Ian Allan
Flipping through the numbers, I notice Miami had only 3 fumble takeaways last year. That’s the lowest by any defense since Green Bay in 1995.
I also see that the Steelers and Chargers recovered only 4 fumbles. So that’s three defenses recovering only 3-4 fumbles. In the last 20 years combined, that’s happened only three times.
What the dickens is going on here?
I blame Roger Goodell.
The league is changing the game. It’s trying to legislate out the big hits. You can’t hit the quarterback in the head anymore. They don’t want defenders using their helmets as weapons. And they want defensive backs launching at wide receivers a nano-second after the ball arrives.
I understand the reasoning. They want to make the game safer. And with lawsuits now pending against the league (and more sure to come up in the future), the league is kind of a defenseless receiver. If it allows these kind of punishing, bone-jarring hits, then it will be standing in a courtroom in 2014, 2016 or whenever, trying to explain why it allowed those punishing, bone-jarring hits.
Those are the kind of hits that cause concussions and whatnot. I get it.
But they’re also the hits that cause fumbles. So when the league tinkers with the rules, the natural progression is that we’re going to see fewer fumbles. And that’s the way it’s playing out.
In the the 1990-1993 seasons, teams on average finished with 14.6, 14.8, 14.2 and 13.7 fumble recoveries. Twenty years later, they’ve finished with 10.3, 10.8, 10.8 and 9.5 fumbles, the four lowest seasons ever.
It’s a different game now.
AVERAGE FUMBLE RECOVERIES SINCE 1990
No Avg Year
410 14.6 1990
413 14.8 1991
398 14.2 1992
383 13.7 1993
358 12.8 1994
403 13.4 1995
377 12.6 1996
379 12.6 1997
352 11.7 1998
390 12.6 1999
403 13.0 2000
384 12.4 2001
397 12.4 2002
372 11.6 2003
378 11.8 2004
388 12.1 2005
377 11.8 2006
379 11.8 2007
328 10.3 2008
347 10.8 2009
347 10.8 2010
303 9.5 2011
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