Tag: turnover differential

Antonio Pierce looking to improve Raiders NFL worst turnover differential

Antonio Pierce looking to improve Raiders NFL worst turnover differential

Monday night the Raiders won the turnover battle 3-1. Not only was it not enough to win them the game, but it even the +2 turnover differential wasn’t enough to pull them up from dead last in the NFL in the category.

This season, the Raiders have turned the ball over 16 times — 13 interceptions and three fumbles. Meanwhile they have taken the ball away just eight times — six interceptions, two forced fumbles.

That gives them a -8 turnover differential which is alone in last place across the league.

They didn’t have a forced fumble on the season coming into the game in Detroit and ended up forcing two of them — though one was highly questionable.

Overall, the defense is outplaying the offense and keeping the Raiders in games. It’s the reason the Raiders have three wins despite the offense never breaking 20 points in any game this season. Pierce was asked what he wants from the defense, and he said simply “More. More.”

“We’ve got to create turnovers,” Pierce emphasized. “We’ve got to stop the long drives. Penalties have been the biggest things that have hurt us in those situations. We’ve had great moments, and then we’ve had other moments like what the hell? Just being consistent, first and foremost. Being a defensive player, you stop the run, you build the wall. We make them one-dimensional, and like I tell Maxx, go eat. Go eat. Party at the quarterback, and let’s celebrate and have fun doing it. What I’d like to see those guys keep doing, and Patrick Graham, let loose. Put your ears back, let the dogs loose. When the Raiders are rolling on defense, you guys see it. It comes through the TV. Maxx Crosby’s energy, I’m trying to match his today. I’ve got to match that for the next 10 to 12 weeks.”

On the other side of the ball, Jimmy Garoppolo leads the league with nine interceptions. This despite missing two starts this season.

Pierce announced Garoppolo would be benched in favor of rookie Aidan O’Connell, saying of the rookie “gives us the best chance.”

O’Connell has two interceptions in two appearances this season with one start.

Turnover differential can often be a strong indicator of team success. If you are turning the ball over, you better be making up for it in other areas. As yet, the Raiders have not done that.

Despite first takeaway of season, Raiders take sole possession of NFL-worst turnover differential

Despite first takeaway of season, Raiders take sole possession of NFL-worst turnover differential

Good news: The Raiders finally got a takeaway. No longer making team one of just two teams without one this season.

Bad news: Their three turnovers on offense now land them alone in last place for the NFL’s worst turnover differential.

After the first three weeks of the season, the Raiders were tied with the Minnesota Vikings with a -7 turnover differential.

Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers, the Raiders would break the shutout in terms of takeaways by getting their first interception of the season. Tre’von Moehrig finally secured an interception.

Unfortunately, Aidan O’Connell fumbled three times and threw an interception. Two of those fumbles were recovered by the Chargers, giving them three turnovers on the day and a -2 turnover differential for the game.

This dropped them to a -9 turnover differential on the season.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, the Vikings had two turnovers and one takeaway in a win over the Panthers, to give them a -1 turnover differential for the game and tied for 30th in the league with a -8 for the season.

The Chargers going +2 versus the Raiders moved them into a tie for 4th in the league with the Sehawks (+5).

The top three are the Cowboys (+9), Buccaneers (+7), and Bills (+6).

Raiders have NFL’s worst turnover differential through 3 weeks

No team in the NFL has a worse turnover differential right now than the Raiders.

You can find a lot of different ideas of what makes for a successful team and what doesn’t. But there’s one thing most everyone can agree upon as a major factor in wins and losses: turnovers.

In that regard, there is little question as to why the Raiders have just one win which they eeked out against a bad Broncos team.

The Raiders defense has yet to take the ball away from the opposing offense this season. Not by interception or by fumble.

The Raiders offense, on the other hand, has turned the ball over seven times. That’s six interceptions and one fumble.

That -7 turnover differential is tied for dead last in the NFL. But the Vikings, with whom the Raiders are tied, at least have two takeaways. The Raiders and Giants (-5) are the only two teams in the league without a takeaway through three games.

Sunday night, Marcus Peters gave the Raiders their best shot at changing that stat. He read a short pass perfectly and had what would have been a sure pick six, but dropped it.

Obviously, the Raiders six interceptions thrown were by Jimmy Garoppolo. Compared to five touchdown passes. While Garoppolo has one of the team’s three fumbles, just one of those fumbles was not recovered by the Raiders and that was Zamir White’s fumble in Buffalo in Week two.

