Will the Vikings Keep Racking Up Those Takeaways?
Ten weeks into the NFL season, the Vikings’ defense is looking like an elite unit based on a plethora of different metrics. The Vikings rank 1st in EPA/play, 3rd in points allowed per game, and 11th in yards allowed per game.
The run defense has been especially stout: Minnesota ranks 2nd in rushing yards per game and 1st in rushing first downs allowed per game.
Perhaps the most telling statistic, however, is the Vikings’ ability to force turnovers. Through ten games, the Vikings rank 1st in interceptions with 15 and 1st in takeaways with 20.
The Vikings already have three defensive touchdowns(!). At present, 15 teams in the NFL don’t have a single defensive touchdown. These big plays have given the Vikings an enormous boost in win probability. Indeed, historically, teams that have scored a defensive touchdown have won about 75% of the time.
But is this sustainable for the rest of 2024 and beyond?
It is well known that elite defense is slightly less sustainable than elite offense — in other words, defense is slightly more unpredictable. In a previous study of mine, I found that points scored one season can predict points scored the next season with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.36, whereas points allowed can predict points allowed the next season with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.32.
Both of these correlation coefficients are relatively small — in the NFL, nothing is all that stable from one season to the next, and it is quite difficult to predict the future. (After all, who would have predicted that the Vikings would have been this good to start the season?)
But what about turnovers, specifically? Can a team that generates turnovers at a high rate be expected to maintain that ability in the future?
To answer this, I performed a small and simple study: comparing takeaways from one season to the next for all 32 NFL teams between the years 2020 and 2023.
The result: defensive takeaways one season correlate with takeaways the next season with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.25. (On the other hand, offensive turnovers have essentially no correlation with turnovers the next season — perhaps a result of the fact that QBs who turn the ball over too much tend to be cut, traded, or benched.)
In other words, this simple study suggests that the ability to force turnovers is only slightly less sustainable than the ability to keep teams off the board. It may be too much to hope that the Vikings can maintain their rate of defensive touchdowns, but it is plausible that the chaos-inducing Brian Flores defense will continue to generate confusion and force turnovers.
The big question remaining for the Flores’s group, though, is whether they can force those turnovers at the right time. So far this season, the Vikings have had five games with multiple interceptions (against the Jets, Packers, Texans, and Jaguars) and one game with none (against the Lions).
Such game-to-game inconsistency is typical when it comes to turnovers. But if the Vikings are going to make a deep playoff run against elite teams like the Lions, they will need to catch the high end of variance in the games that really matter.
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