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Why do we suck at recovering turnovers???


GlennBrenner

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Ok, so everyone has their ideas about the team's major problems. I agree that injuries, coaching, and perhaps talent have all played a role, but one thing that infuriates me is the fact that we almost NEVER are able to get turnovers to set up good field position for our offense. It's like the 5,000 pound gorilla in the room that gets neglected after a loss. Whether it's special teams or defense, I just don't see guys flying to the loose ball. Why is that??? In the Dallas game, Romo sits to pee has the ball fly over his head at least 3 times, and we don't recover the fumble once! Warner dropped a snap in the Cardinal game, but of course we don't come up with it. In the Buffalo game, their punt returner muffs the punt, and we can't recover. Trent Edwards mishandles the snap and we're just standing around and the Bills keep the ball and their drive going. Not to mention the endless interceptions we seem to drop in every single game we play. We keep giving our opponents a shortened field to beat us (Green Bay, Buffalo, Tampa), but why aren't our guys hell-bent to do the same for our offense? We get on Campbell for his fumbles and picks, and rightly so, but where is the urgency from our defense or special teams to make a game-changing play of our own? Why can't WE play on a shortened field to stick the dagger in? Why are we forced to go on 13 or 14 play drives over and over? If we could just solve this problem, our games would not come down to the wire so often.

Last year, our team set the ALL-TIME record for fewest takeaways in the league! This has been a continuous problem for us, and I'm interested to hear people's explanations for it. Because frankly, I've pounded my fist through enough walls agonizing over it.

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Newsflash! We suck.

Wow insightful ...

I do not know I think the fumble recovery thing is something the Skins have gotten away from since 2005 when they were very good ... it is also a little luck ... in the Cowboys game the ball bounce right to Romo sits to pee, he didn't have to break stride... Anther fumble bounced right to the RB .. but there are balls to be had and the team just isn't getting them it is something that has bothered me for a while

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Yea I've noticed this too and it's completely baffling. Crazy things happen with the football, it takes weird bounces and really once it's on the ground it's a total free for all. That being said, I believe between the Tampa and Buffalo game there were like 10 loose balls, and we recovered ZERO of them. It really defies the laws of physics. How can we not recover any of them? I wonder if this is coaching or just bad luck or what?

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Tampa practices stripping the ball, tip drills and recovering fumbles. Alot of Campbells fumbles, after injuring his hand on a helmet in the Green bay game have been of the strip variety by pass rushers which is something you don't see our guys attempting to do.

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Recovering fumbles is purely luck.

Stripping the ball is a skill. Holding onto the ball is a skill. Pouncing on the ball as it is bouncing all over the place is not a skill. There is no correlation whatsoever between the percentage of fumbles recovered by a team in one year and the percentage they recover in the next year. The odds of recovery are based solely on the type of play involved, not the teams or any of their players.

Fans like to insist that specific coaches can teach their teams to recover more fumbles by swarming to the ball. Chicago's Lovie Smith, in particular, is supposed to have this ability. The NFC Champion Bears forced 24 fumbles on defense, and recovered 16 of them, one of the highest percentages in the league.

But where were Smith's powers a year earlier, when the Bears forced 21 fumbles on defense and recovered just seven, the worst percentage in the league? The 2004 Bears recovered 13 of 17 fumbles on defense, meaning that in three years, their recovery rate went from a league-best 76 percent to a league-worst 33 percent and then back to 67 percent.

Fumble recovery is equally erratic on offense. The 2005 Oakland Raiders fumbled 20 times but recovered 13 of them, the best percentage in the league. The 2006 Raiders fumbled 30 times and recovered just nine of them, one of the worst percentages in the league.

Fumble recovery is a major reason why the general public overestimates or underestimates certain teams. Fumbles are huge, turning-point plays that dramatically impact wins and losses in the past, while fumble recovery percentage says absolutely nothing about a team's chances of winning games in the future. With this in mind, Football Outsiders stats treat all fumbles as equal, penalizing them based on the likelihood of each type of fumble (run, pass, sack, etc.) being recovered by the defense.

