Buffalo Rumblings
The Buffalo Bills are currently +1 in the turnover margin for the 2025 NFL season, which isn’t bad by any means — but it is a far cry from their usual positive margin under head coach Sean McDermott. When it comes to giveaways, Buffalo is pretty average, tied with the Tennessee Titans at 15th most. While the Bills aren’t giving the ball away like candy, their five losses account for 12 of their total 19 giveaways.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are taking away the ball more this season than anyone but the Chicago Bears. They’ve racked up a healthy nine fumble recoveries and an incredible 22 interceptions. Even adjusted with rate data, the Jaguars are the fourth-best team in the league when it comes to interceptions. Let’s take a look at some of those turnovers to see if Buffalo has a chance of avoiding catastrophe.
Yeah, I get it. Football fans don’t care so much about these sections, but for transparency here’s what I did. I looked at All-22 film on all 22 of the Jaguars’ interceptions. I made a chart of common factors that might influence an interception. The full chart of my notes is below.
In some way, there will always be subjectivity. For instance, in interception number six I credit the quarterback as partially to blame, as the ball was thrown behind the receiver. Why did I say this?
It’s easier to see the trajectory with a video, but none of the angles captured that perfectly anyway, which is why I used this interception as my illustration of the point. With no perfect angle at where the ball was heading, I based my judgement in part by body mechanics. The receiver was turning their body backward in anticipation of the ball, which is a good indicator they saw it and it was going to be behind.
Last thought on methodology here is that in no way is the list intended to state the Jaguars have just been lucky. In this particular play, while the throw was behind, the defense had it read well enough where even an on-target pass might have had the same result.
I think this is almost 100% credit to linebacker Devin Lloyd here. He was spying the quarterback but even still I don’t think in most circumstances it’s a crazy idea to throw this ball. The pass seemed to be on target as well and would have been a highlight-reel play for the offense threading through a tight window. Lloyd’s spying ability got him moving very soon after the throw had been decided, and that’s a fantastic leap and extension to pluck the ball out of the air.
Lloyd tied for the team lead this season with five interceptions, and he generally seems to create havoc in the middle of the field. You’ll see I compared this to another one from Lloyd. Often tasked with keeping an...
