Did you know that the Bills are 4th in the NFL in takeaways?

[BarleyNY]

5 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

Sal was talking about it this morning on the morning show.  The Bills are actually tied for 4th in the league with 14 takeaways....tied with several other teams but still.

Doesn't that seem weird?  I wouldn't have guessed this at all.  I really would have guessed we were probably in the bottom 10.

 

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/view/turnovers/table/miscellaneous/sort/totalTakeaways/dir/desc

 

Did you also know that otters hold hands when they sleep in the water so they don't drift away from each other?

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I knew that about otters, they are my favorite animal (except perhaps dogs). The equatorial Galapagos Penguin rounds out the top 3.  Gotta respect a penguin that says F the Antarctic and heads to the equator. 
 

14 takeaways is great.  The questions I always ask when I see a defense doing well are: Is their success largely due to them getting a lot of turnovers?  And: Is it sustainable because it’s due to talent, aggressive play, scheme, etc. or is it simply luck that will likely fade?

 

I really don’t know the answers to those questions.  The defense has certainly seemed vulnerable at times but IF they have been taking extra chances to try to get turnovers I’m good with that.  In any case, this is something worth looking for when watching the defense. 

[InEnemyTerritory]

2 hours ago, dneveu said:

 

If they improved on early downs and kept teams in 3rd and long they'd go a long way to getting off the field more.  Their 3rd down defense is bad... but they also have way too many 3rd and shorts this year.  

Who, the otters?

[whatdrought]

5 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

We had 4 TOs against Seattle, right? 2 INTs and 2 Fumbles.

 

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but that one feast game kinda skews our stats and standing. Without them, we'd be -1 in TO differential. Which is more indicative of our overall performance.

Why are we cutting out what we did against the best offense in the league?

 

 

We’re tied for 6th in diff, but it should be tied for 5th due to that garbage INT call against the Rams. (Indy also has a gripe from last week)

Edited November 13, 2020 by whatdrought

[1ManRaid]

4 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

Absolutely. We are what our record and stats say we are. That's usually how I feel 99.999% of the time.

 

But anomalies do get thrown out in stats and analytics for a reason. Just something to keep in mind.

 

Now, if we string together a few more +4 TO games, then that will really be something.

 

 

 

Then you also have to take the top turnover game away for every other team as well.  You can't just pick one team and say "If you take away everything good the team has done, they actually suck" as if that means something.

 

And no, anomalies don't just get thrown out.  You find out the reason they happened.

Edited November 13, 2020 by 1ManRaid

[JGMcD2]

6 minutes ago, 1ManRaid said:

 

Then you also have to take the top turnover game away for every other team as well.  You can't just pick one team and say "If you take away everything good the team has done, they actually suck" as if that means something.

 

And no, anomalies don't just get thrown out.  You find out the reason they happened.

Anomalies get thrown out when the data set is big enough for the data to be thrown out. 
 

Anomalies don’t exist over a 16 game season, and the most definitely don’t exist over a 9 game sample size. They don’t get thrown out because they’re not anomalies. 

[ChevyVanMiller]

 

[BillsPride12]

Defense has been pretty bad across the league this year so not too surprising in my opinion.  Our defense has certainly kicked it up a few notches though

[wjag]

I’m surprised. With the exception of the Seahawks game, the FR by Norman and Zimmerman and the Levi interception, I don’t/can’t remember the others.  

[Royale with Cheese]

1 hour ago, BarleyNY said:

Of course I knew that about otters, they are my favorite animal (except perhaps dogs). The equatorial Galapagos Penguin rounds out the top 3.  Gotta respect a penguin that says F the Antarctic and heads to the equator. 
 

14 takeaways is great.  The questions I always ask when I see a defense doing well are: Is their success largely due to them getting a lot of turnovers?  And: Is it sustainable because it’s due to talent, aggressive play, scheme, etc. or is it simply luck that will likely fade?

 

I really don’t know the answers to those questions.  The defense has certainly seemed vulnerable at times but IF they have been taking extra chances to try to get turnovers I’m good with that.  In any case, this is something worth looking for when watching the defense. 

 

If only you were a female, we'd be a good couple.

[DrDawkinstein]

1 hour ago, whatdrought said:

Why are we cutting out what we did against the best offense in the league?

