Windy City Gridiron
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:
I split up the colors on the cumulative graph off to the right between 3 and 4 win teams, 2 win teams, and the bottom of the pack. All teams in the league that have one or zero wins right now are negative in STEP Differential. The worst two win team is the Bengals and they’ve fallen apart since the Burrow injury. The Lions, Rams, and Bills shouldn’t surprise anyone at the top, but kudos to the Jags, Seahawks, and Colts, who are likely surprising many with their strong September.
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.
