Can You Continue to Move Forward if Your Defense Relies on Turnovers to Succeed?

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

1 minute ago, colin said:

 

i credit the bills for the plays they made, but we forced zero punts and got absolutely trucked on the ravens late possessions.  in spite of bad conservative play calling way too early (3rd quarter), the bills won because of turnovers.  

I wouldn’t argue they won because of turnovers…the point I disagree with is the implication going around that turnovers are ‘luck’.

 

in fact I think your two points are related and the bills got more conservative on offense because of the turnovers.  You take some of those away and you completely change what the bills offense does too 

this whole yea but if the ravens didn’t fumble…. type stuff is pretty irrational.  You can’t just take a big play away from a team and assume all their decision making stays the same 

[Billsfanatic8989]

My biggest fear is the Chiefs offense getting long drives on our D while Allen watches from the bench. Ultimately, limiting his chances at being a hero.

[Drew21PA]

They need more in the offseason BUT they are in the afc championship game !?

[Mikie2times]

3 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

I wouldn’t argue they won because of turnovers…the point I disagree with is the implication going around that turnovers are ‘luck’.

 

in fact I think your two points are related and the bills got more conservative on offense because of the turnovers.  You take some of those away and you completely change what the bills offense does too 

this whole yea but if the ravens didn’t fumble…. type stuff is pretty irrational.  You can’t just take a big play away from a team and assume all their decision making stays the same 

Like 10 million articles exist discussing the volatility and "luck" of turnovers.  We have seen some teams over the years stay on the right side of this equation for a signifgantly long time. So I think it is possible to be more than just lucky here. Specifically with INT data, that tends to be more consistent. Fumbles are a real crap shoot. To say we haven't got "lucky" on offensive fumbles this year would just be inaccurate. We will regress here, no way that doesn't occur. 

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/turnovers-involve-a-lot-of-luck-but-which-nfl-teams-are-lucky-and-good/

[H2o]

1 hour ago, Rich Stadium Original said:

Let's not forget that the Ravens moved the ball up and down the field at will, and with the exception of the nice punch out fumble on Andrews, most of their errors were self inflicted.  Aside from the turnovers and kneel down at the end of the half. The Bills never forced a punt...the Ravens scored on every other drive. In the second half, the pass rush was non existent. Nearly 500 yards of total offense.

  Going forward, (I know we've been saying this all season) if the Bills continue to rely on turnovers and the other team plays a clean game this time, they may be setting themselves up for failure.

KC probably isn't the offensive juggernaut they have been in past seasons, but if the Bills were to face the Eagles in the SB, they have an RB that is on a tear this year, and an O line that's probably bigger and better than the one they just faced.

  

You do realize that the Ravens had a historic offense this year, right? They had the #1 Total Offense in the NFL. Lamar threw for 4,000+ and almost had 1,000 yds on the ground. Then Derrick Henry had 1,900+ on the ground outside of that. I believe Henry had been on a tear as well.

 

We're not facing an offense like that next week, and we beat the brakes off of the Broncos who didn't have an offense like that the previous week. If we face Philly in the SB, then I imagine the gameplan is fairly similar and Jalen Hurts is not Lamar by any means. There also won't be any snow in NO. Our defenders will not be at the disadvantage they were yesterday. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

11 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

Like 10 million articles exist discussing the volatility and "luck" of turnovers.  We have seen some teams over the years stay on the right side of this equation for a signifgantly long time. So I think it is possible to be more than just lucky here. Specifically with INT data, that tends to be more consistent. Fumbles are a real crap shoot. To say we haven't got "lucky" on offensive fumbles this year would just be inaccurate. We will regress here, no way that doesn't occur. 

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/turnovers-involve-a-lot-of-luck-but-which-nfl-teams-are-lucky-and-good/

Oh yea on the offensive side that’s kind of a different discussion because we we have a straight up freakishly low turnover number.  Not sure what the lowest in history is but we have to be close. Defensive takeaways were in line with a handful of other teams, on the offensive side it’s pretty much just us and LAC.  Some of it seems to be an offensive philosophy type thing for those two teams but that doesn’t explain all of it.

