So in the presser yesterday, when asked what he can take away from the Chicago and GB games, Dan said the tape was significantly more encouraging than he expected, and that it really just came down to giving the ball away and not generating any takeaways.
Whats interesting about this point, is that they way Dan talked about this, he really seems to believe protecting the football and getting a take away or two is enough to bring us back to form. He seemed to think that our downturn really boiled down to this. Do you think its really this simple, or are there larger concerns outside of turnover differential?
For me, playcalling on both sides of the ball feels suspect. I’ve been surprised with how often I’m scratching my head at what our offense is doing, and I’m growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of designed blitzes and soft coverage we show every week. But to Dan’s point, our turnover margin is hilariously bad and these games have only been decided by one score. As such, I’m torn on whether my issues with playcalling are as bad as I think they are, or if the turnovers are amplifying an issue that isnt really as bad as I make it out to be.
What are your thoughts?
edit: for clarity’s sake, we have a -6 turnover differential over the last two games (1:4 against Chi, 0:3 against GB), and are -5 on the season (12:17)
100% turnovers have been the biggest issue, not sure how anyone can say other wise. 7 turnovers in 2 games, not gonna win much in this league.
Play calling is a big factor for the turn overs on Goff. Sounds like we will be planning for more short/medium routes and trying to release the ball quicker.
Turnovers are the biggest issue.
Do you think the play where Goff took off running and fumbled was a designed QB draw or something?
The fact that one of those games was a win is a legit miracle.
I dunno about that. This defense since the Bucs game has not really been able to stop WRs when we face a competent QB. And I really feels like the league has caught up the Ben Johnson’s cadence
100% agree…it’s all that matters down the stretch and how playoff runs happen. We went 8-2 down the stretch last year because of our massive turnover differential. You turnover the ball and you don’t create takeaways this league will start to catch up. It’s how the Broncos have managed to win 5 straight right now…it’s pretty simple
In the NFL, teams with a +3 differential win 90% of the time.
Turnovers (esp if they’re pick sixes) have an outlying effect on the game. So he’s right in that regard.
The issue is that turnovers are also very random. It’s really hard to FORCE a fumble. Think of how many “Peanut Punches” you’ve seen and how many times that forces a fumble. The last player who led the league more than once in forced fumbles was Robert Mathis in 2013. And once you do force a fumble, that football is so weirdly shaped that fumble RECOVERY is basically a coin toss.
INTs are a little bit more controllable. There are some QBs/styles that simply produce more INTs. Stafford has 178 INTs in 201 GP (0.885 INT/GP). Goff has 78 INTs in 111 GP (0.703 INT/GP). Not surprising there. And some defenses/secondaries generate more INTs than others.
But at the end of the day, it’s still really random and you don’t have THAT much control over it.
I’ve watched about every presser, and I don’t really wanna get into criticizing MCDC because, well he’s still awesome regardless but did you catch how he dodged the question about getting pressures and not sacks?
Sure he’s totally right about the turnovers and I do fear we’ll have to lose some games without turnovers to start addressing the schematic problems particularly on defense, but at this point I think it’s a matter of deflection until we see what we’re dealing with player-wise next year so I’m saying as nicely and respectfully as possible I think there is a stubbornness problem that’s not likely to go away this year, maybe because he knows best and the alternative is worse, who knows. Gotta trust, there’s no other choice.
If you are getting pressure thats truly all that matters.
Sacks do help the yardage game so id love to have those too but if you are at least putting pressure on the QB then it’s good.
He’s right. Almost impossible to win games with a -3 turnover differential. If you can’t clean that up you really have no chance of winning. Campbell said he’s harsher on the offense than the defense because he expects more out of that group and they farther along than the defense. They need to keep the defense off the field and put them in good situations.
Turnover and O-Line is definitely our problem but I would argue that our secondary is our biggest glaring issue
Turnovers we can fix. Lack of talent and questionable defensive coordinator is much harder to fix until next season
Control what you can
It’s not rocket science. We are a good team that didn’t turnover the ball and were winning games. That changed and now we’re losing.
Turnovers and our pass coverage being exposed by every team we play are the main issues. Our offensive line struggled last week but its mainly a injury/depth issue that we can recover from.
I mean I kinda agree with it. Turnovers are def the main reason. If it was just defense, we would’ve lost by large margin against packers. We lost by one score against packers says that as bad as our defense is, they tried to do their job.
I agree somewhat but I also think Goff feels like he needs to press because the defense is putting us in a hole early.
Yes turnovers but deeper still, the lack of being able to force any turnovers I feel. Need to put more pressure on the QB so they are more likely to throw bad passes.
What he says in a presser and what he plans for any strategy changes are gonna be different things. He wants credibility, so he’s gonna say something credible. He won’t air all his concerns as we do here. Let’s see how the season plays out.
Defense is bad too.