Turnover Differential (ball not bouncing our way)
 

I asked this in the chat last night because the Cowboys games was looking eerily similar to the Cardinals games in terms of fumbles. Do you realized the Cowboys fumbled SEVEN times last night? But we only came away with a whopping two! We always hear the adage "it's better to be lucky than good." Perhaps that's the difference between this and last year: luck isn't on our side. We're way down in turnovers, but it's not because we're not forcing them. I went back and looked at all the box scores, so far we've "forced" TWENTY-SEVEN fumbles! That's a huge number (I put "forced" in quotes because I didn't go and watch all the games again, so I know not all of those we the Max Hall style "huge hit and cough up that happens to bounce right to a teammate for a touchdown," some were high snaps and the QB just falls on it with no Saints with a shot at it). Compare that to last year were we only forced 19 all year!
So why are we 8-3 not 11-0? Of those 27 fumbles by opponents, we've only recovered 11! That's only 40%. Last year, we came away with 14 of the opponents' 19 fumbles. 73%! Huge difference! Why is that? I have no idea, but if you remember last night and the Arizona game, maybe it's just dumb luck. A lot of them are just taking awkward bounces and landing right back in the hands of the opponent, often advancing the ball for more yards than if we got just the tackle, not the fumble. The aforementioned Max Hall "cough up to to a teammate for a touchdown" is a microcosm of our luck this year in fumble recoveries.

Yer i don't understand how we can have sometimes like 3 guys around the ball and still not recover it, the sack on Kitna is a prime example, Sack Fumble, i counted vilma dunbar and porter all round the ball and martelis bennet still managed to get it and rumble 5 yards, they need to watch malcolms hustle!!! lol

you bring up a very good point. As a Falcons fan I have seen this pay big dividends for the Falcons this year. They are ranked really high in turnover ratios AND not getting penalties. Lots of fans dont pay attention to those stats but the coaches sure do and they can greatly affect the outcome of a game.

Go NFC south!!!!!!

Yous is right. (Hello BTW G504).

It is crazy how comes we are not getting our share of the scraps. I think it must be GW. An aggressive defensive coach, in the first breath he is insisting that we get the turnovers so our guys get in place to do that but that mindset can mean we don't tangle up the player. But paradoxically he is also saying stop the man, crowd the man so when the ball goes to ground, the players are still thinking man and not ball.

Doesn't make sense - neither me or the Saints' lack of fumble recoveries

Props from a Falcons fan? I have mixed feelings about that :-) But you were civil so I'll be civil. I say this with all due respect, the Falcons and Jets are the two luckiest teams this year, in terms of have all the miracle plays we had last year.

your exactly right-11-0