THE POWER RANK

  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • College Basketball
    • NFL
    • College Football
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
    • CFB yards per play
    • World Soccer/Football
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
    • COVID-19 Policy
  • Log in

Can a defense force turnovers? SI.com looks at the art of fumbles

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, Chris Harry at SI.com wrote an article on the art of forcing fumbles. Defenders, such as Charles Tillman of the Chicago Bears, “have used running backs, wideouts and tight ends as their personal canvases to become Picassos when it comes to getting the football on the ground.” The article’s timing was impeccable after San Francisco’s Kyle Williams fumbled two punt returns in an overtime loss to the New York Giants in the NFC Championship game.

But numbers just don’t support the argument that a defense can force fumbles. Bill Barnwell at Grantland found a weak correlation between turnovers in the first 5 games and the last 11 games of an NFL season. (The study found a correlation coefficient r=0.14 over a sample of over 600 NFL teams over 21 years.) Harry actually offers us more evidence. He states that Tillman forced a career high 6 fumbles in 2009. Since the Bears faced 1033 plays that season, he had a forced fumble rate of 0.6%. Not a Picasso level of forcing fumbles in my mind.

Have any thoughts? Think that someone needs to do a player based analysis on forcing fumbles? Leave us a comment please.

Note: Sports Reference claims that Tillman forced 6 turnovers in 2009, with 2 interceptions and 4 forced fumbles. It’s not clear whether Chicago recovered any of those fumbles. And, of course, Tillman probably didn’t play in every play in 2009. And he wasn’t near the ball on every play. But the picture is clear: his forced fumble rate was low even in his best year.

For more content, find The Power Rank on Twitter.

Related Posts:

—About The Power Rank.
—College football rankings.
—Can a defense force turnovers?
—The Power Rank featured on KALX Spectrum, the science and technology show on UC Berkeley student radio.

Filed Under: Chicago Bears, Football Analytics, National Football League, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Predictions from Ed Feng

I use my Stanford Ph.D. in applied math to make football and March Madness predictions.

To get a sample of my best American football predictions and March Madness cheat sheet, sign up for my free email newsletter.

Enter your email and click on "Sign up now!"

Popular Articles

  • How to win your NCAA tournament pool
  • The ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics
  • How to predict interceptions in the NFL
  • Accurate football predictions with linear regression
  • The surprising truth about passing and rushing in the NFL
  • Football analytics resource guide
  • The Reason You Can’t Avoid The Curse of Small Sample Size
  • The essential guide to predictive CFB rankings
  • How computer rankings make you smarter about sports
  • How to win your college football bowl pool
  • Do you make these 3 mistakes with college football statistics?
  • The Top 10 Things to Know About The Power Rank’s Methods
  • 5 insights from academic research on predicting world soccer/football matches

Recent Articles

  • Bracket Wisdom #6: The NET Rankings, Explained
  • [Members] College basketball predictions for March 6, 2021
  • Bracket Wisdom #5: Houston
  • Bracket Wisdom #4: The one thing you must get right to win
  • Bracket Wisdom #3: Alabama

© 2021 The Power Rank Inc., All rights reserved.

About, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy

Get a sample of my best football predictions

While I usually save my best predictions for paying members of the site, I offer a sample in my weekly email newsletter.


To get this service, sign up for my free email newsletter.


Enter your email and click on "Sign up now!"

No thanks, I'll make predictions without data and analytics.

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":true}
  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • College Basketball
    • NFL
    • College Football
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
    • CFB yards per play
    • World Soccer/Football
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
    • COVID-19 Policy