Week 3 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

UPDATE: Commentary is now found here on FOXSports.com [1].

This week, we provide two sets of ratings -- in two entirely separate tables. The first table is the same one we've always done in the early weeks, simply VOA through the first two games, no opponent adjustments of course. The only differences between "NON-ADJ VOA" and "TOTAL VOA" are fumble luck and the weather/altitude effects on special teams.

The second table is the new rating that combines early-season performance with the preseason projection. This is still a work in progress, and I haven't yet settled on a final formula to use for each week, or figured out in what week I can shift from this formula to 2006 numbers only so that a) the numbers are as accurate as possible and b) there isn't a sudden, jarring change for 10 teams at once. Also, I have no idea what to name this thing. I thought of "Weighted DVOA" but I think it's confusing to have that be this formula and the late-season formula that drops early games. I thought of "Power DVOA," like power ranking, but that's easy to confuse with the running statistic for short-yardage downs, which we call "power situations." I could just call it "FOX Rating" like I do in those boxes to the left but that seems silly. On my worksheets I'm calling it ESW for Early-Season Weighted, but the last thing we need around here is another acronym. Anyway, I'll take your suggestions in the comments.

There's one other big change in this formula. While using the preseason projection makes our rankings of all 32 teams far more accurate if we're trying to predict how they'll do the rest of the year, the fact is that we know some things now that we didn't know two weeks ago when we did the rankings. That's important considering the number of personnel variables that I added to the projection system this off-season. So instead of using the actual DVOA projections, what I'm using here are the DVOA projections adjusted for what we know now. There are three teams that this really affects: First, we drop the offensive projection for Kansas City and Oakland by changing the variables for QB experience and "starting QB health/backup quality." Second, we drop the offensive projection for Washington; the offensive coordinator variable was 3 because it's the same offensive coordinator as the last two years, but at this point it's clear that the titles in Washington are totally meaningless. Not only has Al Saunders installed his offense, but the team is having a heck of a time learning the thing. This is not an isolated incident, which is why the offensive projection penalizes a team with a new offensive coordinator, and we've adjusted Washington accordingly.

On the other hand, none of the "facts on the ground" have changed in Denver, so the projection used in the formula is the same as it was in the preseason, and the Broncos rank seventh in offense on the second table despite their early struggles.

For those curious, the formula this week is 80 percent projection, 20 percent 2006 VOA. Home-field adjustments are still not in here yet. I really will add them this year, I promise. The separate pages for offense, defense, and special teams have now been changed from 2005 to 2006. Individual stats are updated as well.

Two more notes: I didn't stick up the Saturday game previews because I was otherwise occupied. Sorry about that. Also, we've reprogrammed Loser League to be more efficient with the new server, so check tomorrow's Scramble for information about how to check your team's performance in Weeks 1-2.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through Week 2 of 2006, measured by our proprietary Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system that breaks down every single play and compares a team's performance to the league average based on situation in order to determine value over average. (Explained further here [2].)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE VOA are adjusted to consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver/Mexico City) and week of season.

There are no opponent adjustments for the first three weeks of the season, which is why offense and defense are "VOA" and not "DVOA."

To save people some time, please use the following format for all complaints:

<team> is clearly ranked <too high/too low> because <reason unrelated to DVOA>. <subjective ranking system> is way better than this. <unrelated team-supporting or -denigrating comment, preferably with poor spelling and/or chat-acceptable spelling>

ACTUAL 2006 NUMBERS
	TEAM	TOTAL VOA	LAST WEEK	NON-ADJ VOA	W-L	OFFENSE VOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE VOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	BAL	84.3%	1	103.6%	2-0	-1.5%	14	-82.3%	1	3.5%	9
2	SD	83.8%	3	90.3%	2-0	31.3%	2	-48.9%	2	3.6%	8
3	CHI	62.6%	2	70.3%	2-0	21.5%	4	-23.6%	7	17.5%	1
4	CIN	44.7%	8	45.3%	2-0	15.5%	8	-27.1%	6	2.1%	14
5	JAC	41.7%	11	47.5%	2-0	-3.0%	15	-44.1%	3	0.6%	17
6	PHI	40.9%	5	27.6%	1-1	36.2%	1	-3.1%	16	1.6%	15
7	ATL	31.5%	4	37.4%	2-0	12.1%	9	-32.2%	5	-12.8%	31
8	SEA	23.7%	14	19.9%	2-0	-7.1%	16	-34.9%	4	-4.1%	21
9	BUF	23.6%	15	21.8%	1-1	0.5%	13	-13.9%	11	9.2%	2
10	SF	20.8%	13	14.2%	1-1	18.9%	5	2.1%	19	4.0%	7
11	NO	18.3%	9	21.9%	2-0	-7.2%	17	-19.5%	8	6.0%	3
12	STL	10.8%	6	18.6%	1-1	-7.4%	18	-15.6%	10	2.7%	11
13	IND	9.4%	21	11.8%	2-0	30.5%	3	26.0%	30	4.9%	4
14	NE	8.4%	17	5.4%	2-0	10.7%	10	4.5%	22	2.3%	12
15	NYJ	7.2%	7	2.7%	1-1	18.2%	6	3.0%	20	-8.0%	26
16	DAL	3.6%	24	1.6%	1-1	3.3%	11	-8.5%	14	-8.2%	27
	TEAM	TOTAL VOA	LAST WEEK	NON-ADJ VOA	W-L	OFFENSE VOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE VOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	MIN	-0.6%	16	-1.1%	2-0	-8.4%	19	-12.0%	12	-4.3%	22
18	NYG	-8.2%	10	1.0%	1-1	17.7%	7	19.6%	29	-6.3%	25
19	KC	-10.3%	25	-8.3%	0-2	-20.1%	23	-8.6%	13	1.2%	16
20	PIT	-15.5%	12	-23.2%	1-1	-26.0%	26	-19.5%	9	-9.0%	28
21	WAS	-26.0%	19	-19.5%	0-2	-20.6%	24	8.5%	25	3.1%	10
22	GB	-28.7%	31	-27.9%	0-2	-15.8%	21	-1.7%	17	-14.6%	32
23	CAR	-28.8%	29	-26.8%	0-2	-26.6%	27	2.0%	18	-0.2%	18
24	DEN	-30.2%	26	-27.2%	1-1	-26.7%	28	-5.9%	15	-9.4%	29
25	ARI	-31.0%	18	-19.1%	1-1	-13.2%	20	12.7%	28	-5.1%	23
26	MIA	-32.8%	20	-18.3%	0-2	-24.9%	25	3.9%	21	-3.9%	19
27	CLE	-38.3%	23	-42.8%	0-2	-31.2%	29	12.0%	27	4.8%	5
28	DET	-40.4%	22	-44.7%	0-2	-19.1%	22	10.3%	26	-11.1%	30
29	HOU	-43.5%	27	-35.8%	0-2	1.9%	12	47.5%	32	2.2%	13
30	TB	-54.2%	32	-65.4%	0-2	-44.2%	31	4.6%	23	-5.4%	24
31	TEN	-74.0%	28	-62.7%	0-2	-34.2%	30	35.8%	31	-4.0%	20
32	OAK	-76.5%	30	-91.9%	0-2	-73.7%	32	6.9%	24	4.0%	6

