A LOOK AT THE PLAYERS
BRANDON LAFELL- Since Brandon LaFell is guilty of committing the crime of fumbling the ball while wearing a New England Patriot uniform I will start with his career fumbling statistics and take a look at the fumbling rate of current Patriots.
In his 5 seasons in the NFL, LaFell has handled the ball 249 times. He has 3 career fumbles with the only lost fumble coming this year in a Patriots' uniform.
If you watch much football you know that there are many reasons why a player fumbles the ball. One reason is that the player in possession of the ball is careless with it. This is the type of turnover that the Patriots seem to avoid much better than most teams. Another reason they avoid turnovers was pointed out on a radio station the other day (I can't remember who said it). One of the cohosts pointed out the fact that the play calling of the Patriots is another less obvious reason for them having less turnovers than their opponents. In my opinion these are the three main reasons the Patriots have recently had less turnovers than their opponents.
While it is pretty hard to find data on it, those who watch the Patriots games know that they do in fact lose a handle on the ball several times a game. Whether it is luck or skill, they have managed to be down by contact a good portion of the times. Since these plays are usually confirmed by challenges and don't result in fumbles, they aren't collected on any statistic sheets that I'm familiar with.
The other types of fumbles aren't really that avoidable and come down to either bad luck or a great play by an opponent. The fumbles I consider bad luck are the ones where a player is going to the ground and loses the ball trying to brake their fall. Off the top of my head I can't really remember any of these happening to the Patriots this season. I consider the great play turnovers as the types when an opposing team just comes and takes the ball from you. This can be when they just pull the ball out of your hands or when a helmet knocks the ball loose. While holding onto the ball like your life depends on it may prevent the defense from taking it from you, sometimes a little bit of luck doesn't hurt.
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