 

The defense forcing an INT because they’re getting a lot of presssure/disguising coverages well and scooping up a fumble because Lamar was under pressure and frustrated in the first half didn’t feel like a lot of luck to me though.  Not sure what to classify the Andrews punch out as…I guess lucky he didn’t secure it better? Still a really nice defensive play though 

 

I miss 538 sports 

Edited 17 hours ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Tulsabillsfanz]

KC wins this way a lot, including this past Saturday. 

[Boatdrinks]

1 hour ago, Sweats said:

Here's the thing, KC rarely turns the ball over, so teams need to play clean and sharp against them........basically good old fashioned role up your sleeves and go to work for 60 minutes and on every play.

 

If you can't win an honest game without having to rely on turnovers, i seriously have no idea how long that will carry you.

It's carried us this far, however, so KC will be a true test.

Except that we’ve already played KC and won the game. Don’t recall the turnover margin. Doesn’t predict the outcome of the next game, but the test was already passed. So much moving of the goalposts here and finding reasons why this or that one didn’t “ count”. 

[SCBills]

I honestly don't think so, despite some tongue and cheek remarks by our favorite podcasters.  

 

I do think you need to be able to force "some" actual stops.

 

We saw them do it against Denver and I think they can do it against KC.  

 

Baltimore is a different beast.. matchup nightmare for us, and one where creating chaos in hopes of forcing mistakes in bad weather was our best chance.. and to their credit, they executed.  We hunt turnovers.  The Bernard play is the best example.  That was simply an elite defensive play and one you can only make if you practice that, which we clearly do.  

 

KC however, is not Baltimore.  Not as talented.  Not a mismatch.  But.. they are clutch and don't lose games by making a bunch of mistakes.  Our Defense needs to show up again, and it needs to show up by forcing some FG's and punts. 

 

     

Edited 17 hours ago by SCBills

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

We beat Denver 31-7, and generated no turnovers.

[hondo in seattle]

1 hour ago, Sweats said:

 

 

 

I agree that last year, Lamar was not the MVP, however, he has more than earned it this year.

 

Prove me wrong.

 

How do you prove an opinion?

 

Let's do an experiment.  Let's replay the Ravens season 500 times with Lamar at QB and another 500 without Lamar at QB.  Run the same experiment with the Bills.  Let's see which QB adds the most wins.

 

My guess is that it's Josh.  But that's just an unverifiable opinion.  And that's me equating "most valuable" with "adds the most wins" which may or may not be the same thing.  

 

By accepted definition - even if I don't like it - the MVP is the guy the AP panel decides is the MVP.  

[Boatdrinks]

Is it possible to reach the AFC title game and maybe even win a SuperBowl by being unlucky ? 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

2 hours ago, Rich Stadium Original said:

Let's not forget that the Ravens moved the ball up and down the field at will, and with the exception of the nice punch out fumble on Andrews, most of their errors were self inflicted.  Aside from the turnovers and kneel down at the end of the half. The Bills never forced a punt...the Ravens scored on every other drive. In the second half, the pass rush was non existent. Nearly 500 yards of total offense.

  Going forward, (I know we've been saying this all season) if the Bills continue to rely on turnovers and the other team plays a clean game this time, they may be setting themselves up for failure.

KC probably isn't the offensive juggernaut they have been in past seasons, but if the Bills were to face the Eagles in the SB, they have an RB that is on a tear this year, and an O line that's probably bigger and better than the one they just faced.

  

Yes. The Bills have gotten turnovers in every game except one. It’s all but a given that they will force some. Most likely fumbles 

[Rich Stadium Original]

1 hour ago, Coach Tuesday said:

The defense relies on pressure not turnovers.  The Lamar INT and fumble were both the result of pressure.  Yes you can rely on that.  Learn the game of football before showing up with garbage takes.

