[jdlea]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Recovering a fumble is pure luck. The act of stripping it is skill. Don't confuse the two. Like I said, he picked up a lucky bounce. What if he stripped the ball, the ball bounced out of bounds, no score for the Skins. We lose that game. The fact the ball stayed in bounds and bounced/rolled in a fashion he could easily scoop up is luck.


FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Football Outsiders Basics (a.k.a. "Pregame Show&quot

First off, the quoted article doesn't really apply to the play where he scored. The crux of it is right here:

Stripping the ball is a skill. Holding onto the ball is a skill. Pouncing on the ball as it is bouncing all over the place is not a skill. There is no correlation whatsoever between the percentage of fumbles recovered by a team in one year and the percentage they recover in the next year. The odds of recovery are based solely on the type of play involved, not the teams or any of their players.

This article is really talking about the ability to predict who is more likely to recover a fumble based on the players involved more than saying, "when a football hits the ground, the following events are totally random and based on luck." You are correct that it was lucky the ball didn't bounce out of bounds and that it continued to roll/bounce backwards, however, picking up a bouncing football while running full speed is not easy and he did it while on his way to scoring the touchdown that ended up being the difference in that game. So, his strip and scoop were skillful, the luck came in the football going in the direction he pulled it and not taking an odd hop after hitting the ground.