"EARLY SEASON WEIGHTED" (i.e. FOX VERSION)
	TEAM	TOTAL VOA	LAST WEEK	W-L	OFFENSE VOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE VOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	SEA	37.2%	1	2-0	24.8%	2	-13.7%	4	-1.4%	22
2	SD	34.3%	3	2-0	19.9%	4	-14.0%	3	0.4%	11
3	CIN	24.8%	4	2-0	21.4%	3	-3.2%	11	0.2%	13
4	IND	24.6%	2	2-0	31.2%	1	5.1%	26	-1.5%	25
5	CHI	22.1%	8	2-0	2.7%	11	-15.7%	2	3.6%	2
6	PHI	18.4%	9	1-1	11.4%	6	-4.8%	8	2.2%	5
7	BAL	17.2%	15	2-0	-3.6%	16	-20.9%	1	-0.1%	14
8	ATL	13.6%	10	2-0	4.3%	9	-10.9%	5	-1.5%	24
9	JAC	12.3%	14	2-0	2.0%	13	-9.9%	6	0.5%	9
10	PIT	10.0%	7	1-1	6.6%	8	-4.7%	9	-1.3%	21
11	DEN	9.2%	6	1-1	10.4%	7	-1.7%	16	-2.9%	29
12	NE	7.8%	12	2-0	14.0%	5	5.7%	28	-0.6%	16
13	KC	4.4%	5	0-2	-1.2%	14	-6.2%	7	-0.6%	15
14	CAR	3.7%	11	0-2	2.4%	12	-2.2%	14	-0.8%	17
15	NYG	0.5%	16	1-1	4.0%	10	2.0%	22	-1.4%	23
16	DAL	-0.6%	20	1-1	-1.9%	15	-2.2%	13	-1.0%	19
	TEAM	TOTAL VOA	LAST WEEK	W-L	OFFENSE VOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE VOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	WAS	-2.1%	13	0-2	-7.2%	19	-2.6%	12	2.5%	4
18	MIA	-6.3%	18	0-2	-11.0%	26	-2.0%	15	2.6%	3
19	TB	-10.3%	19	0-2	-9.7%	21	-1.7%	17	-2.2%	27
20	BUF	-13.3%	28	1-1	-15.7%	31	1.8%	21	4.2%	1
21	CLE	-14.1%	23	0-2	-15.4%	30	0.6%	19	1.9%	7
22	DET	-14.4%	21	0-2	-7.0%	18	4.6%	25	-2.8%	28
23	MIN	-15.0%	26	2-0	-14.2%	28	-0.8%	18	-1.7%	26
24	SF	-15.7%	30	1-1	-10.0%	22	2.2%	23	-3.5%	30
25	GB	-15.9%	24	0-2	-10.5%	25	1.4%	20	-4.0%	31
26	STL	-16.9%	27	1-1	-10.3%	23	5.4%	27	-1.3%	20
27	NYJ	-19.3%	31	1-1	-11.1%	27	8.5%	30	0.3%	12
28	ARI	-19.6%	25	1-1	-10.4%	24	3.7%	24	-5.5%	32
29	TEN	-20.1%	22	0-2	-5.5%	17	15.0%	31	0.4%	10
30	OAK	-23.0%	17	0-2	-28.2%	32	-3.2%	10	2.0%	6
31	NO	-23.0%	32	2-0	-14.4%	29	7.8%	29	-0.9%	18
32	HOU	-24.9%	29	0-2	-9.7%	20	16.2%	32	1.0%	8