NFL Losing To TOM (Turn Over Margin) - Part 2

As promised in Part 1, our Nattering study of the above captioned...

Losing to TOM - Regular Season



YearTOMTotal
W - L - T Win%
Home
W - L - T Win%
Road
W - L - T Win%
1970-2016LT=-11872-6811-44 (.217)1142-2944-22 (.281)730-2867-22 (.160)

LT=-2707-4777-21 (.139)454-1976-11 (.188)254-2471-10 (.095)

As you can see in the table above, since the merger there is a substantial premium on regular season 1) road turnovers and  2) having a TOM differential greater than -1, as in even or positive.  

Viz. On the road, if you turned over the ball 2 or more times than your opponent, you had a 9.5% chance of winning or a 90.5% chance of losing the game.  

How important is TOM?  Let this former NFL coach tell you in no uncertain terms.




Wanna talk about the playoffs?


Losing to TOM - The Playoffs



YearTOMTotal
W - L - T Win%
Home
W - L - T Win%
Road
W - L - T Win%
1970-2016LT=-171-318-0 (.183)50-101-0 (.331)16-183-0 (.080)
LT=-226-220-0 (.106)19-68-0 (.218)5-126-0 (.038)

Playoff home teams have a better chance of surviving their mistakes, than in the regular season: TOM -1 = 33.1% vs 28.1% and TOM -2 = 21.8% vs 18.8%. 


In the playoffs turnovers are magnified on the road:  TOM -1 = 8.0% vs 16% regular season and TOM -2 = 3.8% vs 9.5% regular season.  


Viz. Turning the ball over 2 more times than your opponent on the road in the playoffs, you lose 96.2% of the time.


Did you notice the Home/Road W-L totals don't add up? That's because the Super Bowl is played at a neutral site.


Now you know 1) how most games are won and lost  2) the severe penalty for having a -2 or greater differential on the road. 3) the probability or odds of winning a game based upon a teams turnover differential.


All of our calculations provided courtesy of the statistical wizards at Pro Football Reference.


More to Come...

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