In case you’re wondering, the best turnover differential belongs to the Dallas Cowboys with six. The Buccaneers come in second with five. Then a cluster of teams at four and so on.

Rounding out the worst teams are the Broncos (-4), Bears (-4), and Browns (-5).

‘See ball, get ball’: New-look Cowboys defense leads NFL in takeaways after 2 games

With 2 more picks on Sunday, the Cowboys now have six takeaways in their first two games as the ballhawking defense continues to impress. | From @ToddBrock24f7

It’s just Week 2. At the time of this writing, the Packers and Lions have yet to even play their second game of the 2021 season. But Cowboys fans may want to take a moment to celebrate the rarity of a feat that has seemed- in very recent years, at least- too fantastic to imagine.

The Dallas Cowboys lead the league in total takeaways. They top the rankings list for best turnover differential, too.

That is not a typo.

With a pair of interceptions Sunday off Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, the Dallas defense is up to six takeaways over the first two weeks of action. None was bigger in the 20-17 win than Damontae Kazee’s pick in the end zone as the third quarter concluded, turning Los Angeles away with nothing to show for an 11-play drive in a tie ballgame.

“See ball, get ball,” Kazee explained of the moment in his postgame comments. “That’s me. Just see it, go get it.”

The safety nearly tried to make a return out of the end zone, but thought better of it, with Chargers receivers Keenan Allen and Mike Williams closing in fast.

“I wanted to take it out. But I realized who was in front of me. I didn’t want to take any chances, putting the ball on the five-yard line instead of the 20-yard line, taking a touchback. It was a hell of a play. Got down and gave the offense another opportunity.”

Ten plays later, the Cowboys turned that opportunity into a critical field goal to take the lead.

“That’s probably the play of the game,” running back Ezekiel Elliott said of the well-timed pick. It was the second straight game in which the Cowboys intercepted a pass in their own end zone.

“Those, to me, are worth double,” linebacker Leighton Vander Esch offered. “Those are crucial turnovers for us. They’re huge point-savers. Heck of a job by those guys. It feels so good for us as backers, knowing that we have guys like that playing behind us and to the side of us, just the ballhawks they are. We almost had another one, too… Turnovers are coming, man.”

That would make good on what has been a definite point of focus for Dan Quinn’s defense this offseason. The Cowboys finished the 2020 season with a respectable 23 takeaways, but ended the year minus-3 in turnover differential.

Two games into 2021, they’re plus-four.

“We emphasize it every day: ball, ball, ball,” said linebacker-turned-defensive-end Micah Parsons.

“I’m working on my hands every day,” added cornerback Trevon Diggs, who recorded his second interception in as many games with a pick to end the Chargers’ first possession. “Trying to be around the ball as much as I can, get my hands on as many balls as I can, and make sure I catch it.”

Despite the small sample size of games, the takeaways are reason for optimism regarding the Dallas defense. After a historically bad 2020 for the unit, the Cowboys on that side of the ball this year are eager to reinvent the defense’s reputation.

“We haven’t scratched the surface on what we can do,” safety Jayron Kearse elaborated. “We just come out and play every week. We know the odds are against us. Everybody’s counting us out on that back end. We’re just coming out every week to do our job and prove everybody wrong. The only people that believe in us are in that locker room… Every week we’re going to be turnover-driven.”

Bunches of takeaways are great, and certainly a welcome change from Dallas defenses past. But the 2021 unit won’t stop there with finding room for improvement.

“We are going to look at the interceptions,” Kazee said, “but we’ve still got a lot of stuff to critique. Still too many passing yards out there.”

The veteran safety is right; the Cowboys are second-worst in that category so far this season. Call it another list to work their way to the top of.

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Gregory, Cowboys look to ‘seize the opportunity’ as takeaways pile up

Even more improbable than Dallas’s playoff chances at 6-9 is the fact that they lead the NFL in takeaways over the past three weeks.

Over the past three weeks, no one in the NFL has been better at taking the ball away than the Dallas Cowboys.

That’s a staggering realization for anyone who watched this defense during the months of September and October; the Cowboys defense intercepted exactly one pass and recovered exactly one fumble through their first seven games of 2020.