 

For the sake of discussion. For the sake of having a better idea of who this team is when thinking about trends, averages, and predictability. Because we all know a 4-TO game is not the norm or anywhere near it for this team.

 

It doesnt matter who we did it against. Because of this one game that padded the numbers, the stats do not provide an accurate representation of how the team plays.

 

Have you been happy with the number of turnovers the Defense had created before last week?

 

Quote

We’re tied for 6th in diff, but it should be tied for 5th due to that garbage INT call against the Rams. (Indy also has a gripe from last week)

 

See. Same thing. For the sake of discussion.

I absolutely agree. And I dont even count Josh's 2nd INT of the year when talking about Josh's performance since that one is on Andre Roberts.

But I dont really expect any of the stats to change. They are what they are. Even though we know Josh doesnt have as big of an INT trend as the stats would say.

 

1 hour ago, 1ManRaid said:

 

Then you also have to take the top turnover game away for every other team as well.  You can't just pick one team and say "If you take away everything good the team has done, they actually suck" as if that means something.

 

Did I say we suck? I'm just trying to get a better idea of who this team is week over week. When you look at our performances, we are not a Defense that causes consistent turnovers. I dont care about the others teams. I'm talking about whether you can assume, based on stats vs actual play, that we will produce turnovers.

 

I'm not petitioning the league to change the stats. This isnt that serious.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

If only you were a female, we'd be a good couple.

 

Anyone who has Doug Forcett as their avatar, I got dibs on.

 

Edited November 13, 2020 by DrDawkinstein

[Freddie's Dead]

[Jauronimo]

5 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

Still giving up 25.9 pts/game. 18th in the league. Call me when that number gets under 12th.

Whats your number?

[wettlaufer]

7 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

We had 4 TOs against Seattle, right? 2 INTs and 2 Fumbles.

 

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but that one feast game kinda skews our stats and standing. Without them, we'd be -1 in TO differential. Which is more indicative of our overall performance.

 

The distribution in this stat line is always skewed and non-normal in the statistical sense. Within the top ten teams in TO differential (leaving out the Bills), the mean gross takeaway in their top game is 3.7 takeaways and the mode is 3. On average for this group, that's 26% of total takeaways happening in one game. For Buffalo, that stat is 29%. In other words, it comes in bunches for all the stats leaders in this category.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

1 hour ago, wjag said:

I’m surprised. With the exception of the Seahawks game, the FR by Norman and Zimmerman and the Levi interception, I don’t/can’t remember the others.  

 

One was the last play of the rams game where they threw the ball all over the place. 

The forced fumble from the jets game on herndon + the INT darnold threw up to milano. 2nd Jets game jackson had the nice play on the darnold deep corner route, and the deflected one that bounced right to hughes at the end of the game.

Kelce fumbled before half in the KC game.

Jefferson sack fumble on carr after the norman punch.

 

So only 1 really falls in the doesn't really matter/count column.  

Edited November 13, 2020 by dneveu

[Thurman#1]

19 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

We had 4 TOs against Seattle, right? 2 INTs and 2 Fumbles.

 

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but that one feast game kinda skews our stats and standing. Without them, we'd be -1 in TO differential. Which is more indicative of our overall performance.

 

 

Without those 4, we'd be 12th in defensive turnovers.

 

Thing is, if you also went to the 11 teams that were ahead of us and since you had taken out our biggest game's worth of turnovers you evened things out by taking out each of those team's biggest game of turnovers as well, we'd be right back in the general area we're in now.

 

Tampa is #1 in defensive turnovers, they had a 4 turnover game against Carolina.

 

NYG are tied for #2 in defensive turnovers. Against Washington, they had a game where their defense had not four but five turnovers last week. Since they're only one turnover ahead of Buffalo, if you take out every team's highest-turnover game, the Giants would drop into a tie with us.

 

Pittsburgh are tied with the Giants, one turnover ahead of the Bills. They also had a 4-turnover game against the Ravens, as well as TWO 3-turnover games against the Giants and the Eagles.

 

The #5 Browns had a 5-turnover game against Washington.

 

The #6 Titans didn't, though they had two 3-turnover games.

 

The #7 Chiefs had not one but two 4-turnover games.

 

The #8 Dolphins had a 4-turnover game against the Rams.

