“Really, the number one thing that we have to do is something that Kevin (Stefanski) has preached since the day he got the job and that’s protect the football,” Berry said. “We’ve turned the ball over 10 times at this season and we’ve lost the turnover battle in all four games that we’ve played this year. Quite honestly, that’s not a sustainable way to win football games in the N F L.
“That’s really the first thing that we have to get corrected,” Berry said. “I do think that we’ve seen what this particular group is capable of, namely in the Tennessee game, and I think we’ve also had some bright spots with setbacks creating opportunity, whether it’s the performance of Jerome Ford or the entrance of Dawand Jones into the starting lineup. But we still have work to do to get back to the standard that we need to meet a couple things, culturally.”
Despite concerns about the running game, passing game, play-calling or a number of other topics, Berry said cutting down on the turnovers is the top priority.
“Number one, two, three, four and five would be ball security,” Berry said. “I’m sorry, number one through five would be ball security. That is the number one thing that we have to correct. The primary focus, again, we have 10 turnovers in four games.
“We put five more balls on the ground that weren’t covered, recovered by the opponent,” he said. “That alone, and that doesn’t mean that we’re perfect in every area, no different than any team at this point in the season, but that alone, minimizing that or getting that back to an acceptable standard will make a huge difference.”
“I do think a big part of it is with our, it could be just like our decision making when you have the ball in your hands, decision-making with quarterback, shoring up, protection and all those things play into it,” he said. “Kevin has a saying that if you have the ball in your hands, whether you’re a skill player, whether you’re a quarterback, whether you’re the center, whether you turn the ball over, the fate of the organization is in your hands and ball security is a heavy emphasis at practice. I know it’ll continue to be ratcheted up after the bye, but we’ve talked a lot about winning the turnover battle internally and just we haven’t done it.”
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