Shaquil Barrett on forcing turnovers:
“Yeah, he pretty much didn’t get a blindside. He was ready for the sacks. Like you said, he saw them coming, so he was able to protect the ball better. We’ve got to find a way to get the ball out: interceptions, fumbles, someway, somehow.”
This brings me back to the point I was just making: If the defense loses all faith in the offense, then they’ll have to start taking matters into their own hands; that has the potential to be a pretty risky gamble.
We can already see that the defense feels they need to produce turnovers if the Broncos have any shot at winning, and Barrett wasn’t the only one to say it; Chris Harris said the same thing:
“The only thing we didn’t do today was get turnovers, so I’m just going to worry about our defense, what we can do to continue to get better and the only thing we can do to get better is try to force turnovers.”
And while turnovers are awesome, if teams feel they have to gamble in order to produce them, that can lead to big plays by the other team; that can lead to even bigger deficits that this offense is going to have a hard time overcoming.
This defense is successful because they aren’t only talented but because they are playing smart, sound football; the turnovers they have created, and there have been a lot, have come because the Broncos defenders are almost always in the right place at the right time. If they start trying to be in the right place at the wrong time, they could end up doing more harm than good.
