Butterfingers: 56 Fumbles in a Season

One of the key ingredients to success on the football gridiron is keeping possession of the ball and limiting giveaways. Teams who fail at limiting their giveaways will generally fail at winning the game. Teams that cannot protect the ball will generally fail at limiting their giveaways.

The following discusses two teams with the dubious distinction of holding the top place on the NFL's all time "Most Fumbles in a Season" record with 56.

While a fumble may not derail the entire game, a lost fumble means losing possession and placing a burden on the defense. In the case of one of these teams, it was a symptom of a reinvention process moving toward an entirely new offense. In the case of the other, it was symptomatic of a very bad football team that, as it happened, was on the verge of something great.

1938 Chicago Bears

The 1938 Chicago Bears were 6-5 under George Halas. While one might think that giving the ball away 56 times over 11 games would lead to an abominable season particularly with an 11 game season at that, at 6-5 the Bears were in the middle of the pack that year.

The Bears were a team in transition: University of Chicago head coach Clark Shaughnessy was hired to collaborate with the Bears offense. The Bears offense eventually became a juggernaut, and showed some movement in that direction during the 1938 season, but in the process they literally dropped the ball. The previous year, while going 9-1-1, they had only 26 fumbles and scored 201 points while giving up only 100. In 1939 they fumbled 33 times, but went 8-3 on the power of 298 points scored - the highest in the league that year and the most since they had scored 286 in 1934.

They scored 194 points and gave up 148. The 194 points they scored was second only to the first place Green Bay Packers in the West and was tied with the East's first place team, the New York Giants. In fact, the second place team in the West, the Detroit Lions, only scored 119 points but finished 7-4 due in part to their defense which allowed only 108 points (the fewest in the West and second in the league only to the Giants). Combined with their 350 penalty yards (second only to Washington) and 18 interceptions (third lowest behind Brooklyn and Washington), the 56 fumbles did in the Bears.

When a team playing a 12 game schedule fumbles 56 times, even with the offense this team had, it will play itself out in the record. The Bears won 6 games on the strength of their offense, and lost 5 on the weakness of their ball control.

1978 San Francisco 49ers

While the fumble record setting pace of the Bears was part of a transition, and part of an NFL dynasty, the 1978 San Francisco 49ers were the terrible team one might imagine having 56 fumbles, winning 2 games all year: one against the 4-12 Cincinnati Bengals and one against the 5-11 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that one by a score of 6-3. This team did not have the high powered offense of the 1938 Bears - this team had barely an offense at all.

Coach McCulley was fired after going 1-8, to be replaced by Fred O'Connor who had a slightly better winning percentage by going 1-6. In 1979, Coach O'Connor was replaced by Bill Walsh who led the team to a 2-14 record for the second consecutive year, but whose offense led the league in completions and attempts - largely due to a poor running game -with a rookie quarterback by the name of Joe Montana waiting in the wings and a rookie receiver by the name of Dwight Clark.

Unlike the 1938 Bears, the 49ers offense was pathetic; their 219 points scored (in the course of 16 games) was the fewest in the NFL. If their offense was pathetic, the defense was even worse: they gave up 350 points - the only other teams that gave up that many points - the Seahawks (358), Jets (364), and Browns (356) - were at least 8-8 or better and scored about as many points.

The 1978 'Niners featured an aging OJ Simpson who averaged 3.7 yards per carry in ten games. He would come back for the 1979 year and retire thereafter. The 49ers, for their part, would improve to 6-11 in 1980 and go onto greatness beginning in the 1981 season.

A final note on both 56 fumble teams, they also share second place all time for Fumble Recoveries in a season with 51 (Chicago recovered 37 of it's own fumbles and captured 14 opponents'; San Francisco recovered 24 of it's own and 27 opponents'); A somewhat pyrrhic mark, but a less dubious one.

Neither of these teams holds the NFL mark for most fumbles LOST in a season, though. That mark belongs to the 1959 Chicago Cardinals with 36 lost fumbles: That team had 48 fumbles and lost 36 of them during their abominable 2-10 season - their last in Chicago before relocating to St. Louis.

REFERENCES:

Record & Fact Book, URL: http://www.nfl.com/history/randf/records/team/fumbles

"1938 NFL Standings, Stats and Awards," URL: http://www.databasefootball.com/leagues/leagueyear.htm?yr=1938&lg=nfl

1938 Chicago Bears, URL: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/chi1938.htm

The 1930's Bears, First Dynasty, URL: http://www.bearshistory.com/seasons/1930schicagobears.aspx

1978 San Francisco 49ers, URL: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/sfo1978.htm

Arizona Cardinals, URL: http://www.databasefootball.com/teams/teampage.htm?tm=ARI&lg=nfl