Why don't we get turnovers, and why do we fumble so much? (1 Viewer)

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We have a quarterback who is smart with the football. He avoids the rush, gets rid of the ball fast, and doesn't throw many interceptions. However on defense, it seems like we very rarely get interceptions especially from our secondary. And our secondary seems to get schooled alot like they are the sparring partner for NFL offenses. We don't seem to get all that many forced fumbles either. On offense, our RBs and WRs tend to get stripped by defenses that make an active attempt to get turnovers.

Why aren't the coaches preparing our guys better in the turnover department? I know we don't have much speed at LB or much talent/speed in the secondary, but it seems we could at least do better.

It seems like Drew has to try to outscore the other teams high powered offense every week, and if he has a bad game or if our skilled players fumble, we have very little shot to win.
 
-3 in the turnover dept seems to be the magic number for a Saints loss. See the other turnover thread. As for why they happen, we've had several INTs on tipped passes. I'm not sure how you prepare for that. Reggie's fumbled a couple trying to do too much IMO and he seems to carry that ball like it's a backyard game. That has to stop.
 
To over-generalize, NFL players often are not fundamentally sound because they have been so much better than their competition throughout their careers.

Here's something I learned in middle school football which was ingrained in my head, even though I was a lineman:

The 4 points of contact when carrying the football are
1) Fingers 2) Palm (really heel of the hand) 3) Forearm 4) Bicep
In traffic you are supposed to squeeze the ball high and tight.

Usually when a player fumbles he is not maintaining the 4 points of contact and not keeping the ball high and tight.

Of course, there are exceptions, if the defender can get his helmet on the ball its probably coming out, but generally if a player follows those rules he won't fumble.
 
To over-generalize, NFL players often are not fundamentally sound because they have been so much better than their competition throughout their careers.

Here's something I learned in middle school football which was ingrained in my head, even though I was a lineman:

The 4 points of contact when carrying the football are
1) Fingers 2) Palm (really heel of the hand) 3) Forearm 4) Bicep
In traffic you are supposed to squeeze the ball high and tight.

Usually when a player fumbles he is not maintaining the 4 points of contact and not keeping the ball high and tight.

Of course, there are exceptions, if the defender can get his helmet on the ball its probably coming out, but generally if a player follows those rules he won't fumble.

Please forward this to Reggie Bush, Deuce McAllister, Billy Miller, Terrence Copper, etc.
 
Here's something I learned in middle school football which was ingrained in my head, even though I was a lineman:

The 4 points of contact when carrying the football are
1) Fingers 2) Palm (really heel of the hand) 3) Forearm 4) Bicep
In traffic you are supposed to squeeze the ball high and tight.

Usually when a player fumbles he is not maintaining the 4 points of contact and not keeping the ball high and tight.


This is correct and precisely what Tiki Barber said about his fumbling problems when he was beginning his career. He had to go back to the fundamentals of holding the ball. Tiki went from being known as fumble prone to being one of the safest RBs in football. It's coaching and fundamentals.
 
good point!

To over-generalize, NFL players often are not fundamentally sound because they have been so much better than their competition throughout their careers.
:plus-un2: ( <--- lol- those things look like boomerangs)

I've wondered that myself, but for injuries instead of turnovers. Our junior HS coach was notorious for babying his kids and the "talent". They always seemed to get hurt a lot too. I'm not saying any of our players were babied, just if you put pressure on coaches to produce, things like that happen.
 
Young players on Offfense, and a lack of opportunism on D. Anytime you re read the preseason prognostications for the Saints. A lot of predictions were down on the Saints especially because of the youth of the offense and the lack of big play guys on d. Many Saints fans didn't enjoy those predictions, but the turnover margin reflects that opinion. Fortunately our young players on O have outplayed any possible prediction. I also think the d coordinator coached up our defense quite a bit, keying heavily on technique. That has helped a lot, but it has our guys concentrating on footwork tackling and body control more than even looking for errant passes. We can be upset about the lack of takeaways, but for the most part (compared to recent history) we have seen a big drop in big plays by opposing offenses. That is the tradeoff.
 
For Bush, it's definitely an over-confidence thing and not tucking the ball properly (read ROOKIE). The same goes for Copper not tucking the ball. Typical rookie. Billy Miller's been around long enough to know better, but there's a reason people become "journeyman" players. Rest assured Coach Payton has no reservaitons harping on proper technique and getting it corrected (unlike Haslett, who seemed to think players are professional enough to fix it themselves - a typical way of thinking among ex-players who did fix it themselves).
As for the D, it's a lack of a ball hawk at free safety and the fact that McKenzie is trying to play smarter this year instead of always taking the chance by going for the INT, which resulted in many of the "burns" he suffered the last two seasons. It would be nice to get more INTs, but I'd rather have MK playing less chancily while on the other side, Fred Thomas has never been a INT machine and never will be, he's just not that kind of player. Hopefully, Roman Harper will return next season with no adverse effects from his injury. I believe we'd have more INTs with him in there as he showed the capacity to "ball hawk" and I think McKenzie would be free to take more chances with Harper supporting him.
 

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