The Harvard Sports Analysis Collective has observed that football teams who win the turnover margin in a game, have been found to win 69.6% of the time. The relationship between win rate and turnovers only becomes stronger when a team wins the turnover margin by more than one, with there being an 83.9% chance of winning with two or more turnovers.
This reality has been all too vivid throughout the Vikings’ 2023 season. During the Vikings’ first six games, they lost the turnover margin by seven with the offense turning the ball over 13 times and the defense forcing turnovers in the Vikings’ favor six times. After the first two games head coach Kevin O’Connell promised to focus more on ball security; however, his efforts were to little avail. That is, until the Vikings’ Monday night game against the 49ers where they won the battle by a positive margin. All this makes fans wonder if the first six games were a fluke or if it was a product of O’Connell’s coaching. Specifically, the way O’Connell ran training camp may have led to a mishandling of the ball. To start, the Vikings starters never participated in full-fledged tackling and the defense was not tackling with the intent of causing a fumble throughout the offseason. While this is becoming a more popular way of running training camp throughout teams in the NFL, it is something to keep in mind.
Throughout NFL history there have been teams with turnover problems much worse than the Vikings. The 1961 Broncos had 68 turnovers throughout the season. This was the Broncos’ second year in the league and finished with three wins and 11 losses. In this case, with a 14-game season, the 1961 Broncos averaged almost five turnovers per game. However, the 1961 Broncos and the 2023 Vikings are not comparable teams since there were a lot more turnovers earlier in the life of the NFL. A more comparable team would be the 2020 49ers who turned the ball over 31 times, keeping in mind they only had a turnover differential of -11. This means if the Vikings had continued the way they were going in the first six games they would have ended up with almost 37 turnovers and a turnover margin of approximately -20.
In their highly unlikely victory against the 49ers on Monday night, the difference maker was no doubt the turnovers the Vikings’ defense caused. Despite an early game interception that was taken from the hands of Jordan Addison, Cam Bynum single-handedly intercepted two passes and forced a fumble in the red zone. The Vikings just ended the hardest stretch of games they will play this season, in that stretch they faced off against the Chiefs, Eagles and 49ers. These three teams are considered by many to be three of the top five teams in the league. Now that the easiest part of their schedule is starting, many can hope for a winning streak but only time will tell if the Vikings will be able to keep up their recent success.
