[stupac2]

I think the author accounted for changes in personnel by looking at the year-to-year correlation in other statistics, finding that those are much higher than "forcing turnovers".

Well, sure, no one is arguing that turnovers aren't noisy. (Although, to be honest, I have no idea exactly what you're trying to argue here.) The question is "are turnovers completely random or is there skill in generating them?" To use your terms, can teams affect the lambda in the distribution? I think that the answer is obviously "yes", and it's just to what extent and what things they can do to affect it.

If every season were truly independent due to roster turnover, all the stats would be uncorrelated, but some, such as yards allowed, are more correlated than turnovers.

Again, who said everything is entirely independent? That's a terrible assumption that no one in their right mind would make, unless a team changed literally everyone from one season to the next, which (afaik) has never happened.

[stupac2]

I think the author accounted for changes in personnel by looking at the year-to-year correlation in other statistics, finding that those are much higher than "forcing turnovers".

Well, sure, no one is arguing that turnovers aren't noisy. (Although, to be honest, I have no idea exactly what you're trying to argue here.) The question is "are turnovers completely random or is there skill in generating them?" To use your terms, can teams affect the lambda in the distribution? I think that the answer is obviously "yes", and it's just to what extent and what things they can do to affect it.

If every season were truly independent due to roster turnover, all the stats would be uncorrelated, but some, such as yards allowed, are more correlated than turnovers.

Again, who said everything is entirely independent? That's a terrible assumption that no one in their right mind would make, unless a team changed literally everyone from one season to the next, which (afaik) has never happened.