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 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.
