I think this wave of scoring from the defense has lead to our second half of the year falloff. It has lead our players on defense to play out of their assignments hawking the ball.
"gotarace" wrote:
I've been saying this for weeks. I think the stats -- "league leaders in takeaways and defensive touchdowns" -- got to their heads, and they've gotten sloppy. They're more focused on strips and interceptions than hitting the shit out of people and slamming them into the turf. Not coincidentally, in my opinion, they haven't gotten an interceptions, strips, or takeaways in weeks.
I read an interesting article (I think on
Advanced NFL Statistics ) that pointed out there is essentially NO correlation between the number of interceptions, fumble recoveries, and defensive TDs a defense snags and the actual quality of the defense. Sometimes terrible defenses lead the league in interceptions and scoring, while great defenses have few such gaudy statistics. And almost never does a team that leads the league in interceptions come anywhere close the following season. In fact, a team that leads the league in the first half of the season rarely leads the league in the second half. It's essentially a random phenomenon.