Are you making a big deal about the Ridley fumble?

I am not...yet. (It wouldn't have even been a fumble). But everyone i talk too points right to that last night when so many other good things happened. But are you worried about it after last night?

Yes. It will always be a concern until he stops. He didn't touch the field after the play.

Talented, but obviously flawed player... it's a shame.

He didn't fumble so I don't see any issue.

Ivan said:

He didn't fumble so I don't see any issue.

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I know he didn't "fumble" but he didn't hang onto the ball and it's been a knock on him for a while now with Pats fans

He needs to be on a short leash...let's be honest here. I am sure he has been working on ball security, however since he no doubt has been and continues to put the ball on the ground then we just need to look at other options. He is a great kid and has huge potential, but to be honest with you in a big game , a BIG game, we are gonna be holding our collective breath. It is not a small deal...

Brady_to_Moss said:

I know he didn't "fumble" but he didn't hang onto the ball and it's been a knock on him for a while now with Pats fans

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He was down and a player stripped him if the ball, it happens all the time and is not a fumble, if he fumbles then it will become an issue, I don't see one with this.

Ridley is a talented runner but his ball control is worrisome. If White develops this season, I assume the Patriots will probably let Ridley move on whilst extending Vereen.

The RBBC approach seems to work well. In the Patriots system, RB is plug and play.

RIdley put the ball on the ground and it was close to being a fumble. A ref may or may not have called it a fumble. To say it wasn't a fumble and it didn't happen is being silly. I imagine if it happens again we won't have quite the glut of running backs any more.

Ivan said:

He was down and a player stripped him if the ball, it happens all the time and is not a fumble, if he fumbles then it will become an issue, I don't see one with this.

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It was a bang bang play.

It was not a fumble.

But even if it were, it is fundamentally different from the fumbles for which he was benched. Riddley had a technique problem, while carrying the ball, that BB was attempting to fix via the benching get his attention.

Riddley was carrying the ball low, in one hand, and swinging his arm to create more leverage for cuts and changes of direction. But it left the ball exposed and susceptible to being torn out and fumbled away. That was what BB was trying to cure, just as he did with Faulk.

To my eyes, Riddley has altered his style and cured the problem. He now carries the ball "high and tight", which lessens but does not eliminate the problem of fumbling. Last night's pseudo-fumble was from the safe"high and tight" position, which does not guarantee ball security, but merely lessens the possibility of fumbling.

The only thing to be demonstrated, given that the technique is different, is that he can still cut, juke, and gain yards. A RB who can't do so effectively, is no longer a RB. IMHO, he has shown that not to be the case, this preseason. He is still effective as a RB with the altered carry style.

Many RBs fumbled more than Riddley. Blount had as many fumbles as Riddley did last season, but wasn't benched or a hullabaloo created about it.

Sometimes we obsess about problems for one player, ignore the original reason why, and persist with the criticism when no longer valid.

No. BB will deal with it. No need for me to worry about it. I'm more worried about White, who doesn't look good in games so far. He may just need time to adjust to a new blocking scheme, or he may just not be good enough.

Time will tell with both players, though.

I'm a little worried. Even though his knee may have been down when it comes to being that close it's still him losing the ball. I hope he doesn't fumble at all during the regular season.

Ridley will get dinged for it. Everything counts.

Asked about the play Saturday following his review of the coach's film, Patriots coach Bill Belichick acknowledged "it was close." Ridley's knee might have been down as safety Earl Wolff ripped the ball free.

Still, that doesn't seem to be enough to spare Ridley accountability for losing his grasp of the ball.

"We always talk about ball security, taking care of the ball. There is nothing that correlates more to winning and losing than turnovers," Belichick said Saturday. "That's always a high priority for us. We never want the ball out. ... The plays where the ball gets away from us, whether we recover it or it goes out of bounds, or they recover it, those are all plays we're trying to avoid obviously. So they do matter [when grading the play]."

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Stevan Ridley, ball security back in focus - espnBoston

Re-watching the play, it didn't look like he did anything obviously wrong. He had the ball high and tight. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's good that he wasn't carelessly waving the ball around like a loaf of bread (LeSean McCoy was doing this a lot last night, surprised he doesn't fumble more often), but it's bad that even with proper technique he still couldn't hang on to it. Even if it wasn't technically a fumble, it was close enough to raise some concerns given his history.

Not a big deal. I think he will sort it out and step up this year

Yes. I am worried about it. He also had a fumble in the practices against the Eagles, according to the PFW guys.

In the Pats system, an RB who coughs up the ball is worthless. If you are going to risk a turnover on a play, you might as well have TFB chuck the ball downfield. The whole point of running the ball is the pick up 4 yards with little or no turnover risk.

I don't think any fan trusts Ridley right now.

Anyone who claim to trust him would have to be able to say "Him fumbling doesn't even cross my mind when he's taking hand offs in a big game that's expected to be close."

Very talented ball runner and likable member of the Patriots squad but he's going to need a consistent season before I stop keeping my fingers crossed. I breath a little sigh of relief every time the officials whistle him down.

Technique was correct, for the most part. Seemed he was trying to get the off hand up to help protect. In any case, it was too close of a call for comfort. This is especially true for a back that has seen the dog house for putting the rock on the ground. Something to learn from, to say the least, but something I hope he doesn't continue in the next two games. I'm guessing he'll get some work just to test the "bunch theory" that seems to coincide with games he puts the rock on the ground.

All that said, he can run, with aggression, vision, and enough wiggle to make a lineman or LB miss on a clean break. As I said in another thread, he is easily our best pure runner. His hands are the only issue.

The entire Ridley fumbling issue is just nothing but a media created load of crap right from the beginning. RB's fumble. They ALL do. Adrian Peterson had TWENTY foumbles over his first 3 seasons and 9 the last 2. Yet do we ever hear about Adrian Peterson's fumbling problem. Yet its the first thing you hear about when any talks about Ridley. Its really a bad rap because we all assume that every fumble is the RB's fault. It simply isn't.

Yes there are times when a RB's technique is poor and he exposes the ball to risk, and when that happens there is no question that he should be criticized. However there are a good percentage of fumbles that occur when the defensive player makes a great play rather than the offensive player made a bad one. Every now and then a helmet is going to hit right on the ball and it will come out.

I don't understand why some fans and mediots seem to take such great pleasure in criticizing certain players when they make a mistake. There are a multitude of mistakes made on EVERY play for god's sake. Ridley has fumbled once every 61 carries over his short career. Tom Brady has averaged over 11 picks and almost 8 fumbles a season. Where they all his fault? Of course not, but neither were all of Ridley's fumbles his fault.

As fans, all we can ask is that he take the issue of ball security seriously, and clearly he has. So instead of jumping on the mediot bandwagon who can't wait to make a big issue of what happens in every game, we should be supporting and encouraging the player. If we hate on every player who makes a mistake, we will have no one to root for.

patfanken said:

The entire Ridley fumbling issue is just nothing but a media created load of crap right from the beginning.

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Note how Belichick often takes Ridley out when he fumbles. That makes it more than a media creation.