Tracking every NFL team's health with the STEP [Sack + Turnover + Explosive Play] Differential
Last year, I started tracking a stat every week that was inspired by Brian Billick’s “Toxic Differential” statistic that combined explosive play and turnover differential into a single number. My version added sacks to the mix and doubled the value of turnovers. I called the statistic “Toxic Differential Plus” as an homage to Billick’s original idea.
In an effort to make the name a little more intuitive, I’m rebranding Toxic Differential Plus to STEP Differential. STEP stands for Sack + Turnover(x2) + Explosive Play Differential. As I have said many times, there are no perfect statistics, so please don’t mistake this for trying to be that. However, I think it provides an incredibly interesting view into overall team health and tells an interesting story as we navigate another NFL season.
I’m using Infogram again this year:
We’re still early on in the season so there’s still plenty of noise with the game to game influence but…the Jags?! They are 2-1 with wins over Carolina and Houston, both teams under water right now, and a loss to the Bengals, also under water. We’ll learn a lot about the Jags with upcoming games against the 49ers, Chiefs, Seahawks, and Rams – all teams off to a solid start in STEP Differential. Like in previous years, teams with deep negative numbers tend to struggle in the wins column and the NFL’s winless squads are mostly in the cellar with the Giants the lone team in the league at a zero. Poor Jets.
I have kept the previous end of year data going back to 2020 on the slides. I have a spreadsheet that goes back much further and at some point, I’ll write up a long analysis. For right now, I think it’s most interesting to think of this as an interesting data point to keep in mind as we try to sort out contenders and pretenders.
Category: General Sports