Okay "coach"..please dont call my opinion garbage....I think I'm a pretty good study of the NFL and not your version of fantasy football. Few people would argue the Bills would have won that game if the Ravens had better ball security and fewer drops. You can't credit nonexistent pressure for that win.especially in the second half..it was a few good plays by the defense  and a whole lot of luck.

All I'm saying is against bad teams you can sometimes overcome your bad defense through your high scoring offense or turnover differential. As you get deeper into the playoffs you can't RELY upon those turnovers to win a game. 

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Rich Stadium Original

[T.E.]

43 minutes ago, Billsfanatic8989 said:

My biggest fear is the Chiefs offense getting long drives on our D while Allen watches from the bench. Ultimately, limiting his chances at being a hero.

Our own coaching staff routinely takes the ball out of his hands for long stretches.

[machine gun kelly]

This thread isn’t worth a reply.  By bye.

[NickelCity]

Shades of the George Wilson "this style of defense is not sustainable" era...

 

...two more games 🙏

[colin]

46 minutes ago, Billsfanatic8989 said:

Need to go all out to stop Barkley and force Hurts to be MVP of the game. 

 

Our receivers against their back end is an advantage for them too. We don't have an AJ brown out there who can exploit great D's. 

 

Our RB's would need to be the X factor.

 

 

 

 

Said turnovers were a dropped snap and not securing the ball. I feel like scheme wise, the Bills did nothing to fool them.

 

im 50/50 on that.  the punch out was a low % but high leverage play, and bernard has done it before.  he's really good at launching a fist into the ball.  conversely von gave the back a golden shot at the strip from behind, the hardest to stop, and his strong azz grip prevented it.

 

on the damar fumble, it was a poor snap and a press play by lamar, but that's what lamar does, he makes plays buying time, so he's not going to stop.  at least half the air yards they got were from lamar just moving around and buying time before the pass.

 

now, i do hear you on the bad snap and such, but tbh, our DTs actually showed up and were impacting the raven's C in the first half.  dq did his job and ploughed the c into lamar on the "sack" we got by touching lamar down.  plays like that impact the C and make them rush and goof up snaps.

 

i really really want our d to make guys punt, and they made the ravens punt in the first game somewhat decently, but got just dogged and trucked on every other drive it seemed like.  im happy we are the best at making turnovers happen, and i also think it's not reliable.  kinda reminds me of the daboll years of big play only on O.  the difference is, we have the talent to win on O with other kinds of plays, vs a team like the ravens, we pretty much have to go for the turnovers.

[T.E.]

1 minute ago, Rich Stadium Original said:

Okay "coach"..please dont call my opinion garbage....I think I'm a pretty good study of the NFL and not your version of fantasy football. Few people would argue the Bills would have won that game if the Ravens had better ball security and fewer drops. You can't credit nonexistent pressure for that win.especially in the second half..it was a few good plays by the defense  and a whole lot of luck.

All I'm saying is against bad teams you can sometimes overcome your bad defense through your high scoring offense or turnover differential. As you get deeper into the playoffs you can't RELY upon those turnovers to win a game. 

 

You've got to remember that 80% of the posters here are gigantic homers who will defend the coaching staff regardless of what happens. The fact that they completely turtled in the second half, took the ball out of Allen's hands, blew a chance to put the game away, then allowed YET ANOTHER long drive at the end of a playoff game is completely lost on them because the Bills happened to luck out and win.

 

You're right; it's probably not sustainable the deeper you get in the postseason.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

17 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

Except that we’ve already played KC and won the game. Don’t recall the turnover margin. Doesn’t predict the outcome of the next game, but the test was already passed. So much moving of the goalposts here and finding reasons why this or that one didn’t “ count”. 

Mahomes threw two ints…one was on the first pass and one was desperation late