Winning, and The Turnover Battle under Singletary
by grantmp on Nov 22, 2010 9:03 AM PST
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PrintI take the following axioms to be self-evidently true:
1) Winning the turnover battle correlates to winning football games.
2) Good teams win the turnover battle.
3) Very good teams can lose the turnover battle and still win football games.
In the 35 games the Niners have played under Mike Singletary, the Niners have performed poorly (won fewer games than they should've) in games in which they have a positive takeaway/giveaway ratio and performed very poorly in games that in which they have had a negative takeaway/giveaway ratio. My curiosity about this issue was peaked when Football Outsiders came out and predicted that the Niners would win only 5 games because their streak (from 2009) of high takeaway games would not continue.
I ran the numbers over the past 35 games (after the jump), and the quick hit summary looks like this:
1) When the Niners have a takeaway/giveaway ratio of +2 or better, their record is 7-2
2) When the Niners are +1, their record is 2-0
3) When neither team gets a turnover advantage, their record is 4-3
4) When the Niners are -1, their record is 2-7
5) When the Niners have a takeaway giveaway ratio of -2 or worse, their record is 1-7
+2 turnover ratio games
2009
win Week 4: Rams 0, 49ers 35: 49ers +3
loss Week 8: 49ers 14, Colts 18: 49ers +2
win Week 10: Bears 6, 49ers 10: 49ers +4
win Week 12: Jags 3, 49ers 20: 49ers +2
win Week 14: Cardinals 9, 49ers 24: 49ers +5
win Week 16: Lions 6, 49ers 20: 49ers +5
2010
win Week 6: Raiders 9, 49ers 17: 49ers +2
loss Week 7: 49ers 20, Panthers 23: 49ers +2
win Week 8: Broncos 16, 49ers 24: 49ers +2
RECORD=7-2
+1 turnover ratio games
2008
win Week 14: Jets 14, 49ers 24: 49ers +1
2009
win Week 2: Seahawks 10, 49ers 23: 49ers +1
RECORD=2-0
0 turnover ratio games
2008
win Week 13: Bills 3, 49ers 10: 0
loss Week 15: 49ers 9, Dolphins 14: 0
win Week 17: Redskins 24, 49ers 27: 0
2009
loss Week 3: 49ers 24, Vikings 27: 0
win Week 17: Rams 6, 49ers 28: 0
2010
loss Week 3: 49ers 10, Chiefs 31: 0
win Week 10: Rams 20, 49ers 23: 0
RECORD=4-3
-1 turnover ratio games
2008
win Week 11: Rams 16, 49ers 35: 49ers -1
loss Week 12: 49ers 22, Cowboys 35: 49ers -1
loss Week 13: 49ers 17, Seahawks 20: 49ers -1
2009
win Week 1: Cardinals 16, 49ers 20: 49ers -1
loss Week 5: 49ers 10, Falcons 45: 49ers -1
loss Week 7: 49ers 21, Texans 24: 49ers -1
loss Week 11: 49ers 24, Packers 30: 49ers -1
2010
loss Week 1: 49ers 6, Seahawks 31: 49ers -1
loss Week 4: 49ers 14, Falcons 16: 49ers -1
RECORD=2-7
-2 turnover ratio games
2008
loss Week 8: 49ers 13, Seahawks 34: 49ers -2
loss Week 10: 49ers 24, Cardinals 29: 49ers -3
win Week 16: Rams 16, 49ers 17: 49ers -3
2009
loss Week 9: 49ers 27, Titans 34: 49ers -4
loss Week 15: 49ers 13, Eagles 27: 49ers -2
2010
loss Week 2: 49ers 22, Saints 25: 49ers -4
loss Week 5: 49ers 24, Eagles 27: 49ers -4
loss Week 11: 49ers 0, Buccaneers 23: 49ers -2
RECORD=1-7
4 things should be noticed in this summary:
1) the Niners have gotten more +2 turnover games in seasons 2009 and 2010 under Singletary than they did in 2008.
2) the Niners have performed more poorly in close turnover ratio (-1, 0, or +1 turnover ratio) games in 2009 and 2010 than they did in 2008 (2008:4-2, 2009: 2-5, 2010:1-3)
3) the Niners have played 11 games with a positive turnover ratio, 7 with a flat ratio (no advantage/disadvantage), and 17 with a negative turnover ratio.
4) The Niners have won only 3 of the 17 negative turnover ratio games, and have lost 2 of their 11 positive ratio games.
