It would help include hard statistics when posting about these issues. It will help to troubleshoot the game later.
Through 6 games in MFN-19, here are our league leaders in fumbles:
one RB with 8 (1.33 per game), one QB with 7 (1.17 per game), three RBs with 6 (1.00 per game), and eight RBs and one QB with 5 (.83 per game).
In the previous seasons here is the break down:
2017
Games – Fumbles – Per Game – Position
14 – 12 – 0.86 – RB
12 – 12 – 1.00 – RB
16 – 11 – 0.69 – RB
16 – 10 – 0.63 – WR
12 – 9 – 0.75 – RB
16 – 9 – 0.56 – RB
2016
Games – Fumbles – Per Game – Position
16 – 12 – 0.75 – RB
14 – 11 – 0.79 – QB
16 – 11 – 0.69 – RB
16 – 10 – 0.63 – RB
16 – 9 - 0.56 – RB (four players all RBs)
So it does look like that fumbles are up about twice as much in our league as they were in previous years. To break this down further, to make sure we're not missing anything, let's look at the fumbles per play for the top five.
Here's our league:
2018 – through six games
Plays – Fumbles – Plays per Fumble
220 – 8 – 27.5
349 – 7 – 49.86
279 – 6 – 46.50
276 – 6 – 46.00
172 – 6 – 28.67
2017
Play – Fumbles – Plays per Fumble
860 – 12 – 71.67
617 – 12 – 51.42
897 – 11 – 81.55
761 – 10 – 76.10
590 – 9 – 65.56
2016
Plays – Fumbles – Players per Fumble
990 – 12 – 82.50
1006 – 11 – 91.45
856 – 11 – 77.82
1019 – 10 – 101.90
1063 – 9 – 118.11
Defense ability catching up to the offense in the first three years of our league explain some of the increase in number of fumbles.
The shocking thing when we compare the fumble numbers in the game is that most of the fumbles come from running backs. This is not the case in the NFL. In 2014, the top 19 players with fumbles were QBs: two QBs had 13, three had 12, three had 10, and four had 9.
The fumbles in years 2017 and 2016, then, we're pretty close to what happened in the NFL except RBs were fumbling and not QBs.
If we can draw any conclusions for this, fumbles for RBs need to be taken down (maybe by making ball carrying a better skill, maybe by some other way), but fumbles for other positions can probably be left where they are or even increased for QBs.
