In Focus: Joe Tippmann

Edition #419

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Every year I try and do some focal pieces on our draft picks, and I’ve been a little slack on that this year. My aim is to get to everyone before training camp, which gives me around two weeks. So if you like the focus pieces, you’re in for a treat

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🚨 I wrote a piece for Last Word on Sports on five camp battles to watch for the Jets. We’ve covered some of them on TJW so far, and we’ll get to the others in time, but head on over and check that out if you have time today.

🚑 Jets safety Chuck Clark shared an update on his Twitter: “Surgery was a success Preciate everybody reaching out showing love and support. Now the rebuild and recovery starts… road to 2024 comeback player of the year!!”

🏈 NFL.com put out their All-Under 25 Team and the Jets had three players represented. Sauce Gardner, Breece Hall and Alijah Vera-Tucker all made the cut. At first, I was incredulous about Garrett Wilson’s omission, but then I saw Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson, and it was a little more understandable. For what it’s worth I believe Garrett will be in the same league as those guys by season’s end.

🎥 Tim Hasselbeck had a lot of interesting thoughts on Hard Knocks and how it could impact the Jets. There was a lot on seeing how people respond to Aaron, how it can impact team relations due to the sensitivity of some players. But one of the interesting comments revolved around Zach Wilson and other teams using it to see if they’d be open to letting him revive his career with their franchise: “I think it’s a great idea. And honestly, just because it’s access that other people want to get, it would tell the rest of the league a lot about Zach Wilson,” stated Hasselbeck. “So if his future is not with the Jets – how Zach handles, interacts, absorbs, everything. I think if I were somewhere else, it would give me a lot of information as to whether or not I would let him try to revive his career.”

📈 The Jets cornerbacks found their way onto the CBS list for the 10 best defensive position groups in football. Of course, they focused on Sauce, but I’m going to share the comments on Reed, as he still doesn’t get the credit he deserves: “D.J. Reed is no slouch either. One of the best free agent signings from the 2022 offseason, Reed allowed just two touchdowns last season, as opposing quarterbacks had just a 62.5 passer rating targeting him (Reed had just one interception). Reed also had 80 tackles and 12 passes defensed.”

👍 They also ranked Aaron Rodgers as the 6th best QB in football: “Remember when Tom Brady neared the end of his 20-year Patriots tenure, and plenty of respected voices wondered if he'd finally lost his magic, only to then watch him reach new heights amid new scenery? It's the kind of story the Jets are hoping unfolds with Rodgers, who looked mildly resigned to the Packers' makeshift setup in a disappointing 2022 that followed two straight MVP seasons. At 39, A-Rod may well be past his prime. But he's freshly motivated, he's still got pinpoint touch, and with deep weaponry and defensive support in New York, he's got what it takes to make a legit title push.”

🚨 The Jets have never had a player in the MVP award, mainly because it’s largely now a QBaward and we haven’t had very good QBS. However, now with Aaron Rodgers at the helm, there’s now a possibility at least: “The annual NFL Honors might as well reside in Mr Rodgers’ neighbourhood. Rodgers has four AP NFL MVPs on his first-ballot Hall of Fame resume, which is second all-time. Rodgers won back-to-back MVPs in 2020-2021. Though he’s only a few months from his 40^th birthday, Rodgers still isn’t far removed from being voted as the league’s top dog. If Rodgers leads a Jets playoff parade, a fifth MVP could be a reality. Then again, if he leads New York to the Super Bowl, he could be a Gotham legend rivalled only by Batman and Broadway Joe.” 

Joe Tippmann was a composite 4-star recruit out of Bishop Dwenger in Fort Wayne Indiana. As a senior, he won about every award an offensive lineman could win, playing as an offensive tackle. It didn’t hurt that former Jets draft pick Jason Fabini acted as a mentor for the young Tippmann in high school.