 

The #9 Patriots didn't have one, but they had two 3-turnover games.

 

The #10 Seahawks didn't have one, but had a 3-turnover game against Dallas

 

.

 

 

 

I'm not going to bother looking at the rest. When every single one of the top five teams (and seven out of the top ten) had at least one game of four or more turnovers,  you can understand that for good defenses (probably everyone else, really) it's not an outlier.  The Bills would still be ranked within two or three places of their current level. And I didn't find a single team that hadn't had at least one game of three or more turnovers.

 

And enough for the "if you take out this one thing," arguments. What they are essentially saying is that if things were different, they'd be different. And who didn't know that? Thing is, they aren't different. Reality is what actually happened.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by Thurman#1

[machine gun kelly]

13 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

If only you were a female, we'd be a good couple.

See, Raj.

[Pete]

21 hours ago, teef said:

I’ll punch an otter right in the face. 

Otters are part of the weasel family- the same family that includes Badgers and Wolverines.  I'd consider that before punching an otter

[Orlando Tim]

I am curious if we have next gen stats that show how much those turnovers are worth? I mean that in that RW threw the one picked by White last week was almost a guaranteed TD vs one that saves a field goal?

[TigerJ]

Buffalo has been coming on of late in creating turnovers.  I hope it continues.

[bobobonators]

Thats surprising. Regarding the sacks we got 9 sacks in the two Jets games. So there

is that...

On 11/13/2020 at 7:55 AM, Stank_Nasty said:

top ten in sacks as well. we'll see where we end up after our bye week but it should still be close to top ten..... i can deal with the yards being given if they can keep finding ways to turn it over and get home on the qb.

 

[Stank_Nasty]

2 hours ago, bobobonators said:

Thats surprising. Regarding the sacks we got 9 sacks in the two Jets games. So there

is that...

 

And another 5 vs Wilson. They’ve come in spurts. Hopefully we can get a bit more consistent there 

[Thurman#1]

18 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

I am curious if we have next gen stats that show how much those turnovers are worth? I mean that in that RW threw the one picked by White last week was almost a guaranteed TD vs one that saves a field goal?

 

 

Google "drive start expected points chart". It's on something like FootballAnalytics.com

 

 

17 hours ago, bobobonators said:

Thats surprising. Regarding the sacks we got 9 sacks in the two Jets games. So there

is that...

 

 

 

Same deal as the fact that turnovers come in spurts.

 

Sacks (and every measureable statistic, really) come slowly sometimes and fast at other times. Sacks tend to come in certain games, basically the ones where the matchups were good and also the ones where the other team got significantly behind and had to give up the run.

 

Not just for Buffalo. For every team, in every season.

Edited November 15, 2020 by Thurman#1

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

On 11/13/2020 at 6:50 AM, Just in Atlanta said:

Differential is a great indicator of success. We're no. 9 at plus 3. Only one above us (the browns) are likely not a playoff team. 

 

 

To add to that, there was that thread  a few weeks ago of 5-2 teams with negative point differential. Basically only 1 out of 3 in NFL history had gone on to make the playoffs. This year that was the Bills, Bears and Browns. It was obvious three weeks ago just as it is today which team would be the one to make the playoffs and which two would likely not. Fast forward a couple weeks and Bills now are +9 point differential and 7-2, Browns are -31 and 5-3, Bears are -12 and 5-4. Neither the Bears or Browns are currently in playoff position in the standings. 

[JerseyBills]

On 11/13/2020 at 9:07 AM, DrDawkinstein said:

 

We had 4 TOs against Seattle, right? 2 INTs and 2 Fumbles.

 

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but that one feast game kinda skews our stats and standing. Without them, we'd be -1 in TO differential. Which is more indicative of our overall performance.

I'm sure you can say that about almost any team though

[DrDawkinstein]

11 minutes ago, JerseyBills said:

I'm sure you can say that about almost any team though

 

Absolutely.

 

But I'm not talking about other teams, or how the Bills compare to other teams. I'm talking about being consistent with turnovers instead of feast or famine.

[Charles Romes]

It’s a little surprising that 1.5 turnovers per game gets you in the top 4.  In the 70s and 80s that would probably be bottom 4. 

[ganesh]

there are people in the media that are going out of the way to bring down the buffalo bills.  Go bills