A turnover is a turnover right?
Wrong.
In football, there are high-percentage, low-risk, low-reward plays...there are low-percentage, high-risk, high-reward plays...and there are plays all along the continuum in between. AND, there are offenses built around these principles, to greater or lesser extents.
In a very general sense, a game built around field position and three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust works because a coach knows that he is going to have success moving the ball X percent of the time...he is going to win the field position battle when he doesn't move the ball all that well...and just about the only thing that can really go wrong is his running back dropping the ball. Happily, that happens fairly rarely.
A game built upon a series of quick slants and short-hitting passes and usage of the backs in space -- e.g., the WCO -- is a little higher risk. But is still fairly low risk. A coach knows that he's going to gain more yards each time a play is successful than he would simply handing the ball off. And there's going to be a slightly greater probability that any given play goes the whole way. But there's also increased chance the play will go absolutely nowhere (incomplete), or that the other team will get the ball (interception).
A game built upon a vertical attack is highest-risk. A coach here knows that he's going to get more yards per successful play. He knows that there's an even better chance any given play will go all the way and/or result in a big play. But he balances this with knowledge that such plays are going to result in a LOT more plays that result in nothing, and a good many more that result in turnovers.
These probabilities are inherent in the very gameplan, and in the offensive system in which an OC or HC designs his playbook. You simply don't WANT a vertical passing attack to have zero or very few interceptions. If you do, it means you're leaving a ton of yards and points on the table, because your QB is not risking plays downfield often enough. This is why it's silly when you see people try to compare a Joe Montana or Steve Young to a Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, or Joe Namath. Those older guys played in offenses designed to generate big plays downfield at high risk. And when those offenses went well, those teams finished at or near the top of the league.
The WCO guys can and should have far greater TD:INT ratios, but should certainly still have their fair share of INT's. If they don't, if they simply rely 100% on the short, easily-completed stuff, the defense can creep up and turn those short plays into blown up receivers and backs. You have to go over the top often enough that a defense can't sit on one plan, and that comes with risk, just as the quick hits in crossing patterns that can scrape off defenders and turn into big gains are the short passes that come with the most risk. It's a "safer" approach than Daryl Lamonica ball, but if you're not seeing some percentage of your passes turned over, you're just not using the plays that can keep defenses honest or turn into big plays often enough to be efficient.
All these kinds of offenses HAVE to use running plays, either so the defense can't over-commit defensive personnel to stopping the passing game, or because the run is the foundation of the whole game. But running plays don't have the same kind of risk/reward balance. There aren't long, high-risk runs. There are only runs that turn into long runs if all goes well. Part of all going well is the idea that the RB is going to hold onto the football. A coach doesn't and can't build an offense around the idea of 80 yard runs. (With the possible exception of Wayne Fontes in the 90's.) Every run begins as the shortest, lowest-risk play the offense can run, and the success of an offense is built upon the idea that while a successful run will most likely generate only a handful of yards, failed ones that result in turnovers will happen very, very rarely.
That isn't to say all interceptions are fine. Interceptions that are the result of bad throws and stupid decisions are the mistakes of the passing game, and every one of those will drive the coach nuts. Just as missed assignments and fumbles are the mistakes of the running game, and every one of those will drive the coaches nuts, too. A QB can have 15 INT's in a season and conceivably have all of them come on good throws, in intelligent plays. Sometimes, good defenders just make plays downfield. The vast majority of fumbles are just sloppy play by the RB's. Not all, but almost all fumbles are deserving of the groans and disgust they receive.
what happened to the shark pool?
