A couple days ago, The Ringer published a piece titled “How to Quantify the NFL: Five Stats to better understand Football.” I hadn’t heard of toxic differential before, but among those five stats, I found it to be the most fresh and reliable predictor of success.
Toxic differential is ambitious and comprehensive; and while it may sound complex, it’s relatively easy grasp.
Toxic differential is calculated by adding turnover differential to “big play” differential.
Turnover differential is a pretty easy concept: takeaways minus giveaways. But you might not know that “big plays” are an objective statistic.