Other plays that qualify as "non-predictive events" include blocked kicks and touchdowns during turnover returns. These plays are not "lucky," per se, but they have no value whatsoever for predicting future performance.

http://footballoutsiders.com/pregame.php

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No one wants to say this, but even before the tragedy, with ST missing, our turnovers went away. I'm not ashamed to admit that Sean Taylor was the best defensive player on this team... AND he made plays. Before him, LaVar was our playmaker (He was a free lancer and not the best LB in the league, but he knew how to go get the ball).

We don't have a guy like that right now.

To the guy who said Daniels only recovers fumbles, Daniels has made several plays for us, including several balls batted down that have really helped the team.

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This is one of the biggest surprises I've had regarding Landry so far this year. I expected him to have an impact on games, but he's been largely anonymous. He's been solid, but not great, and really I can only remember one game-changing positive play he's made this year (Eagles game.)

A lot of it is just dumb luck, but it has become a pattern with the team.

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Newsflash! We suck.
It's more than that. The GW system relies on a blitz scheme for a pass rush that can be too easily exploited. GW regards the front 4 as nothing more than place holders. This means we apply no pressure on the QB to force bad decisions and no big guys pounding flesh at the point of ball transfers. Our DL is lucky to make a tackle, much less strip. They are employed to occupy blockers so the LB's behind them can come up and make a tackle. Hasn't been working out too well.

Unless we totally skip tip drills during practice, I cannot explain why our CB's can't seem to hang onto balls that should be intercepted. Maybe Leonard Nimoy should look into that. I would cite the "FedEx Triangle" thing, but it happens away too.

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It's more than that. The GW system relies on a blitz scheme for a pass rush that can be too easily exploited. GW regards the front 4 as nothing more than place holders. This means we apply no pressure on the QB to force bad decisions and no big guys pounding flesh at the point of ball transfers. Our DL is lucky to make a tackle, much less strip. They are employed to occupy blockers so the LB's behind them can come up and make a tackle. Hasn't been working out too well.

Unless we totally skip tip drills during practice, I cannot explain why our CB's can't seem to hang onto balls that should be intercepted. Maybe Leonard Nimoy should look into that. I would cite the "FedEx Triangle" thing, but it happens away too.

Thanks man, that was pretty insightful. I'm hoping we get some defensive linemen this offseason that can do more than they're asked to do (i.e. consistently put pressure on the QB and force him into making mistakes). I guess that's all we can hope for, since I think Gregg's system is here to stay for a while.

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Ok, so everyone has their ideas about the team's major problems. I agree that injuries, coaching, and perhaps talent have all played a role, but one thing that infuriates me is the fact that we almost NEVER are able to get turnovers to set up good field position for our offense. It's like the 5,000 pound gorilla in the room that gets neglected after a loss. Whether it's special teams or defense, I just don't see guys flying to the loose ball. Why is that??? In the Dallas game, Romo sits to pee has the ball fly over his head at least 3 times, and we don't recover the fumble once! Warner dropped a snap in the Cardinal game, but of course we don't come up with it. In the Buffalo game, their punt returner muffs the punt, and we can't recover. Trent Edwards mishandles the snap and we're just standing around and the Bills keep the ball and their drive going. Not to mention the endless interceptions we seem to drop in every single game we play. We keep giving our opponents a shortened field to beat us (Green Bay, Buffalo, Tampa), but why aren't our guys hell-bent to do the same for our offense? We get on Campbell for his fumbles and picks, and rightly so, but where is the urgency from our defense or special teams to make a game-changing play of our own? Why can't WE play on a shortened field to stick the dagger in? Why are we forced to go on 13 or 14 play drives over and over? If we could just solve this problem, our games would not come down to the wire so often.

Last year, our team set the ALL-TIME record for fewest takeaways in the league! This has been a continuous problem for us, and I'm interested to hear people's explanations for it. Because frankly, I've pounded my fist through enough walls agonizing over it.

Well if the ball is fumbling around in the QB area I suppose one of our front 4 G.W. sends in would probably have to penetrate through the opposing teams O-line, If we are talking about through the air, well for the most part it never seems like our guys are playing the ball as it's in the air, it appears they are still man to man and just cant get a read on when the W.R. sees the ball coming his way.

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