A Game of Turnovers

 Ravens’ Postseason Results Illustrate the Importance—and Fickleness—of TOs

By Deghasio 

Two years ago almost to the day, Joe Flacco made one of the biggest plays in NFL history down 7 to Peyton Manning’s Broncos. Jacoby Jones ran in a straight line down the sideline, Flacco heaved up a prayer, and the Ravens play-by-play announcer could only laugh in disbelief as Broncos’ CB Rahim Moore failed to stop a 70-yard TD pass with 31 seconds on the clock. League MVP Manning threw his second interception of the game in OT, and Delaware’s finest Joe Flacco capped off one of the most remarkable postseason runs with a Super Bowl MVP trophy and a brand spanking new $120.6 million contract.

On Saturday, Flacco was in an extremely similar situation. Down 4 to another all-time great, Tom Brady, Flacco, threw the ball to another speedster, Torrey Smith. This time, Patriots’ safety Duron Harmon (who, FYI, is a lesser-known football player with Delaware connections) intercepted the quasi-Hail Mary in the end zone. Flacco, despite throwing for four TDs, was going home before the big game in February.

These two games illustrate that football, despite its reputation as a “game of inches,” is really a game of turnovers. During his incredible postseason run, Flacco only had one TO the entire season (a fumble against Denver, and no INTs). By my count, during their four 2012 postseason games, the Ravens had 17 of what I will call “turnover opportunities,” i.e. interceptions + fumbles. During those 17 opportunities, Baltimore came away with the ball 13 times. The nitty-gritty details are in the table below:

BAL fumble	BAL recovers BAL fumble	BAL INT	Opp. fumble	BAL recovers opp. fumble	Opp. INT
Flacco: 1 Non-Flacco: 4	2	0	5	5	6

Saturday’s Divisional game told a different story. Although there were many important plays, including a Julian Edelman TD pass, to me the difference in the game were the two New England fumbles. On the first one, Danny Amendola, with his first opportunity to return a kickoff in the game, fumbled down 7-0—but his compatriot (pun intended) Chris Jones recovered. The Pats fumbled deep in their own territory again in the second quarter, this time courtesy of Edelman. Pro-Bowl Raven rookie CJ Mosley punched the ball out, but Edelman managed to fall on it. On the other side of the football, Flacco threw two picks to Brady’s one, including the backbreaking game-ender with 1:46 left.

Can you imagine the difference if Baltimore had recovered either of those fumbles? The first one might not have made too much of a difference—New England kicked the ball away even after recovering the fumble, and Flacco drove down the field and threw a TD pass for the second series in a row. The second fumble, though, has life-changing consequences. If Baltimore recovered the Edelman fumble, like they did in 2012 with Stevan Ridley’s fumble, they’re already in field goal range for Justin Tucker. Considering how white-hot Flacco was in the first half, it’s easy to see the Ravens gong up 17-7 if anyone in purple had fallen on the football. Instead, Edelman recovered, Tom Brady drove the Patriots down the field for a TD, and the Patriots tied the game shortly before halftime. (Joe Cool did drive the Ravens down the field for his third TD of the half to give the Ravens a 7-point lead at intermission.)

This is not to suggest that Baltimore “deserved” to win the game. Both teams deserved to win the game. For the Ravens, Flacco played a terrific game and the Ravens front 7 basically forced the Patriots to abandon the run and only throw short passes. For the Pats, Brady played a clean game, and Belichick had maybe his best coaching performance ever, busting out the aforementioned Edelman trick play (his first throw since college!), as well as some ingenious trickery (which was poorly handled by the refs) to outsmart John Harbough.

Normally, this is the part of the column where the author would say that “big players make big plays in big games” and that’s why the Patriots won. With this game, though, that argument doesn’t hold water. The biggest players on the field—Brady, Flacco, Suggs, Ngata, Gronk, Smith Sr., Jones et. al.—made some big plays, but weren’t really involved on the two biggest plays of the game, the two fumbles. Two years ago Jacoby Jones, Terrell Suggs, and Haloti Ngata won a Super Bowl ring, but against the Patriots this year they were conspicuously nondescript—are they suddenly no longer big players? Is Julian Edelman really a big player all of a sudden? Is Chris Jones?

The bottom line is that these were two teams that played each other just about even. Formal analyses of the game will likely (or in any case should) point to Belichick’s coaching and the Patriots secondary as reasons why they won. These factors are examined because it gives the media a narrative (Bill Belichick is an evil genius, etc.), and also allows those same media members to play “Monday Morning Quarterback” and criticize the players, referees, and coaching staffs. Maybe instead we should recognize that sometimes teams just get lucky, and the football bounces to Edelman instead of Mosley. Maybe we should just celebrate the incredible athletes and entertaining football game we watched. Lord knows we’ve had precious few reasons to celebrate football this year.

Token Sandwich Reference: Apparently JIF hosts a kids’ “Most Creative Sandwich Competition” for a scholarship fund. Can you imagine what the selection meetings would be like if football fans/reporters decided it? “I don’t know, Frank, is Leah T. from Allentown really an elite sandwich chef?” “Well Bill, there’s not doubt she’s great, but does she deserve a $25000 contract?” That would be ridiculous—but sometimes that’s what we (I’m definitely including myself) as football fans do. At a certain point just shut up and enjoy the “Crunchy, Creamy, Dreamy Finger Sandwich.”