Watt Happens: A Look At Tipped Passes

I'll be the first to admit that I got the Williams wall flying joke. I had to do something when grounded.

Perhaps there is a correlation between type of pass rusher and batted balls? The pure speed guys seem to not show up on the lists, while the guys who have more power and play inside have higher numbers.

Perhaps angle to the QB is relevant?

The only other defensive end I can think of who was known for tipping passes was Ed "Too Tall" Jones, who reportedly batted down 14 passes in 1988 (most of which are documented in the play-by-play), and 73 in the nine years before that.

(Here's video of his 10th and 11th blocks of 1983, from a Week 11 game against the Chargers.)

I would think tipped passes has a connection with height and wingspan. Interior rushers probably have a better chance of tipping passes as well, since any rusher taking an outside/edge route to the quarterback will be out of most passing lanes.

I'm glad to see Ryan Kerrigan on this list for 2012. I remember his tipped pass that he caught himself and returned for a TD his rookie year, which I'm sure is a ton of luck, but I felt like I saw him knock down more than a few passes this past season too.

I don't know if they used the same source, but Acme Packing has Johnny Jolly tipping 10 passes in 2009 alone. As he's been out of the league for three years (for tipping the purple drank), I don't even know if he'll make the team this year. But there are good reasons why Packers fans think he has a better-than-average chance of being on the roster come 8 September.

"Only Calais Campbell and Kevin Williams tipped more passes in the last five years than Watt did last year on his own."

That line sounds better before you realize Williams has tipped more passes than Watt has.

It's plausible that tipping passes is the football equivalent of getting hit by a pitch: almost nobody has that skill, but the few who are actually good at it are consistently good at it.

Frankly, I'd just predict Watt will tip some nontrivial number of passes (13? 17? 23?) and take it for granted you've gotten the exact number wrong.

"Roughly 24% more likely". Take another look - that's not how percentages and ratios work and this mistake far undersells the unlikelihood of this happening again. It's actually pretty easy to believe that something could happen for a second year in a row at a rate 24% above league average, but in fact the Texan's interception rate on Watt's deflections is much much higher than that. So here is the remedial math:

JJ Watt's teammates intercepted 29.4% of passes that he tipped. If this percentage were applied to the 5 year total of 1883 actual tipped passes, that would have resulted in about 554 tipped pass interceptions. The real total was 111 tipped pass interceptions and 554 is 499% of 111. So the rate at which Watt's team turned his tipped passes into picks was 499% higher than expected, not 24% higher. But at least you are right that it's not likely to happen again.

Buck Buchanan tipped 16 in 67, but iirc may have had only one other season in double digits. Between Buck, Too Tall, Calais Campbell, Watt, Kevin Williams, etc the commonality seems to be an interior lineman and wingspan. Ok, Campbell and Jones were DEs but Calais on a 3 man line, not aligned wide, and Too Tall was 6-9. I do think this is like non sack FFs and blocked kicks. In the vast majority of cases its random, but there are a handful of skilled practitioners, the aforementioned Tillman for FFs and Sean Rogers or Alan Page with blocked kicks.

Any study on the effect of those tipped passes? Do we have a large enough database to study how likely a tipped pass in general is to be intercepted? How much does a tipped pass reduce the likelihood of a successful play be the ofense, given that the pass is short and therefore high percentage if it's being tipped at all? Is this possibly an area where we will see an explosion in the coming years as more DL coaches teach it, assuming it's been undervalued?

I think he is assuming long passes are thrown with more arch, so are less likely to be deflected.