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Note: What appears below is largely a cut and paste of my entry 'Turnovers in the NFL' last year. Below, I have updated the piece to include the results of last season. Welcome back.
It's no great insight that a positive takeaway turnover margin helps a team win and a negative turnover margin causes teams to lose. With that in mind, I did an analysis of the team with the best turnover margin (more takeaways than giveaways) and the team with the worse turnover margin (more giveaways than takeaways) in the NFL by season going back to 2005. I analyzed how these teams did the following year (beginning in 2006) for the first eight games of the regular season (I used the first eight games only because I thought, by then, the line would catch up with the team(s)). The analysis here is to bet against the team with the best turnover margin for the previous year and bet on the team with worse turnover margin.
Let's start with the bottom of the heap on turnovers. If two teams were tied on negative turnover margin, I used them both.
From 2006 to 2019, a bet on the team(s) in all of the first eight games was 92-47-3 ATS or 66.19% (are you interested now?)
From 2006 to 2019, a bet against the team(s) with the best turnover margin was 74-59-3 or 55.63%. This is not as good as betting on the team with the worse turnover margin. So, I took this analysis a bit further (you can accuse me of mining data if you like). There are three teams that brought this percentage down from what it might have been. They are the Chiefs, Patriots, and the Packers in the Aaron Rodgers era. My reasoning is that these teams have good turnover margins almost every year. A bet against these three teams when they had the best turnover margin the previous year was 18-22. By excluding these teams, the record here becomes 56-37-3 ATS or 60% which is pretty good.
I took the analysis a bit further on the team(s) with a positive turnover margin. See next post.
Tags: None
I wondered for both the positive and negative margin teams how they did in games 1-4 and games 5-8. A bet on the negative turnover team was 48-23-0 or 67.6% ATS in games 1-4 and 44-24-3 or 64.7% ATS in games 5-8. So, the worse turnover team(s) are about the same in games 1-4 as they are in games 5-8.
Bets against the best turnover team(s) are 30-37-1 in games 1-4 and 44-22-2 in games 5-8. This is quite a difference. If I remove my three favorite teams (Packers in the Aaron Rodgers era, Chiefs, and Patriots), I end up with a record of 34-12 or 73.9% ATS. My conclusion here is there seems to be some carryover effect for the positive turnover margin team the following year as evidenced in games 1-4. But, it catches up with them in weeks 5-8.
So, I plan to bet on the worst turnover team(s) from the previous year the first 8 games of the season and bet against the best turnover team(s) in games 5-8 (unless they are the Pats, Chiefs, or Packers).
Let's look at what happened last year:
2018 worst turnover team was the 49ers (and it wasn't close) at -25. In 2019, a bet on the 49ers in game 1-8 went 5-3-0 ATS. The best turnover team was the Seahawks in 2018 at +15. A bet against the Seahawks in games 5-8 of the 2019 season was 3-1 ATS. Combined, 2019 was 8-4 ATS. I was pleased with the result, which was in keeping with the long-term average, since it was my first year going public with the method.
So, you're asking who are the poster children for 2020 (I thought you'd never ask).
There is a tie for the negative turnover margin team at -17 TO margin. The teams are the Chargers and the Giants. I will bet them both for the first eight games giving us 16 plays (they don't play each other).
The positive margin turnover team is the Patriots at +21. I don't play against the Patriots, Packers, or Chiefs (Brady or no Brady) so there is no play there.
As a special note, marcbryanjacobs was kind enough to post the future superbowl odds in my post last year before the season started. The 49ers were 45 to 1. Do you think I put a dime on the 49ers? No. $20 on the 49ers with a hedge on the Chiefs in the big game would have made me $400+. This year, I'm going to have something on the Chargers who are 45:1 and the Giants who are 80:1!
I'll post the results here as we go. Have a good season!
Here's a link to my source for turnovers:
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/tur...?yr=2019&conf=
It's no great insight that a positive takeaway turnover margin helps a team win and a negative turnover margin causes teams to lose. With that in mind, I did an analysis of the team with the best turnover margin (more takeaways than giveaways) and the team with the worse turnover margin (more giveaways than takeaways) in the NFL by season going back to 2005. I analyzed how these teams did the following year (beginning in 2006) for the first eight games of the regular season (I used the first eight games only because I thought, by then, the line would catch up with the team(s)). The analysis here is to bet against the team with the best turnover margin for the previous year and bet on the team with worse turnover margin.
Let's start with the bottom of the heap on turnovers. If two teams were tied on negative turnover margin, I used them both.
From 2006 to 2019, a bet on the team(s) in all of the first eight games was 92-47-3 ATS or 66.19% (are you interested now?)
From 2006 to 2019, a bet against the team(s) with the best turnover margin was 74-59-3 or 55.63%. This is not as good as betting on the team with the worse turnover margin. So, I took this analysis a bit further (you can accuse me of mining data if you like). There are three teams that brought this percentage down from what it might have been. They are the Chiefs, Patriots, and the Packers in the Aaron Rodgers era. My reasoning is that these teams have good turnover margins almost every year. A bet against these three teams when they had the best turnover margin the previous year was 18-22. By excluding these teams, the record here becomes 56-37-3 ATS or 60% which is pretty good.
I took the analysis a bit further on the team(s) with a positive turnover margin. See next post.
Tags: None
I wondered for both the positive and negative margin teams how they did in games 1-4 and games 5-8. A bet on the negative turnover team was 48-23-0 or 67.6% ATS in games 1-4 and 44-24-3 or 64.7% ATS in games 5-8. So, the worse turnover team(s) are about the same in games 1-4 as they are in games 5-8.
Bets against the best turnover team(s) are 30-37-1 in games 1-4 and 44-22-2 in games 5-8. This is quite a difference. If I remove my three favorite teams (Packers in the Aaron Rodgers era, Chiefs, and Patriots), I end up with a record of 34-12 or 73.9% ATS. My conclusion here is there seems to be some carryover effect for the positive turnover margin team the following year as evidenced in games 1-4. But, it catches up with them in weeks 5-8.
So, I plan to bet on the worst turnover team(s) from the previous year the first 8 games of the season and bet against the best turnover team(s) in games 5-8 (unless they are the Pats, Chiefs, or Packers).
Let's look at what happened last year:
2018 worst turnover team was the 49ers (and it wasn't close) at -25. In 2019, a bet on the 49ers in game 1-8 went 5-3-0 ATS. The best turnover team was the Seahawks in 2018 at +15. A bet against the Seahawks in games 5-8 of the 2019 season was 3-1 ATS. Combined, 2019 was 8-4 ATS. I was pleased with the result, which was in keeping with the long-term average, since it was my first year going public with the method.
So, you're asking who are the poster children for 2020 (I thought you'd never ask).
There is a tie for the negative turnover margin team at -17 TO margin. The teams are the Chargers and the Giants. I will bet them both for the first eight games giving us 16 plays (they don't play each other).
The positive margin turnover team is the Patriots at +21. I don't play against the Patriots, Packers, or Chiefs (Brady or no Brady) so there is no play there.
As a special note, marcbryanjacobs was kind enough to post the future superbowl odds in my post last year before the season started. The 49ers were 45 to 1. Do you think I put a dime on the 49ers? No. $20 on the 49ers with a hedge on the Chiefs in the big game would have made me $400+. This year, I'm going to have something on the Chargers who are 45:1 and the Giants who are 80:1!
I'll post the results here as we go. Have a good season!
Here's a link to my source for turnovers:
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/tur...?yr=2019&conf=
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