Josh McDaniels on Stevan Ridley’ fumbling: ‘We have to work with him’
By Mike Dyce
The New England Patriots had trouble keeping the ball of the ground on Sunday night against the Denver Broncos. Patriots running back Stevan Ridley was one of the players who fumbled, it was his fourth fumble and his third in three games.
“First of all, this night is about the team and how we pulled it out,” Ridley said after the game, via the Boston Herald. “We fought back, being down 24. For me, it’s almost disgusting — consecutive weeks, and personally as a player, my team deserves better. I come in. I work and bust my (butt) every day to come in here and not make the same mistakes. To have the same mistakes happen, there’s something I’ve got to do different, I’ve got to do better.”
Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was asked if he had lost confidence in Ridley’s ability to hold onto the ball.
“When things happen like this, in back-to-back games – or in this case a few games in a row – I think you certainly have to address what you can address in terms of trying to fix the problem. I have great confidence in Stevan as a runner. He’s been very productive in our offense. He’s done a lot of things. At the same time, obviously, ball security is the most important factor for our offense and for our team when we have the ball. We have to be part of the solution. We have to work with him,” McDaniels said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.
“He certainly wasn’t the only one that put the ball [on the ground] or got the ball knocked off of him the other night. We had way too many balls out, or balls on the ground, and turned the ball over a significant number of times. We were fortunate to overcome that, which is very rare. I think our entire offense, we need to do a better job of taking care of the football, protecting when we have it, and making smart decisions and not giving the defense the opportunity to either strip it off of us, knock it off of us, whatever it may be. That’s a team thing. Our confidence, as an offense, you want to be able to protect the football no matter who you give it to. That’s our goal and that’s our focus, and we’ll work with everybody to try to fix the issues that certainly came up the other night.”