Defenses that force turnovers tend to do well (the Kansas City Chiefs defense rode their ability to force turnovers all the way to divisional round this year). Offenses that don’t turn the ball over tend to fare well. Teams that are significantly in the positive in terms of turnover difference (one value minus another value is a difference, not a differential) are the teams that win. If you look solely at this season you see that five of the six top teams in turnover difference made the playoffs, with only the Minnesota Vikings missing.
Team | Gave up | Forced | Difference |
Kansas City Chiefs | 17 | 33 | 16 |
Oakland Raiders | 14 | 30 | 16 |
New England Patriots | 11 | 23 | 12 |
Atlanta Falcons | 11 | 22 | 11 |
Minnesota Vikings | 16 | 27 | 11 |
Green Bay Packers | 17 | 25 | 8 |
Buffalo Bills | 12 | 18 | 6 |
Philadelphia Eagles | 20 | 26 | 6 |
Baltimore Ravens | 23 | 28 | 5 |
Dallas Cowboys | 15 | 20 | 5 |
Pittsburgh Steelers | 18 | 23 | 5 |
Cincinnati Bengals | 17 | 20 | 3 |
Denver Broncos | 25 | 27 | 2 |
Miami Dolphins | 23 | 25 | 2 |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 27 | 29 | 2 |
Seattle Seahawks | 18 | 19 | 1 |
Arizona Cardinals | 28 | 28 | 0 |
Tennessee Titans | 18 | 18 | 0 |
Washington Potatoes | 21 | 21 | 0 |
Detroit Lions | 15 | 14 | -1 |
Carolina Panthers | 29 | 27 | -2 |
New York Giants | 27 | 25 | -2 |
New Orleans Saints | 24 | 21 | -3 |
Indianapolis Colts | 22 | 17 | -5 |
San Francisco 49ers | 25 | 20 | -5 |
Houston Texans | 24 | 17 | -7 |
San Diego Chargers | 35 | 28 | -7 |
Los Angeles Rams | 29 | 18 | -11 |
Cleveland Browns | 25 | 13 | -12 |
Jacksonville Jaguars | 29 | 13 | -16 |
Chicago Bears | 31 | 11 | -20 |
New York Jets | 34 | 14 | -20 |
We bucked the trend last season, winning the Super Bowl with a team that was negative in the difference. We were -4 in 2015.
There is a greater trend going here though. There were only 700 turnovers this year during the regular season. That is the lowest ever for a full season since the merger (excluding the strike-shortened 1982 season). In fact there were 632 turnovers during the 1982 season (which was 8 games long) which is almost as many as there were this year in more than twice the games (there were only 28 teams in 1982). If you plot this as a function of turnovers per play you get the graph below.
2016 was the best year ever for teams NOT turning the ball over. The Chiefs led the league this past season with 33 forced turnovers. That was down from 39 (CAR) in 2015 and 34 in 2014 (HOU). As recently as 2000, the average NFL defense forced 30 turnovers. This season the average NFL defense forced 21.9 turnovers. That value from this season is almost half of what is what in 1978 when the average NFL defense forced 40.6 turnovers.
The interesting corollary to this is that defenses are more than ever coached to try and rip the ball out when a ball-carrier has been stopped. I noticed this in every single game from this past weekend. Defenses on every team are doing something that was not common place in the league a decade ago. The reason that defenders are almost all being coached to do this is simple: with turnovers being less prevalent, every turnover is that much more critical to winning or losing a game.