Lions and Texans Only Teams in NFL with No Forced Turnovers
No turnovers caused by the defense. No wins.
The Lions are one of only two NFL teams -- the other being the Houston Texans -- with no turnovers forced through the first two weeks of the 2020 NFL season.
The Texans, just like the Lions, are 0-2 to start the season.
It's very hard to win games in the National Football League when your defense is allowing 6.5 yards per play and 34.5 points per game and isn't causing the opposition to commit any turnovers -- which has been the case for Detroit's defense this year.
Despite Lions head coach Matt Patricia's defensive background, the man who's going to take the brunt of the blame for Detroit's woes on defense is defensive coordinator Cory Undlin.
As the primary play-caller for the defense, Undlin, in his first year as an NFL defensive coordinator, is responsible for drawing up plays that get pressure on the opposing passer and help his team force turnovers.
Neither of those things has happened so far in the 2020 campaign, and the onus is on Undlin to rectify the Lions' myriad of defensive issues right away.
"We talk about the turnover ratio all the time, and the stats are what they are," Undlin said Tuesday during a video conference with Detroit media. "If you're on the plus side, your odds of winning the game are drastically higher. So, for me, I mean, there's a lot of things obviously we can do better that I can coach better. But, when you come out of two games without any turnovers and we have opportunities, obviously, as you know, in the first game. (We) didn't really have one there yesterday. So, we got to continue to focus on that. And that obviously helps our team win. And that's our job is to help this team win -- however, we can do it. So, obviously, the only disappointment right now is just the lack of turnovers, that we haven't been able to get. So, we'll focus on that the next three days, and see if we can turn that around this weekend (against the Arizona Cardinals)."
If he doesn't turn it around and starting on Sunday in Arizona, he's going to be out of a job at season's end along with Patricia and the team's general manager Bob Quinn.
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