Interceptions and momentum

Basically, momentum in general in football is a myth. More so with picks.

David Romer considers momentum in his paper “Do Firms Maximize? Evidence from Professional Football”. In this study he looks at very good plays and very bad plays, and then the next three plays in an attempt to quantify momentum. He finds that there is no significant momentum effect (actually it goes in the reverse direction, the team that did poorly did slightly better than average on the next play). I wanted to look at a very similar effect; the momentum value of interceptions. I wanted to see how much more likely, in terms of actual points the intercepting team was to score. What I found definitely surprised me, although I should have seen it coming.