Only +1 In Turnover Differential

[zippo59]

That is not going to cut it for a team that hopes to go deep into the playoffs. Unlike last year, the defense is doing a pretty good job of creating turnovers, but the offense is turning it over WAY to much. It seems like the whole team has fumbleitis. I think it is a fixable problem but it is one that must be helped because we can not consistently beat good teams while turning the ball over five times.

 

[BelichickFan]

I'm not concerned about it at all. What did concern me was after 3 games or so when the only turnover we had created was Bruschi's INT of Pennington's game ending Hail Mary week 2. As long as the defense shows it can create turnovers, I am confident the offense can train itself to hang onto the ball.

 

[PatsFaninAZ]

We have three wins this year where we've turned the ball over more than our opponents. That's pretty unusual. It's rare that more than one or two teams win in any given week despite a positive number in the turnover department.

I think part of that is just happenstance -- it seems as though we've turned over the ball an awful lot in places where it stops drives but doesn't seem necessarily to turn into short fields or easy points for the other teams.

In other words, although we've had too many turnovers this year, they haven't, fortunately, been of the super-costly variety. They've cost us points, to be sure, but they have not been the double-bad variety. (To use a basketball analogy, a travelling violation hurts you way less than a steal that leads to an odd-man break, we've had more travelling violations this year so far.)

The reality, though, is that we're leaving too many points on the field, and we need to turn that around. We should be able to beat the Jets 8 or 9 out of 10 times if we hold them to 17 points. Similarly, we played good enough defense against the colts to win that game, but gave them a short field and left too many points on the board. I think you can make the case that we've lost two games this year because of turnovers and that we've been fortunate to win a few despite turnovers. Bottom line is that 13-3 or 12-4 is going to require better ball protection than we've seen to date.

 

[CTPatsFan]

The TO by the O are disappointing. The fact that we've been able to win some games despite committing more TO than the opponent doesn't bode well.

 

[Fanfrom1960]

That is not going to cut it for a team that hopes to go deep into the playoffs. Unlike last year, the defense is doing a pretty good job of creating turnovers, but the offense is turning it over WAY to much. It seems like the whole team has fumbleitis. I think it is a fixable problem but it is one that must be helped because we can not consistently beat good teams while turning the ball over five times.

It should get better from here on out and "look" decent going into the playoffs. Da Bears, who specialize, no, major in trying to create turnovers, maybe at the expense of doing some other things in practice, are in the rear view mirror.

 

[brady et al fan]

I'm not concerned about it at all. What did concern me was after 3 games or so when the only turnover we had created was Bruschi's INT of Pennington's game ending Hail Mary week 2. As long as the defense shows it can create turnovers, I am confident the offense can train itself to hang onto the ball.

I agree with this. Folks, the Bears specialize in turnovers. This is a unique team in this respect. Most of our turnovers were not carelessness on our part but just great plays by the Bears. These guys cause a lot of them every game. I'm sure BB and co. will come up with strategies for dealing with them if we face them in the SB.

Its more important that our own D generate turnovers which they have over the last several games.