Indiana Mr Football offensive lineman ✅
Indiana Football Coaches Association All-State Top 50 ✅
First-team all-state by Associated Press ✅
First-team All-Summit Athletic Conference
League MVP ✅
Team Captain ✅
4A State Champion ✅
Played offensive & defensive line (41 tackles, 3 sacks, 3 forced fumbles as a senior). ✅

Many predicted he’d land with Notre Dame, Indiana is Fighting Irish territory and there was a time when they got the best of the bunch, but not this time.

Tippmann fielded offers from the likes of Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue, and Northwestern, and in an alternative reality, he could have played with Sauce Gardner in Cincinnati. But in the end, he chose to be a Badger. He was actually Wisconsin’s first commit for the class of 2019.

Although he redshirted his first year, he took snaps at three different positions throughout the year as the Wisconsin coaching staff tried to identify the best fit. He saw limited action in 2020 as a right guard due to a shoulder injury but entered the 2021 season as the team’s starting centre having just edged Kayden Lyles.

It wasn’t a position he’d ever played and the fact he won the job after missing the entirety of Wisonson’s spring is pretty remarkable.

"I had never played it all," he admitted. "There are a lot of difference to just being that close to the defensive linemen. You're the closest one and everything just happens sooner at the center spot. That was a little bit of an adjustment. And I'd say that I'm still adjusting there."

A lot went into the decision to move him inside permanently. His ability to read a defence and call accurate protections may have been the deciding factor:

“There’s a confidence with that as a group when your centre’s making the right calls,” senior left tackle Tyler Beach said. “‘Tipp’ works night and day to make sure that all of us are on the right thing. That’s one thing, he cares about all of us. … One wrong point, one wrong call can be the difference between a lot of different stuff.”

Wisconsin offensive line coach Joe Rudolph knew he had someone special on his hands. A guy who’s athletic enough to play tackle, strong enough to play guard and smart enough to play centre is a rare find. But as the 2021 season progressed, you realised that placing him at centre was the right thing to do.

Wisconsin started leaning on his violence in the run game. Rudolph started using him on pull-blocks giving his backs an imposing lead blocker that no defender wanted any part of. Interestingly before Tippmann stepped foot on the Wisconsin campus, he’d say that run-blocking was his focus area for improvement, driving off the ball.

Fast-forward to 2021 and he was arguably the best run-blocking centre in college football, and it was an area of his game that he enjoyed:

“Just as a whole offensive line, you love when you can have a great run game and you can displace people off the ball,” Tippmann said. “It’s a thing that all O-linemen love, and you get to impose your will on another team. And I think it really will, over the course of a game, it’ll really break down a defence. … I think it really damages their confidence and their ability to get after the ball.”

That 2021 season was one of the most dominant seasons of any college football centre in recent memory.

Tippmann allowed 0 sacks and just 4 pressures on over 260 pass-blocking snaps, but he also opened countless lanes for a dominant ground game. Wisconsin would end the season averaging over 211 yards per game on the ground and 26 touchdowns. Of course, it was a team effort, but Joe Tippmann had a lot to do with it.

What a lot of people don’t know is that he was experiencing shoulder pain throughout the 2021 season. He missed the Las Vegas Bowl and all of the team's spring practices after undergoing labrum repair. He has multiple pins in each shoulder to keep everything balanced, but Tippmann hasn’t had any issues since:

"It feels good," Tippmann said. "Since I have gotten my right one done, I have had no problems. My left feels good too. Throughout this whole fall camp, my left one has felt great, and the right one feels better than ever.

"Going into this past winter, I knew what it was going to take for me to get back. I knew I would have to sit out through spring and take mental reps. I had done it before. I knew I would have to be ready coming into the fall without the 15 practices the other guys got in the spring."

We can talk about Tippmann the football player all day, but what about Tippmann the guy? I came across a couple of comments about Joe that I wanted to share. The first one comes from his offensive line coach in college Joe Rudolph:

"He's got a really unique way of leading," Rudolph said. "He's very conscientious of doing his job and doing his job well. But he knows how to relax off the field. He brings a presence with the guys. They're calm around him. That's good out of a centre. You can't have a guy who's nervous or anxious.

"He brings a really good sense of leadership, and he does it in his way."

