There are some defensive trends that are kind of weird. If you look at the last 20 years, teams are intercepting fewer passes. Yet at the same time they’re scoring more touchdowns on interception returns. That doesn’t seem to make much sense.
And with fumbles, defenses are recovering fewer of those than every before, but more of the ones they get their hands on are being returned for touchdowns.
If you look at the 1993-2013 seasons, the best two years for returning interceptions for touchdowns have been the last two. It’s happened on 15 and 13 percent of interceptions. In each of the previous 19 seasons, only 7-11 percent of interceptions were returned for touchdowns.
Fumbles, two of the three best seasons for returning them for touchdowns have come in the last two years.
My guess is this is tied to the increased emphasis on player safety. Those helmet-to-helmet hits and blows against defenseless receivers are being legislated out of the game. But those kind of hits were the ones most likely, I think, to cause interceptions and fumbles. That would explain in part why turnovers are down, and perhaps those kind of turnovers weren’t the ones that were being returned for touchdowns.
The ideal Pick-6 comes on a pass towards the sideline, where a defender jumps it and has nothing in front of him except the end zone. Those aren’t affected by the rules changes.
| INTERCEPTIONS 1993-2013 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Int | TD | Pct |
| 1993 | 469 | 36 | 7.7% |
| 1994 | 474 | 46 | 9.7% |
| 1995 | 512 | 53 | 10.4% |
| 1996 | 542 | 40 | 7.4% |
| 1997 | 479 | 47 | 9.8% |
| 1998 | 509 | 53 | 10.4% |
| 1999 | 562 | 58 | 10.3% |
| 2000 | 531 | 51 | 9.6% |
| 2001 | 545 | 59 | 10.8% |
| 2002 | 528 | 46 | 8.7% |
| 2003 | 538 | 59 | 11.0% |
| 2004 | 524 | 54 | 10.3% |
| 2005 | 506 | 47 | 9.3% |
| 2006 | 520 | 49 | 9.4% |
| 2007 | 534 | 52 | 9.7% |
| 2008 | 465 | 52 | 11.2% |
| 2009 | 525 | 48 | 9.1% |
| 2010 | 511 | 57 | 11.2% |
| 2011 | 506 | 49 | 9.7% |
| 2012 | 468 | 71 | 15.2% |
| 2013 | 502 | 65 | 12.9% |
| FUMBLES 1993-2013 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Fumbles | TD | Pct |
| 1993 | 383 | 27 | 7.0% |
| 1994 | 358 | 18 | 5.0% |
| 1995 | 403 | 34 | 8.4% |
| 1996 | 377 | 25 | 6.6% |
| 1997 | 379 | 36 | 9.5% |
| 1998 | 352 | 27 | 7.7% |
| 1999 | 390 | 34 | 8.7% |
| 2000 | 403 | 17 | 4.2% |
| 2001 | 384 | 31 | 8.1% |
| 2002 | 397 | 25 | 6.3% |
| 2003 | 372 | 19 | 5.1% |
| 2004 | 378 | 33 | 8.7% |
| 2005 | 388 | 24 | 6.2% |
| 2006 | 377 | 31 | 8.2% |
| 2007 | 379 | 35 | 9.2% |
| 2008 | 328 | 29 | 8.8% |
| 2009 | 347 | 26 | 7.5% |
| 2010 | 347 | 20 | 5.8% |
| 2011 | 303 | 28 | 9.2% |
| 2012 | 329 | 21 | 6.4% |
| 2013 | 312 | 31 | 9.9% |
—Ian Allan