News: BTB: How The Cowboys Defense Can Get More Turnovers: Have The Offense Score Early And Often

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Turnover differential is one of the stats the Cowboys watch most closely, because it is strongly correlated to winning in the NFL. The Cowboys offense may have a bigger role in helping the defense get turnovers than you might expect.

Under Jason Garrett's tenure, and as you can read up almost daily in rabblerousr's wonderful training camp summaries, the Cowboys have incorporated a significant number of turnover drills in practice aimed at knocking balls loose, recovering loose balls, batting away passes, etc. You name it, they're practicing it.

As camp progresses you'll also see the team run more and more fourth quarter drills, as we saw yesterday:

Today, all team periods featured these elements; this final period added a new element: the scoreboard, replete with game clock. Along with this came a nail-biting scenario: the offense takes over, trailing 23-20 with 1:52 on the clock and 70 or so yards from the winning score.

The first unit, led by Brandon Weeden drove for a tying Dan Bailey field goal; the next drive ended on a Ben Malena fumble.
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Why? Because turnover differential and winning the fourth quarter are the two stats most significantly correlated with winning in the NFL. And those are the two stats Garrett and the Cowboys pay attention to most, according to Garrett's statement in a press conference on August 1, 2011.

Q: What are the two or three stats on offense you pay attention to most?

Garrett: The stats that we emphasize for our football team more than anything else is the turnover differential. The correlation between turnover differential and winning in the NFL is significant. In 2010 it was significant, the last 10 years it's been significant, the last 20 and the last 30. And the players have heard this in meetings over and over and over again.

So turnover differential is significant, and then winning the fourth quarter is significant. There were a lot of games in the NFL that were within one score in the fourth quarter, and the teams that went to the playoffs won a lot of those games. Teams that did not go to the playoffs lost a lot of those games. It's really important to be good in the fourth quarter.

You do that a couple of ways. You have to be in great condition, and you have to be great in situational football. You have to have confidence as an individual player and in your offense, defense and kicking game units.

And then you have to have poise to handle those situations and execute come crunch time. So those are the biggest things we emphasize to our guys
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It's not exactly a secret that turnover differential is highly correlated with winning in the NFL. The bigger the turnover differential in your favor, the bigger the chance you'll win the game. Heck, we even have the numbers to prove it: Last season, teams that won the turnover battle won 80 percent of the time (154 wins out of 192 games in which one team had more turnovers than the other). Here's a breakdown of winning percentages by turnover differential:

NFL winning probability by Turnover Differential, 2013 regular season
+1 +2 +3 >+3

Winning %-age​

70% 88% 96% 92%

Winning record​

57-25 79-11 22-1 12-1​

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In a 2013 season full of lowlights for the Cowboys, this table highlights yet another one: the Cowboys were the only team last year to lose a game despite a +4 turnover differential, when they lost 31-30 to the Detroit Lions, who managed to score 24 points in the fourth quarter for a highly unlikely comeback win. Just how unlikely this win was is illustrated by the following stat. The Cowboys' loss in Detroit was only the third time in 236 NFL games over the last ten years that a team with a positive turnover margin of four or more ended up losing the game.

Unfortunately, knowing about the importance of turnovers and actually getting turnovers are two very different things, in part also because of the inherent randomness of turnovers. In camp, the Cowboys are doing their due diligence by practicing and emphasizing things like ball control, fumble recoveries, ball stripping, and even have their defensive backs catching balls, all in the hopes of increasing their odds of getting a turnover.

But outside of these specific drills, there may be a much bigger factor in determining the number of defensive takeaways, and specifically interceptions: the Cowboys' offense.

At first glance, this may seem like an odd statement, but it will make a lot more sense when you look at when the majority of interceptions are thrown: Less than a quarter of all 502 interceptions thrown last year in the regular season came when the offense was playing with a lead. Most interceptions happen when you're not playing with a lead.

Here's a detailed breakdown of the interceptions thrown last year, listed by the score differential at the time when those interceptions were thrown.

Interceptions by score differential, 2013 regular season
Behind by 8
or more pts Behind by 1-7
pts Game
tied Ahead by 1-7
pts Ahead by 8
or more pts

Interceptions thrown​

169 145 75 76 37

In % of total INTs​

33.7% 28.9% 14.9% 15.1% 7.4%​

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Last year, like every year before that, teams threw a lot more interceptions when they were playing from behind than they did when playing with a lead. Almost two thirds or all interceptions were thrown when teams were playing from behind.

And when you stop to think about it, the numbers above actually make sense. We've seen it time and again, and not just from the Cowboys, but from every other team as well: Once you're playing from behind, your ground game goes out the window, and you start taking more risks in your passing game in an effort to catch up.

Once again, the stats bear this out. The interception rate (Interceptions divided by passing attempts) increases the further a team is behind, and the Pass/Run ratio tilts heavily towards the passing game when teams are playing from behind. Conversely, when playing with a lead, especially a big one, teams tend to run more than they pass, and they take fewer risks in the passing game, which in turn leads to fewer mistakes and turnovers.

Pass/Run ratio and INT% by score differential, 2013 regular season
Behind by 8
or more pts Behind by 1-7
pts Game
tied Ahead by 1-7
pts Ahead by 8
or more pts

INT/Pass Attempts​

3.3% 2.8% 2.2% 2.2% 1.8%

Pass/Run Ratio in %​

71% 62% 56% 54% 44%​

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Scoring more and earlier will put the Cowboys' opponents in the situation described above, where they have to lean on the pass and take greater risks in order to try catch up. This in turn will allow the defense to make more plays. As the opposing offenses are forced to go to the pass, the defense can sit back in its nickel and dime formations and simply wait for the opposing offenses to make mistakes.

Over the last three seasons, the Cowboys have had a turnover differential of +4 in 2011, -13 in 2012 and +8 in 2013. If they find a way to jump out to an early lead in games more often, we should see a significant improvement in the Cowboys' turnover differential. And you know what that means?

Playoffs, baby.

In the next installment, we'll take a closer look at 4th quarter performance, and we'll take a look at which NFL head coach has the highest percentage of wins decided by game-winning drives (4Q/OT).

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