[stupac2]

Turnovers are pretty random events, especially "forcing" turnovers.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-an...ty-defense

There is much less correlation from year to year on turnovers than most other stats.

BC

But at the same time, at least for INTs, the rule is something like 2/9 passes defensed turn into INTs, and clearly getting passes defensed is a skill (as an aside, I really hate the phrase "passes defensed" but it seems to be the term of the art here so whaddayagonnado?). As the author of that article says, there are so many year-to-year changes in the NFL that it's not too surprising that the correlation is low. And you expect correlation on offense to be higher since QBs tend to move around less and avoiding INTs is definitely a skill. Even with coaching continuity, player changes could easily change these numbers, look at NE losing 3/4 of their top secondary players last year, naturally the scheme is going to change and that could affect their TO numbers. The sort of simple analysis in that post is not really going to be able to figure this out.

There's obviously still a lot of luck involved, but I think the general idea that teams can weight the dice in their favor (or against) with talent and scheme makes way too much sense to be dismissed so easily.

[stupac2]

Turnovers are pretty random events, especially "forcing" turnovers.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-an...ty-defense

There is much less correlation from year to year on turnovers than most other stats.

BC

But at the same time, at least for INTs, the rule is something like 2/9 passes defensed turn into INTs, and clearly getting passes defensed is a skill (as an aside, I really hate the phrase "passes defensed" but it seems to be the term of the art here so whaddayagonnado?). As the author of that article says, there are so many year-to-year changes in the NFL that it's not too surprising that the correlation is low. And you expect correlation on offense to be higher since QBs tend to move around less and avoiding INTs is definitely a skill. Even with coaching continuity, player changes could easily change these numbers, look at NE losing 3/4 of their top secondary players last year, naturally the scheme is going to change and that could affect their TO numbers. The sort of simple analysis in that post is not really going to be able to figure this out.

There's obviously still a lot of luck involved, but I think the general idea that teams can weight the dice in their favor (or against) with talent and scheme makes way too much sense to be dismissed so easily.