2006 DVOA Projections

by Aaron Schatz

OK, folks, here they are: the 2006 DVOA projections. You'll find more discussion of these projections in the FOXSports.com preseason power rankings [1], which combine the DVOA projections and the summertime subjective power rankings that we did in June (50% strength for each).

(Here's the requisite link to an explanation of DVOA [2], which stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average and measures a team's performance on every play of the season compared to league average in the same situation, adjusted for opponent. I know a lot of people are coming here from various message boards and this is just going to look like a jumble of pointless numbers. Trust me, there is a method to the madness, and over the past six seasons DVOA has been a far more accurate predictor of future performance than wins or points.)

Offense, defense, and special teams DVOA are all projected separately using a system based on 2000-2005 numbers. The equations include a number of variables based on performance over the past two seasons in different splits (by down, passing vs. rushing, red zone vs. whole field) plus variables based on recent draft history, coaching experience, quarterback experience, and even weather.

Strength of schedule was then figured based on the average projected total DVOA of all 16 opponents for 2006 (yes, projected performance, not 2005 performance), and then wins were projected based on offense, defense, special teams, and strength of schedule.

There are no manual adjustments -- the numbers we are presenting here are exactly what the projection system spit out. A few of them will look strange to you. A few of them look strange to us. Two years ago, we thought the projection system was broken when it said San Diego would have a huge offensive season. Last year, we didn't understand why it said Tampa Bay would win the NFC South. There's a good chance that something that looks strange now will turn out to be correct by the end of the season. And some of them will end up wrong, because nobody's perfect. (Some readers have a problem with this concept, but what are you gonna do?)

The projections here are updated from Pro Football Prospectus 2006 based on some variables related to player experience, injury history (improved for Cincinnati and Miami), and roster movement (such as downgrading the Kansas City offense with Roaf retiring, upgrading the defense with Ty Law signing, and downgrading the Patriots for the Deion Branch situation).

Notice that the defensive projections are grouped together much closer than the offensive projections, so it's much better to be projected as the third highest offense than it is to be projected as the third highest defense.

TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	TOTAL RANK	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK	SCHED	SCHED RANK
SEA	39.8%	1	32.0%	1	-8.4%	2	-0.7%	18	-6.4%	29
IND	27.6%	2	30.6%	2	-0.2%	19	-3.2%	30	-2.2%	21
SD	21.2%	3	16.3%	5	-5.3%	8	-0.4%	17	2.9%	10
KC	19.4%	4	14.8%	6	-5.6%	4	-1.0%	22	5.2%	3
CIN	19.1%	5	22.2%	3	2.8%	24	-0.3%	16	5.8%	2
DEN	18.3%	6	18.9%	4	-0.7%	17	-1.3%	24	7.3%	1
PIT	15.6%	7	14.0%	8	-0.9%	16	0.6%	12	4.4%	5
PHI	12.0%	8	4.4%	10	-5.2%	9	2.4%	4	-2.3%	22
CHI	11.2%	9	-2.7%	17	-13.7%	1	0.2%	14	-9.5%	32
CAR	11.1%	10	8.9%	9	-3.2%	12	-1.0%	20	-3.2%	24
ATL	8.4%	11	1.6%	12	-5.5%	5	1.3%	8	-1.7%	19
WAS	7.2%	12	-0.5%	15	-5.4%	7	2.3%	5	-2.0%	20
NE	6.8%	13	14.1%	7	6.0%	27	-1.3%	25	-5.6%	28
JAC	4.2%	14	2.5%	11	-1.3%	15	0.4%	13	0.5%	16
NYG	2.0%	15	-0.2%	14	-2.3%	13	-0.2%	15	4.6%	4
OAK	1.8%	16	-5.4%	21	-5.7%	3	1.4%	7	4.2%	6
TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	TOTAL RANK	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK	SCHED	SCHED RANK
TB	0.0%	17	-1.9%	16	-3.3%	11	-1.4%	27	4.1%	9
BAL	-0.3%	18	-4.9%	20	-5.5%	6	-1.0%	21	4.2%	7
MIA	-0.4%	19	-8.2%	22	-3.5%	10	4.3%	1	-4.9%	27
DAL	-2.4%	20	-4.0%	18	-0.7%	18	0.9%	10	0.3%	17
TEN	-7.4%	21	0.9%	13	9.8%	29	1.5%	6	1.1%	13
DET	-8.7%	22	-4.8%	19	3.2%	25	-0.7%	19	-6.8%	30
CLE	-8.8%	23	-12.2%	26	-2.2%	14	1.2%	9	4.2%	8
GB	-13.4%	24	-9.9%	23	2.2%	22	-1.4%	26	-8.0%	31
ARI	-17.5%	25	-10.5%	24	1.5%	20	-5.6%	32	1.0%	15
MIN	-19.4%	26	-16.4%	28	1.9%	21	-1.0%	23	-4.7%	26
HOU	-21.0%	27	-13.4%	27	8.4%	28	0.8%	11	1.1%	14
BUF	-23.3%	28	-20.5%	32	5.7%	26	2.9%	2	-2.9%	23
STL	-24.6%	29	-11.8%	25	10.6%	31	-2.3%	28	2.6%	12
SF	-25.6%	30	-18.0%	30	2.2%	23	-5.3%	31	0.2%	18
NYJ	-26.7%	31	-19.2%	31	9.9%	30	2.4%	3	-4.2%	25
NO	-34.1%	32	-16.9%	29	14.6%	32	-2.6%	29	2.8%	11

