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NFL Turnovers = Turnaround

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Several weeks ago, I posted a blog article on my popular annual college football feature called “Turnovers=Turnaround.”  As I explained in my blog, the basic premise of the article is simple:  teams that benefit from a large turnover margin in a particular year are not likely to enjoy that same margin in the upcoming year.  As a result, a team’s record is more likely to decline if it relied heavily upon turnovers as a core basis for winning.  Conversely, a team that struggles with an unfavorable turnover margin will often experience a reversal of fortunes.  Since turnover margin is such a critical factor in a football game, a change in turnover margin can lead to dramatically different results.

In my recent blog post (Here), I also noted that there is a good deal of roster change each year in college football with limited eligibility, particularly at the quarterback position, where a veteran might be replaced with an 18 year old in the following season.  As always, however, I like to examine trends in college football to see whether they apply with equal force in the professional game.  On this point, NFL players obviously are not limited in terms of eligibility, so a team can lock down its franchise quarterback for many years, like the Patriots have done with Tom Brady.  Then again, the NFL has free agency and a salary cap, which means that player movement and roster turnover is common in the pros as well.

So how does this theory apply to the NFL?  As illustrated in my NFL magazine (p. 18), it is clear that a large turnover margin, either positive or negative, actually has a higher correlation with a change in performance to the next year than college football.  If we go back 24 years to 1991, we can see that 85 teams have had 12+ turnovers, which is my benchmark for the NFL as opposed to a +11 benchmark in college (16 NFL games vs. 13 games for most college teams).    Of those 85, 63 have had weaker records in the following year (74.1%) while 12 have improved their record (14.1%) and the other 10 finished with the same record (11.8%).  Thus, 85.9 % of NFL teams over this span have had a weaker or same record from the prior year.  In fact, the connection has grown even stronger over the last 8 years, as 29 of 34 teams (85.3%) had a weaker record and 3 had the same record for a 94.1% rate of accuracy!

Using this method, I create my “Going Down” list in the magazine.  This list contains all of the teams with a +12 or greater turnover margin, thereby making them likely to have the same or a worse record.  Heading into last year, there were 5 teams the "Going Down" box.  Three had worse records, led by San Francisco (from 12-4 to 8-8) and two stayed the same.

As mentioned above, the flip side holds true; i.e., teams that received bad breaks the year before are usually headed for better fortune the following season. In the past 24 years, there have been 89 teams that have finished the season at -12 or worse in turnover margin. Of those 89 teams, 59 (66.4%) have improved their record in the next year and 11 (12.3%) have remained the same, so 70 out of 89 (79%) teams have ended up with the same or worse record since 1991.

Last year, I included 5 teams in my “Going Up” box, which includes all teams with a -12 or worse turnover margin.  Houston improved markedly from 2-14 to 9-7 under new HC Bill O’Brien, while Detroit and Minnesota both improved as well.  On the other hand, this system apparently is inapplicable in the Big Apple because the Giants and Jets actually had worse records despite their inclusion on the Going Up list.

The examples are limitless but the theory is simple and has proven to be accurate year-in and year-out.  From the magazine, here are this year’s “Going Up and Going Down” lists based on 2014 statistics, each of which contain three teams each:

• One interesting item of note here is the inclusion of Houston, which actually made the opposite list heading into 2014.  This shows that the Texans experienced a mammoth reversal in fortunes between the two years, which aided greatly in their improvement
• I referenced Tom Brady above, as his ability to protect the ball gives New England an edge in the ability to finish with a positive margin.  With a suspension looming for Brady, the Patriots could be in line for a slip.

Finally, for your reference, here is the complete list of turnover margin from last year:

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