The next one comes from his high school coach, and I’d say this shows the kind of character he possesses more, considering we’re talking about a kid here and he’s in a high school environment:

"We were a couple of games into the season," Garrett remembered, "and when I sat down with the managers, it was kind of 'How's it going?' and it was about the scheduling and what they needed from me. We're chatting and a young, innocent manager, growing into his body and mind, sits up.

"Coach, you know who the nicest guy on the team is?

"No, who is the nicest guy on the team?

"Joe Tippmann.

"Really? Well, that's great to hear. Why do you say that?

"I'm at lunch and nobody wants to sit by me. I don't really have a lot of friends and I didn't go to school with a lot of these kids. So, I'm sitting there by myself, and Joe comes over and sits at the table with me. And the next thing you know everybody is sitting with me."

Garrett explains

"When your best player, your most physical player — the player everybody is looking to and is getting all this attention (as a 4-star recruit)," Garrett stressed, "is able to do that in the lunchroom away from the field, that tells you everything you need to know about Joe Tippmann."

When Bishop Dwenger lineman Luke Wiginton committed to Indiana, he thanked Tippmann in his commitment announcement. When 2021 5-star prospect Nolan Rucci visited Wisconsin, he singled out Joe Tippmann and thanked him for making him feel so welcome, Rucci would end up committing to the Badgers.

Although Tippmann was still dominant in 2022, allowing just 5 pressures in 359 pass-blocking snaps, he did something he’d never done before. He allowed a single sack, and it came in week 7 against Michigan State. Want to know how he bounced back? He allowed a single pressure over the last 5 games of his college career, a single pressure, that’s it.

2022 was a difficult year for the Wisconsin line with constant change. Through the first 9 games of the season, the Badgers had fielded 7 different offensive line combinations. The only constant was Joe Tippmann as the anchor.

Heading into the 2022 season, Tippmann found is way onto the Bruce Feldman Freaks List.

The 6-6, 323-pounder made honorable mention All-Big Ten in his first season as a starter for the Badgers. Tippmann is a terrific combination of strength (635-pound back squat and 455-pound bench) and athleticism, clocking a 4.31 pro agility time and a 1.65 10-yard split, which would’ve been faster than any O-lineman at the NFL combine this year.

Before the season star defensive tackleKeeanu Benton had this to say about Joe and the way he goes about his work in preparation for games:

“Joe Tippmann is a strong dude,” Benton said. “Iron sharpens iron. I wouldn’t want to be up against anyone else. Some days, I am tired, and I didn’t get enough sleep or whatever. He doesn't care. He’ll put me on my a** if I am not doing it right. He's awesome."

“He has that strength with that (speed),” Benton said. “Some guys are either super strong or really quick. He has both. It’s the best combination we can have there.”

Tippmann will be hoping to beat out Connor McGovern for the starting center job in New York. Coach Saleh has confirmed that there will be an open competition for that starting spot, but making a rookie earn it is never a bad thing. I think the expectation inside 1JD is that Tippmann will beat out McGovern.

McGovern has been getting the 1 reps, but that’s a hat tip by the coaches to the veteran, but they’ll rotate at centre in training camp, and that’s where you expect the cream to rise to the top.

There is an element of having a veteran work with Aaron Rodgers, but Tippmann isn’t your standard rookie centre. The only way I see him not starting at centre is if the Jets need to start him at guard due to injuries.

Our old friend Jim Leonhard who took over at Wisconsin last season had this to say about Tippmann:

"We see some unique things and a lot of times with our style of offence, there's not weeks and weeks and weeks of reps of how a defence attacks our style of offence," Leonhard said. "I think he does a great job in games of seeing how we're being attacked, he's making a ton of communication run game and pass game. You just see him getting more and more comfortable as the year goes on. Hopefully, as you get more consistent pieces around him, you see that group continuing to grow."

The Jets drafted a player who is ideal for their outside zone system. A player who can pull and act as a lead blocker, and a smart pass-protector who knows where the pressure is coming from. I can’t wait to see him on the field in 2022.