Courtesy of Nattering Naybob.
As promised in Part 1, our Nattering study of the above captioned…
Losing to TOM – Regular Season
| Year | TOM | Total W – L – T Win% |
Home W – L – T Win% |
Road W – L – T Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970-2016 | LT=-1 | 1872-6811-44 (.217) | 1142-2944-22 (.281) | 730-2867-22 (.160) |
| LT=-2 | 707-4777-21 (.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
| Year | TOM | Total W – L – T Win% |
Home W – L – T Win% |
Road W – L – T Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970-2016 | LT=-1 | 71-318-0 (.183) | 50-101-0 (.331) | 16-183-0 (.080) |
| LT=-2 | 26-220-0 (.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…
