Okay, so, I’ve been digging into this whole “turnover differential” thing for the 2023 NFL season, and let me tell you, it’s been a wild ride. I wanted to see how teams did in terms of holding onto the ball versus, you know, giving it away like it’s free candy.
First off, I started by gathering all the data I could find. It was like sifting through a mountain of stats. Websites, sports pages, you name it. I grabbed everything related to turnovers from last year. I had to figure out which teams were butterfingers and which ones were like human flypaper.
Then, I created this huge spreadsheet. I organized it by team and started inputting the numbers. It was a bit tedious, honestly. I put in how many times a team lost the ball because of a fumble or an interception—that’s the “giveaways” part. Then, I put in how many times they snatched the ball away from the other team—those are the “takeaways”.
- Giveaways: This is when a team loses the ball, either through a fumble or an interception.
- Takeaways: This is when a team gains possession because the other team messed up.
The fun part was doing the math. I subtracted the giveaways from the takeaways to get the turnover differential. A positive number means you’re doing pretty good—taking the ball more than you’re losing it. A negative number, well, you’ve got some work to do.
I noticed some teams were just terrible at holding onto the ball. Like, seriously, they were turning it over all the time. I remember seeing the Chicago Bears turned the ball over 25 times, that’s not good. I found it interesting that the Houston Texans had the fewest turnovers. And some teams were amazing at taking it away. It’s like they had a magnet or something.
After I crunched all the numbers, I ranked the teams based on their turnover differential. It was cool to see who came out on top and who was at the bottom of the barrel. I made some colorful charts too, because who doesn’t love a good chart?
So, that’s my little adventure into the world of NFL turnover differentials for 2023. It was a lot of work, but I learned a ton. And it really shows how important it is to hold onto that ball!