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Xavier Gipson Has Technically Fumbled in Half of his Games this Year
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Stumbled upon this from @SecondHandFood on Reddit. Jets fans pointed out Xavier Gipson’s ball security issues, but had no idea he had this many during his career:
Xavier Gipson has 38 touches and 12 fumbles in his career (32% fumble rate)
byu/SecondHandFood ineagles
A quick check of our data mostly confirms. It’s 12 fumbles (5 lost) for Gipson in 40 NFL games with the Jets and Eagles. But the touch numbers are wrong. This should be over the course of 38 scrimmage touches, 74 punt returns, and 51 kick returns. So it’s not a 32% fumble rate, because the math should be 12 / 163, not 12 / 38, as scrimmage touches and all-purpose touches are different. Anybody with that kind of fumble rate wouldn’t be in the NFL to begin with.
But still, the guy hasn’t held onto the ball. He fumbled in the Jets’ season opener against the Steelers and got himself waived. He is credited with a MUFF from last week in the Detroit game that I honestly can’t remember. Nick thinks it was a sequence when a teammate ran into him and the ball went out of play. And Gipson fumbled this week against the Cowboys. According to the game logs, he’s fumbled three times on 20 returns this year, both punts and kicks. Two of those three were lost. Not great!
Furthermore, Gipson has recorded box score stats in six games this year, which was Week 1 for the Jets, then Weeks 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12 for the Eagles. He fumbled in Weeks 1, 11, and 12, so 50%. He’s fumbled in half of his games this season, or 33% if you want to discount the Detroit borderline muff in which the Birds retained possession.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com