33 fumbles for an entire team in a 5 year period simply does not make sense. It sounded too unrealistic and I did not believe it. I know some people believe "If it's on the internet then it must be true) but ya see, I am not a dullard who believes everything he reads on the internet. If something seems suspicious to me, I usually verify it independently before i believe it.
Sure enough I checked pro football reference.com and they say the Patriots fumbled 108 times since 2010, not 33.
33 =/= 108.
And that chart proves absolutely nothing.
The 33 number you got from that article refers to fumbles lost, not total fumbles. The calculations are correct, its just the labelling for the chart he pictured is incorrect. The next chart in that article correctly states "fumbles lost" as 33. The article keeps bouncing between the two and it is difficult to follow plus the keep referencing the wrong thing. And according to pro football reference they lost 4 (2014), 9 (2013), 8 (2012), 5 (2011), and 5 (2010). That would be 31 offensive fumbles lost since 2010. I will assume the other two are special teams since they don't track those on that site. By the way pro football reference totals for Patriots fumbles since 2010 is 81 not the 108 you used (9 in 2010, 15 in 2011, 14 in 2012, 27 in 2013, and 16 in 2014). Not sure where you got that total from unless you were using their opponents numbers (so you may be looking at something I am not).
Here is the link to the entire article the chart was from for you:
http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/?p=2932
And before you say the used fumbles lost for the Patriots (increasing their number) and fumbles per play for the rest of the teams (lowering theirs), I looked at a few others (including the Cowboys) and the Patriots would have finished dead last in per play if they made that mistake. It was reference incorrectly but they used apples to apples for the teams I looked at.
