Total passes props: how they settle

That single distinction, attempted versus completed, is where most of the confusion around a total passes line starts. Here is the exact counting rule, the two edge cases that catch people out, and why position drives this market more than almost any other passing stat.

The plain definition: attempted vs completed

Start with Opta’s own wording, because it settles the confusion in one line. A pass is “the attempted delivery of the ball from one player to another player on the same team.” That is the whole test for whether an event gets logged as a pass at all: did a player try to send the ball to a team-mate. It does not require the ball to arrive.

A completed pass, which Opta and most data providers also call an accurate pass, is a narrower category sitting inside that total. It is the successful delivery of the ball from one player to another player on the same team, and the pass has to go directly to the team-mate without a touch from an opposition player. So every accurate pass is also an attempted pass, but plenty of attempted passes are not accurate. Total passes is the attempts. Accurate passes is the subset that actually found their man.

Crosses, goalkeeper throws and throw-ins sit outside the plain pass count in Opta’s own categorisation, tracked as their own separate event types. Corners and free kicks played short as a pass do count.

Does a blocked pass still count as an attempt

Yes, with one distinction worth knowing. Opta’s own guidance on a blocked pass is that if the pass has been cleanly struck and the ball is already clearly travelling on the intended line before a defender gets a touch, the action is logged as a blocked pass: a defensive action for the blocker, and an incomplete pass for the player who played it. The attempt still belongs to the passer’s total passes number. It just fails to count as completed, because the ball never reached the team-mate untouched.

For a props market, the detail that matters is simple. A blocked pass still adds one to the passer’s attempted total. It does not disappear from the count just because a defender got in the way.

Passes that go straight out of play

The test is intent, not result. If a player aims the ball at a team-mate, that is a pass attempt whether it arrives, is blocked, or sails out of play completely untouched. A hopeful diagonal ball that a full-back knocks long, hoping to find a winger, and which runs out of play for a goal kick, is still one attempted pass on that full-back’s total. It simply will not count as completed, since nobody on their team touched it.

This matters more than it sounds for a total passes prop, because the market rewards volume of intent, not just tidy build-up play. A team knocking the ball around patiently in their own half racks up attempts the same way a team hitting longer, riskier balls forward does. The counting rule does not care which style produced the pass.

Why “total passes” usually means attempted

FootyMetrics tracks a player’s passes as the attempted total, the same base number Opta logs as the plain pass count, across every league it covers. That is the figure shown on the player stats hub as total passes per game, kept separate from pass accuracy, which is its own column.

Why position matters so much for this market

This is the single biggest factor in a total passes prop, more than form or opponent. Centre-backs and holding midfielders post the highest total-passes counts in the game because of where they stand and how often the ball comes to them, not because they are the most skilful passers on the pitch.

Modern centre-backs are heavily used in build-up. Teams that build from the back position their centre-backs to receive possession constantly from the goalkeeper and circulate it before play moves forward, and a holding midfielder drops between or alongside them to offer another central passing option. Virgil van Dijk, a centre-back, led the Premier League in passes completed in the 2025-26 season with 2,482, ahead of fellow centre-backs Lewis Dunk and Jan Paul van Hecke, while Rodri, a holding midfielder, holds the highest passes-completed-per-match rate of any player in Premier League history at just over 77 per game. Both are central positions that see the ball early and often in a team’s own half, where there is time and space to keep finding a team-mate.

Wingers and strikers, by contrast, touch the ball in tighter areas further forward, get fewer clean sight-of-goal touches per match, and often have the ball played to them under pressure rather than circulating it themselves. Their total passes numbers sit well below a centre-back’s or a holding midfielder’s even in a match where they play every minute and are heavily involved in the final third.

Pass completion percentage is a different, related stat

Total passes and pass completion percentage are commonly confused, but a props line only ever runs on one of them at a time. Total passes is a volume count: how many attempts a player made. Pass completion percentage is a ratio: how many of those attempts were completed, expressed as a percentage. A player can have a very high volume of passes and a modest completion percentage, or a low volume and an excellent percentage, since the two numbers do not move together in any fixed way. This page covers the total passes count. Pass completion percentage deserves its own full explanation, so treat this as a flag rather than the full picture.

How a change in role can shift a player’s passing volume

Passing volume is tied to role and position on the pitch, so a tactical change can move a player’s total passes number without their underlying ability changing at all. A full-back who tucks into a back three or a double pivot in possession sees far more of the ball than one who stays wide and waits for it to be worked out to the touchline, simply because central areas of the pitch see more traffic than the flanks. The same logic applies to a winger dropped into a more central role, or a striker asked to drop deep and link play rather than stay high against the last defender.

This is worth checking before backing a total passes line, especially for a player whose manager has changed formation, personnel around them, or their specific job in possession recently. A player who has moved from a wide role into a more central one, or who is suddenly playing behind a lone striker instead of out on the touchline, can see their total passes number shift meaningfully from one system to the next, independent of the opponent or the scoreline.