Offense improves by limiting turnovers

FLOWERY BRANCH — With a little more than 48 hours to go before the Falcons play the Packers in the NFC championship game, Matt Ryan on Friday afternoon spoke of love for the football — the orb, not the game itself — as if it protecting it mattered most. It just might. For all of the improvements this season by the Falcons’ offense as the team led the NFL in scoring with 540 points, perhaps no metric has been more important than the way Ryan and his teammates have been so much better at protecting the ball.

To a lesser degree, the defense has been pretty good at swiping it, too, as the Falcons’ plus-11 turnover margin tied for fourth-best in the NFL behind three other playoff teams: the Raiders (plus16), the Chiefs (plus-16) and the Patriots (plus-12). Just behind the Falcons is Green Bay (plus-8).

“The thing I’ve been most excited about our offense this year is the way we’ve protected the ball,” Ryan said. “That was a big emphasis for us in the offseason, and for me personally I think we’ve done a good job of being really aggressive but being really smart with the football, and that’s helped us win games.”

Ryan threw only seven interceptions in 16 regular-season games, and the Falcons lost four fumbles. They made 12 interceptions and recovered 10 fumbles.

Green Bay threw eight interceptions and lost nine fumbles. The Packers made 17 interceptions and recovered eight fumbles.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has thrown 10 touchdown passes in the Georgia Dome in his career, with no interceptions. That doesn’t change the opinion of Falcons coach Dan Quinn, who is 3-0 against Rodgers as a defensive coordinator and head coach.

“The ball’s going to be a real factor in this game,” the coach said. “Who can knock it out and create a few extra possessions?”

There are all kinds of ways to look at how turnovers influence games.

On a macro level, a study done by Fansided’s Kansas City Chiefs blog, “Arrowhead Addicts,” revealed that in the NFL from 2009-13, teams that finished in the top 10 in turnover margin over those five seasons were a combined 521-278-1 (65.2 winning percentage).

Teams finishing in the bottom 10 were 287-512-1 (35.9 percent).

When Quinn was defensive coordinator for Seattle in 2013, the Seahawks led the NFL with 39 takeaways and a plus-20 turnover margin in the regular season. They won the Super Bowl a few weeks later.

On a micro level, often the turnover margin is not as critical as the timing and location of a turnover, as in the Falcons’ 30-27 win over the Vikings in the NFC championship game after the 1998 season.

The lasting memory for fans was Morten Andersen’s 38-yard field goal in overtime.

Yet the play of the game came shortly before halftime, when Falcons defensive end Chuck Smith sacked Minnesota quarterback Randall Cunningham to force a fumble, and defensive tackle Travis Hall recovered at the Vikings’ 14-yard line.

Trailing 20-7 at the time against a team that had set an NFL scoring record with 556 points, the Falcons scored on the next play, a pass from Chris Chandler to Terance Mathis.

The momentum had switched.