In a way, the Cowboys have been lucky this season. They have committed 18 fumbles this season, a whopping 1.4 per game, which ranks No. 29 out of the league’s 32 teams. But they’ve only lost seven of those fumbles, which rates 21st in the NFL. The Cowboys have been the beneficiary of some fortunate bounces–but they should beware the Vikings, who are third in creating fumble turnovers, with nine.
Quarterback Dak Prescott leads the team with five fumbles, which is not bad by the standards of his position (Daniel Jones and Cam Ward lead the NFL with nine fumbles), but the most frequent fumbler among non-QB Cowboys is receiver George Pickens (four) followed by tight end Jake Ferguson, who fumbled in the Week 14 loss to the Lions and has three on the season.
Ferguson is having a strong bounce-back year after struggling in 2024, and has a career-high 75 catches and seven touchdowns, with 554 yards. But he has made costly mistakes throughout the year, and the fumbles are part of that–Ferguson leads all tight ends in that dubious stat category.
Cowboys’ Brian Schottenheimer: Fumbling ‘Biggest Issue’
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer addressed the fumbling issue on 105.3 The Fan on Friday, and pulled no punches on his disappointment with the team for its inability to clean up those mistakes.
“No. 1, it is the biggest issue that we’re having as a football team—I think we’re 29th in the NFL, which is terrible, we’re minus-8 and you’re not going to win enough football games to go where you want to go when you do that,” he said.
“We have to get it resolved on offense and take care of it better. What’s crazy, guys, is we actually went four straight games without a turnover. Think about that—not one, not two, but four straight games without a turnover. Of course, on defense we’re not taking it away enough.”
Jake Ferguson Now Has 3 Cowboys Fumbles
Indeed, the Cowboys have only 10 takeaways this season, another stat that ranks near the bottom of the league–Dallas is 27th in that category in the NFL. But Schottenheimer was asked specifically about the struggles Ferguson has had keeping hold of the ball, and he explained that Ferguson needs to do better combining his desire to fight for yardage with the need for ball protection.
His explanation:
“We talk about it every week, every Thursday we do a segment, but let’s talk about Jake first because you asked the question—Fergie is so damn competitive, man, he is going to fight and claw for every extra yard. But there’s a way you carry the ball that some guys lose track of. …
Once you are in traffic, you have to, what we call, lock it down, which means basically, I put not just my right arm but my left arm over, and I kind of create an X, with my arms and my wrists, and I pin the ball against my chest. That’s where Fergie has gotten a little loose as he is fighting for yards or going down. It creates air and space, and it creates what we call an exit angle for the ball. If there’s an exit angle that’s created, that’s where guys are so good now at knocking it out.
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