The current three-game win streak, though, has told a different story. Three recovered fumbles against Cincinnati. Two fumble recoveries, two interceptions against San Francisco. And Sunday, a pair of picks and a fumble recovered against Philadelphia.

There’s much that’s improved over the past month for Dallas. But head coach Mike McCarthy points to those takeaways- accompanied by just one turnover by the Cowboys offense in the last three outings- as the main reason for the team’s back-to-back-to-back wins.

“It’s huge,” McCarthy told reporters in his postgame press conference. “I think it’s the number one statistical component of our success. I’ve always felt that way. It’s going the way it’s supposed to go. I think we had four fumbles out; we recovered one… Our guys are doing a great job putting themselves in position to take the ball away and being aggressive with it. We’ve just got to stay after it. The last three weeks, the numbers speak for themselves. It’s clearly the identity that we want to play to.”

“The defense is definitely the catalyst,” running back Ezekiel Elliott concurred. “When they force those turnovers, when they take the ball away, it puts us in good field position to go score.”

Every football coaching staff everywhere preaches the importance of takeaways. They were supposed to be a key ingredient of the Cowboys’ 2020 defensive unit under new coordinator Mike Nolan. But between the new staff, a new scheme, a host of new players, and practically no in-person offseason program in which to bring those things together, it’s taken some time for it all to gel in Dallas.

“I think it just shows how resilient we are,” defensive end Randy Gregory told media members Sunday. “We’re hard workers. We take pride in our work. I think we’ve been a lot more consistent in our play. Guys are really believing in their play on the field, the cohesiveness is getting a lot better, and people are showing up. I know a lot of guys are proud, and we’ll continue to do this until the end of the regular season.”

Gregory had plenty to take pride in after Sunday’s 37-17 win. The Nebraska product missed the entire 2019 season due to suspension, and played in just two games over the 2016 and 2017 campaigns. He’s had quite a journey to get back onto the field. He rewarded the Cowboys for their patience with six tackles on Sunday. Three were solo, but Gregory also added 1.5 sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss, a pass breakup, and two quarterback hits. Both of those forced Jalen Hurts fumbles. One was recovered by Dallas late as Philadelphia tried to mount a comeback.

“It was one of my better games,” the former second-round draft pick said. “I think for the average viewer, they get stuck on the stats. I think I showed up there in the box score; that makes a lot of people happy. Me, along with a lot of other guys, we’re never satisfied in our work. Still more to do, still more to get better at. That’s what we’ll do this upcoming week to prepare for the Giants.”

Takeaways may not come easily against New York. Despite their losing record, Jason Garrett’s offensive unit has been effective at protecting the ball, especially recently. Giants passers have not thrown an interception in their past three games; their ballcarriers have lost zero fumbles since December 13.

For Gregory and his suddenly-opportunistic Dallas teammates, it all comes down to continuing to do what they’ve been working on all season long. As the past three weeks have shown, takeaways are contagious. Now that the Cowboys defense has gotten a taste, they hope to compound them for one more game to earn an improbable postseason berth.

“Guys are making plays. Guys are stepping up,” Gregory explained. “It’s not like we don’t have that ability; I think it’s always been there. Guys just have to go out there and seize the opportunity.”

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‘It’s electric:’ Cowboys’ takeaways fuel momentum on both sides of ball in big win

The Cowboys won back-to-back games for the first time in a year by winning the turnover battle for the second game on a row.

For the Cowboys to win back-to-back games, something they hadn’t done in over a calendar year, they had to do something else they hadn’t done since 2019: win the turnover battle for a second week in a row.

A pair of recovered fumbles and two interceptions gave Andy Dalton and the Dallas offense plenty of chances and great field position to work with on Sunday; in return, the Cowboys didn’t turn the ball over at all. Instead, they capitalized on those takeaways and turned each one into points en route to a thrilling 41-33 win over San Francisco to keep their faint playoff hopes alive.

“It’s huge,” Dalton said afterward of the forced fumbles that gave Dallas possession on the 49ers’ 22- and 24-yard-lines in the opening six minutes. “That’s momentum. Short field, you want to take advantage of it. You want to score touchdowns when you’re in that position. For us, I think that was big for us today. I think we had 24 points off of turnovers. That’s huge. That’s the difference in the game.”

It’s been the difference in the team’s past two games. Dallas is plus-seven over this mini-win streak; through their first 12 outings, they were minus-13. During many of those games, it was Dallas turning the ball over early and finding themselves in holes they just couldn’t dig their way out of.