Next, we've projected the entire season 5,000 times. We give the mean projected wins for those simulations, as well as the standard deviation, the percentage of time each team won the division, and the percentage of time each team made the playoffs. Thank you to Dr. Ben Alamar, who wrote the code to create the simulations.

NFC
East	Division	Playoffs	Win	SD
PHI	43.2%	61.4%	9.9	2.49
WAS	33.3%	53.9%	9.2	1.98
NYG	16.9%	35.6%	7.8	2.09
DAL	16.3%	33.9%	7.5	2.46
North	Division	Playoffs	Win	SD
CHI	59.4%	69.0%	10.6	2.94
DET	19.6%	36.1%	7.7	1.93
GB	15.4%	30.4%	7.2	2.82
MIN	7.1%	15.5%	5.9	3.54
South	Division	Playoffs	Win	SD
CAR	45.8%	62.0%	9.9	2.14
ATL	38.0%	56.4%	9.0	3.38
TB	18.1%	34.5%	7.5	2.17
NO	1.3%	3.5%	3.6	4.51
West	Division	Playoffs	Win	SD
SEA	79.5%	79.8%	13.6	2.66
ARI	2.4%	12.8%	5.6	2.31
SF	1.5%	7.8%	4.8	3.10
STL	1.7%	7.0%	4.6	3.88

AFC
East	Divison	Playoffs	Win	SD
NE	49.4%	56.5%	9.6	3.03
MIA	30.5%	40.3%	8.4	2.68
BUF	6.8%	10.3%	5.4	2.87
NYJ	5.7%	8.8%	5.2	2.93
North	Divison	Playoffs	Win	SD
CIN	41.6%	55.0%	9.8	3.41
PIT	37.3%	52.0%	9.6	3.27
BAL	14.1%	25.8%	7.4	2.26
CLE	7.3%	14.5%	6.3	2.19
South	Divison	Playoffs	Win	SD
IND	66.0%	72.6%	12.0	3.32
JAC	18.0%	38.6%	8.5	2.42
TEN	8.4%	21.4%	7.1	3.35
HOU	3.0%	8.3%	5.4	3.02
West	Divison	Playoffs	Win	SD
SD	37.7%	59.2%	10.4	2.24
KC	31.7%	54.4%	10.0	2.83
DEN	29.3%	52.2%	9.7	3.03
OAK	13.3%	30.2%	7.9	2.91