One of the many battles to be waged by the Jets and Dolphins under the Monday night lights will be the fight to eliminate the goose egg each team has in the takeaways category this season. And the team that wins this turnover battle could well erase another round number under its W's column.
"It's unfortunate," DL Harrison Phillips said this week of the Jets' lack of takeaways. "There's been, I think, four or five punchouts, forced fumbles, and we haven't been able to come up with one of them. And that is not due to the lack of effort. If you look on the tape, players are flying around. ... We have a team that does care and is trying."
Phillips is correct that the Jets have four forced fumbles (three on defense, one on special teams) and no recoveries. The veteran 1-technique in fact had the defense's first strip sack of the season while putting a hit on Tampa Bay's Baker Mayfield in the second quarter Sunday, only to see the Bucs center fall on the ball.
But while the Jets have zero FRs, those four FFs are tied for 5th-most in the NFL after three weeks. And while they have had no interceptions, their 12 pass defenses are tied for 16th. They're getting their hands on the pigskin, just not adding any to their trophy case in the early going.
Another reason the Green & White may be upbeat about turning over the Fins is that while they have given the ball away four times, Miami has committed five turnovers, all on miscues by QB Tua Tagovailoa (4 INTs, 1 FUM). And the Dolphins' minus-5 turnover margin is tied for last in the league (coincidentally with Dallas, the Jets' next opponent).
So both sides are stressing more TAs and fewer GAs this week during meetings and practices.
"Any team, I don't care who it is. Turnovers, they lose you games," HC Aaron Glenn has said. "Discipline issues, they lose you games. Those are some things that we're going to fix."
"We're going to be even more conscious about creating more turnovers, creating more punchouts, more opportunities," Phillips said. "That's something that we'll emphasize extremely heavy this week, punching at the football. You guys [reporters] are out there, I'm sure you'll see a lot of our running backs with bruises up and down their forearms."
One last "takeaway" from this story is that as far as giveaways, the Jets' QBs had not been into making costly mistakes until the last two games. Justin Fields lost a fumble on a scramble that led to three Buffalo points, yet he has a current streak of 128 consecutive passes without throwing a pick. Tyrod Taylor turned the ball over on a strip sack and an interception leading to 10 points in rapid succession for the Buccaneers, yet one of his calling cards in his 15th pro season is protecting the ball.
Glenn hasn't revealed yet if Fields will return at QB from the concussion protocol for Miami or if Taylor will get his second start as a Jet. But Taylor has been around long enough that he repeated after the Bucs game one of the cardinal rules of quarterbacking: "Turnovers hurt you in this league. I'll learn from it and we'll be better from it moving forward."
Phillips, meanwhile, is philosophically optimistic that he and his defensive mates will soon feast on some turnovers, perhaps even Monday at Hard Rock Stadium.
"That football is shaped a really weird way and it bounces really strange," he said. "But eventually it will bounce our way."