“You can get into chasing the game when you’re on the other side of the turnover differential. That’s clearly the case, as we understood early in the year,” head coach Mike McCarthy explained during his postgame press conference. “There’s momentum swings that go on throughout every football game… To get it early, definitely, you can see it brought a lot of energy to our sideline. Guys are feeding off of one another.”

“It is contagious,” defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence agreed in his remarks after the win. “It starts with practice. You practice the fundamentals, and you practice the way you want to play, soon enough, it will come to life.”

Takeaways are key to a defense’s success. But it’s only half the equation.

“It’s been very impactful,” wide receiver CeeDee Lamb said of the takeaways in his postgame Q&A session. “You can see it on TV, you can see it on [the] screen, you can feel it in the arena. Defensive guys, when they turn over the ball, it’s electric. Gives a boost to the offense, and it forces us to play complementary football. That’s what we’ve been preaching and what we’ve been practicing.”

“I think it’s just a combination,” McCarthy replied when asked about the offense’s sudden knack for turning takeaways into points. “We have an offensive line that’s played a couple weeks together now, Andy’s in a good rhythm- we had some receivers go in and out of the game today- but I think you’re just seeing more continuity, particularly in the execution of the offense, that allows us to score off those opportunities.”

Those scores, in turn, fuel the defense to keep creating more chances.

“It’s amazing,” cornerback Jourdan Lewis told media members. “Complimentary football is the best thing for any team, when you get guys on the offensive side playing the way they’re playing, and then you get us in there juiced up, you can feel the momentum swing in our direction. Every time they break a big run like that or a big pass, it’s amazing. It’s a good thing for our defense.”

Good things have been hard to come by for the Dallas defense in 2020. Mike Nolan’s first year as coordinator brought a new scheme, and that has brought some serious growing pains. And while Nolan’s unit has plenty of deficiencies still to be addressed- they allowed 458 yards to the 49ers on Sunday, their second-highest total of the season- McCarthy is thankful that some of what his staff has been selling is finally sinking in.

“We have a lot more takeaway opportunities that we’re putting ourselves in position [for] throughout defense and special teams,” the coach offered. “That’s just a real credit to the guys, everybody staying the course, staying after it. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes longer than some, but I think the path that we’ve been on, it’s refreshing to see the success these last two weeks with what everybody’s put into this.”

But the recent success has come by simply continuing to hammer away at the same things they’ve been working on all season.

“Staying focused on the little things, the details,” McCarthy said. “That’s what football always comes down to. It’s always about the fundamentals and the execution of it. I think our guys did a really good job. I think we’ve had to go through the pains of the newness and the challenges that we’ve had in the early season.”

It’s taken most of the 2020 campaign, but the Dallas defense may be finally coming into its own. And the players sense the evolution.

“We’re doing a lot in practice,” Lawrence said. “I feel like we’re starting to step up to the plate, live up to our expectations. When you’re playing football, it always starts with the ball.”

“We’ve just been able to put it together,” according to Lewis. “We always knew we were capable, but we just found the ingredients these last few games, and we’re sticking with it.”

For the Cowboys to continue the upward trend- whether or not it results in an unlikely postseason berth- the turnover differential will continue to be an important key. They’ll have their next shot at winning that battle on Sunday when the Eagles come calling.

McCarthy, for one, is hoping they can continue not only the winning streak, but the first-quarter takeaway habit the defense seems to have started.

“That’s two weeks in a row we’ve been able to go out and, back-to-back series, have turnovers to start the game. It’d be great if we could keep it up.”

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McCarthy: Turnover differential is ‘number one priority’ for Cowboys’ late-season chances

The Dallas defense logged 3 takeaways Sunday, and the offense had 0 turnovers. McCarthy’s history says a late-season surge could be huge.

On Sunday, the Cowboys had three fumble recoveries in the first fifteen minutes and ten seconds of play.

On Sunday, the Cowboys won 30-7, their largest margin of victory since last December.

No one in the Cowboys locker room believes that’s just a coincidence. And everyone believes duplicating that feat will be critical to the team’s success moving forward, this season and beyond.

“Defense definitely set the tone early with the takeaways, Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy told reporters in his postgame press conference from Cincinnati after the Week 14 win. “When you see the takeaways are done on second-reaction, second-effort type plays, that’s how they usually come, they come in bunches. That was huge for us, plus-three. Winning the turnover battle was clearly a big part of our victory today.”

Defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence forced a Giovani Bernard fumble on just the second play from scrimmage. While the recovery by Jourdan Lewis gave Dallas excellent field position, the offense wasn’t able to turn it into more than three points.

On Cincinnati’s next series, Lawrence’s linemate took the matter of scoring a touchdown into his own hands. He picked up a ball dropped by Bengals running back Trayveon Williams- in after Bernard’s fumble- and took off on a 78-yard run, lumbering for the first touchdown of his pro career.

“I knew that I was, like, really fast,” Smith explained to reporters. “So as soon as I picked it up, I just knew that it was just going to be impossible for me to be caught.”

Just as with his touchdown run, Aldon barely made it all the way to the end of his answer. Then he broke out in a laugh.

“He’s an athletic guy,” linebacker Jaylon Smith said of the play. “It’s hard to get him down. Especially with that type of lead and no real pursuit. We knew he was going to get in. Just happy for him.”

It was Jaylon who recovered the next Bengals fumble as Cincinnati was nearing the end zone. Eighty-eight yards later, Dallas scored another six. The Cowboys suddenly had their largest lead of the 2020 season.

“That’s what happens when our defense goes out there and takes the ball away from their offense. They did a hell of a job,” running back Ezekiel Elliott noted. “They got turnover takeaways, and we were able to capitalize and get points off of it.”

Not only did the Dallas defense take the ball away multiple times, but their offensive counterparts didn’t give the ball away. Not once. That hadn’t happened since Week 1 of this season.

The Cowboys rank well toward the bottom of the league when it comes to turnover differential; McCarthy points to that as a key contributor toward the team’s disappointing 4-9 record.

“It’s huge. It’s number one priority,” he explained after Sunday’s win. “The turnover differential, if you look at the history of the National Football League, equates to success. Plus-three was probably clearly the most important statistic on the stat sheet. And you can see clearly, especially having three turnovers in the first half: we haven’t played with a lead, just gave our guys a chance to play a little differently. You can play run-pass mix on offense and you’re not paying catch-up. Then you got to see our pass rush at the end of the game. These are the kind of games you want to play in, and that’s why we spend so much time on those two fundamentals: taking care of the football and taking it away. It was great to see the ROI come into pay there.”

The coach believes that return on investment could continue to pay big dividends over the Cowboys’ next three games with wins. It’s worked for him before: his 2006 Packers squad were 4-8 entering the final quarter of the schedule. They won out to wrap up the season. They missed the playoffs, but the December momentum carried over to 2007; the Packers started 10-1, finished 13-3, and nearly won the NFC title.

McCarthy attributes that strong season- and much of the success that followed during his tenure in Green Bay- to the 4-0 run his team produced to close out his first year as head coach.

“I thought that definitely was one of the foundation blocks of my time in Green Bay, those last four wins, because it was something that we built on, talked about, emphasized throughout the whole offseason. In ’07, we were an overtime loss away from being in the Super Bowl. I definitely do believe success at the end of the season catapults you into your offseason program and can very well factor into next year. Let’s be honest: if you start fast in this league, you’re at such an advantage as your season moves on.”

McCarthy hopes the Cowboys can duplicate that home-stretch feat in 2020, thereby putting themselves in a prime position for the 2021 campaign. They’re off to a 1-0 start; their next three outings come against teams with losing records.

“There’s no reason we can’t go in here in any of these games and blow them out,” Cowboys linebacker Leighton Vander Esch said, per ESPN’s Todd Archer. “We’ve got to have that mindset that it doesn’t have to be close. We do what we need to do and we take care of business and do our job every play, things are going to turn out good for us.”

The rest of the defense shares that mentality, knowing that having created a rash of turnovers once only proves that they’re capable of doing it again. And again. And again.

“Obviously, it just adds to it,” Aldon Smith said of Sunday’s takeaways’ contribution to their confidence moving forward. “It’s important that we finish the season out strong and guys play well. So that’s just something we can build on, keep continuing every week.”

Creating turnovers fuels wins. And as McCarthy’s history shows, a late-season win streak can fuel an entire decade of dominance.

“Very big,” Jaylon Smith concluded. “Talk about getting turnovers, giving more opportunities to our offense, great field position. Big key to winning games.”

The Dallas defense knows how the key works. Now they just have to turn it.

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