MY TAKE:
Mike Singletary's football conservative football philosophy ironically makes the team less likely to win games when they're behind or have had offensive turnovers, and more likely to lose them when they're ahead or have gotten takeaways. Too often it seems like Singletary treats a turnover as 'just another stop by the defense' and not an opportunity to go for the knockout blow. This team isn't good enough to "play close and win at the end": they need to build leads early and then constantly try to expand them. The game against the Buccaneers is a classic example of a failure to adapt tactically to the look that the defense is giving you. The Bucs came out to stuff the run game, and the short range passing game and instead of adapting and attacking down the field, the Niners stuck with the same offensive philosophy -- which, ostensibly was designed to limit turnovers -- but which failed to make the splash plays that a) could have countered the turnovers that the Niners had committed and b) would have made the defense adjust.
(In the games played (by all NFL teams) over the last three weeks, when teams have a +2 takeaway/giveaway ratio, they have won 17 of 21 games. Those other 4 games--in which the teams that are -2 or worse still end up winning are what interest me).
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.
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turnovers are a random occurrence that cant be controlled or coached by a team, they will happen so its tough to put that on anyone, if you go down the line and do this analysis for every team im sure the results will be the same. The only true correlation with turnovers is with interceptions if your qb play is well below average (which of course is the 49ers case).
I do agree though that the conservative play calling does hurt the 49ers because if turnovers are random then calling plays conservatively is just as likely to result in a turnover than airing it out, but conservative play calls severely decrease the team’s ability to score the points necessary to recover from them
by haroldansivakumar on Nov 22, 2010 3:11 PM PST reply actions
I suppose that my case could be strengthened by doing a comparative analysis with another team
but to call them strictly random is I think overstating the point.
One of the games that I was particularly thinking of when writing this post was the CutLOLer game—in which the Niners picked off 5 of his passes (last year, Week 10). The crazy thing about that game was the fact that the Niners had so many interceptions, they only managed to put up 10 points. If you looked at this past week, 2 of the other real blowouts came in games where there was a +2 turnover differential (Oak 3, Pitt 35: Minn 3, GB 31).
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I totally agree that there is a correlation between turnovers and wins/loses
but i think it is random when those turnovers present themselves and that you can’t coach your team to avoid them better. Some years you hardly turn the ball over at all other years you constantly give it up. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s nothing sing can do about the turnover battle (other than get an actual qb out there), but where he’s hurting us is by limiting our point scoring potential in an attempt to avoid something that is unavoidable.
Last years niners team created a ton of turnovers stripped the ball a lot, but since that isnt a repeatable skill we’re now seeing this year that they are not a very good team without turn over help.
by haroldansivakumar on Nov 22, 2010 6:42 PM PST up reply actions
I used to think it was random...
but there are some things you can do as a coach:
http://multimedia.foxsports.com/m/video/27333335/billick-101-preventing-turnovers.htm
Brian Billick (a football mind I respect, though I’m not sure I’d want him coaching the Niners) says that there are some things you can do to limit them—like coaching proper technique for your ball-handlers, teaching blockers how to stay assignment-true so that you don’t have free runners, or so that if you do, you don’t have unanticipated free runners, and rallying to the ball so that you simply have more bodies around the pile in case the ball does come out. Also, it seems to me that you can coach defensive players to strip the ball and to put their helmets on the ball when making tackles: there’s a reason why the best pass rushers get sacks and strips. The Saints defense apparently practices stripping offensive players so much it gets annoying (according to the SNF crew).
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you can defeinitely reduce the likelihood of certain types of turnovers
by technique. Some INT’s are not “random” as much as a horrible decision by a QB trying to force a ball somewhere or not knowing the route the WR will break off, etc. Good technique on catchings punts/kicks can be taught to reduce those sorts of turnovers too.
I see a lot of confusion on the field. That's the worst part.
Nitwitter
Also, it's not a coaching thing, necessarily, but...
bringing in guys who can catch punts consistently (which Sing, to his credit, has advocated doing) is another way you can reduce turnovers.
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I was glad KW let that one go that had him drifting back and inside the 15
I see a lot of confusion on the field. That's the worst part.
Nitwitter
Clearly the right decision
That’s why you bring in a guy who has done return work in college (instead of getting…umm…who was that guy from the Titans again?…Brandon Jones?—anyway, instead of getting some schmo who’s never done the job before and throwing him in there).
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