to the ground but then landed on it.

That Mayfield would have 13 fumbles and lose only two seems fortunate, even lucky. That means only 15% of his fumbles were lost in 2024. During his first six seasons in the NFL, he lost 38% of his fumbles, a rate that would translate to three more turnovers than what he had last season.

Mayfield was fortunate throughout the regular season, but he didn’t have the same luck in the playoffs. The Bucs were leading the Commanders in the fourth quarter of their NFC wild-card game when a botched handoff on a jet sweep resulted in a lost fumble, which gave Washington the ball and set up a 13-yard touchdown drive for the lead.

Rates of fumble recovery

So what percentage of NFL fumbles are actually lost for turnovers? Last year, the league average was 44%, with a wide disparity from one team to another.

Only eight NFL teams lost half or more of their fumbles. At one extreme, the Raiders lost 13 of 18 fumbles, or 72%. At the other extreme, the Bills lost only two of 11 fumbles all season, just 18%, and the Lions lost three of 12, or 25%. The Chiefs had a league-low nine fumbles and lost three of them, so there are three examples of great teams limiting their losses.

Are more frequent fumblers better at recovering loose balls themselves? The numbers would suggest they are. Mayfield and Cousins in 2024 were among 20 instances in the past decade where an individual player had at least 13 fumbles in a season — the worst, easily, being Giants quarterback Daniel Jones in 2019, when he lost 11 of 19 fumbles. But across those 20 seasons with the most fumbles, those players lost 34% of the fumbles, better than the overall average.

Murray’s 0-for-13 2021 season is the gold standard for minimizing your own mistakes. In 2022, the Bears‘ Justin Fields fumbled 16 times and lost only two of them.

Who’s responsible for most fumbles?

What percentage of lost fumbles came from quarterbacks in 2024? From running backs? From defensive players even?

Quarterbacks, as you might expect, had the biggest chunk with 41% of lost fumbles, remembering that they’re typically credited with the fumble on both bad snaps and botched handoffs. (One exception: Atlanta center Drew Dalman was credited for the fumble on a Week 1 snap that bounced off a player in motion and never made it to the quarterback.)

We mentioned Mayfield and Cousins leading the NFL in fumbles in 2024, but there were 17 quarterbacks who lost more fumbles than they did. Most lost fumbles? New England’s Drake Maye and Tennessee’s Will Levis lost six each, with Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow next with five.

Drake Maye had a promising rookie season for the Patriots, but holding onto the ball needs to be a focus in Year 2. (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Running backs are next with 26% of lost fumbles. It’s worth noting that the league’s top two backs last year, Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley and Baltimore’s Derrick Henry, had just one lost fumble in 378 and 344 touches, respectively. No NFL running back lost more than three, and the six who did averaged just one lost fumble every 96 touches. The worst offender? Seahawks rookie return specialist Dee Williams, who lost three fumbles on 45 touches before getting waived. Receivers accounted for 20% of lost fumbles and tight ends another 7%, with no player at either position losing more than two.

Strangest fumbles lost? Other than the Jordan Battle mishap mentioned earlier, another defensive player managed to lose a fumble last season. After making an impressive interception, Chargers defensive tackle Teair Tart got stripped by Cardinals running back James Conner and Arizona recovered. Cowboys tackle Tyler Guyton recovered a fumble, only to lose the ball himself a split-second later, and Dolphins punter Jake Bailey lost a fumble after recovering a blocked punt.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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