by Aaron Schatz
Here's a look at this week's DVOA ratings. This week's commentary is now available at FOXSports.com [1]. You'll find there a fairly detailed argument against the Colts as the best team in football, despite their 8-0 record. Last year, we got in a lot of trouble when we played around with Indy's rating, but in that case we thought that the DVOA system needed fixing. This time, nothing needs any fixing. They really aren't as good as people think.
(By the way, wait until you see how different the DVOA ratings are from Peter Schrager's subjective FOX power rankings. It's almost impossible to believe that the two lists run on the same website. I understand that most people think that wins and losses are the best measure of a team's quality, and our ranking of Philadelphia is thus too high, but I honestly have no idea how anybody could put Philadelphia below four other 4-4 teams.)
In each of the DVOA comments you'll see the projected final win-loss record according to our infamous DVOA midseason projection system. Those win-loss projections go along with DVOA projections and midseason reviews that we've run every year since 2003. The rest of that material will go up on Football Outsiders this Friday.
There is one thing that I meant to mention a week ago, and I'm not sure where to fit it in at this point, so I'll just say it here. One of the common criticisms of Football Outsiders is that you can't analyze football stats in the same way that you analyze baseball stats because the season is only 16 games long. There's no doubt that an element of randomness exists in the NFL. We can't be sure that our ratings truly represent a listing of the best teams in their proper order, and unpredictable upsets often occur. The best team in DVOA doesn't always win the Super Bowl or even make it that far. But it turns out that even after 162 games and three rounds of playoffs, baseball is no different.
Our partners at Baseball Prospectus have a stat they call "third-order winning percentage." This is sort of their version of DVOA. People are used to advanced baseball analysis that looks at the expected winning percentage based on runs scored and allowed (i.e. the Pythagorean projection). Second-order winning percentage looks at expected wins based on the expected runs scored and allowed based on the team's specific totals of hits, walks, extra-base hits, and so on. Third-order winning percentage is then adjusted for opponent. Does this all sound familiar?
According to third-order winning percentage [2], the best team in baseball this year was the New York Yankees. It's not even close -- they have 97.4 estimated third-order wins and no other team is above 92. The Yankees, of course, did not even make it past the first round of the playoffs. Two of the top five teams in estimated third-order wins didn't even make the postseason (Blue Jays and Angels) while the Twins were swept in the first round by a team with fewer third-order wins, Oakland.
And what about the team that actually won the World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals? The Cardinals won the NL Central despite 75.8 estimated third-order wins, the 22nd highest total in baseball. Think about that for a second. Imagine if a team finished the season 22nd in DVOA, won a terrible division with an 8-8 or 9-7 record, and then went on to win the Super Bowl. Right now, the lowest team in DVOA to win the Super Bowl was New England in 2001; they were 12th overall and ninth in weighted DVOA.
The point here is that even after 162 games and three rounds of best-of-five or -seven playoffs, the best team doesn't always walk away with the championship. So of course weird stuff is going to happen in football. We can't tell you what is going to happen in the NFL. We can only try to predict the most probable outcome.
For example, the Indianapolis Colts are probably not going to win the Super Bowl this year. But we could be wrong.
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Remember that you can always use the keyword "DVOA" to access the latest DVOA commentary at FOXSports.com. Also, someone asked me to post last week's rank in both regular and weighted DVOA; don't forget that "last week" on the FOXSports.com table is last week's weighted DVOA rank.
* * * * *
These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through Week 9 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 [3].)
OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted based on strength of opponent as well as to consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. Opponent adjustments are currently set at 90% and will increase each week until they are full strength after Week 10. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver/Mexico City) and week of season.
To save people some time, please use the zlionsfan template 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>
| TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
W-L |
WEIGHTED DVOA |
RANK |
OFFENSE DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEFENSE DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
SPECIAL DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
|
| 1 | CHI | 36.0% | 1 | 7-1 | 34.3% | 1 | -2.3% | 21 | -26.6% | 2 | 11.7% | 1 |
| 2 | PHI | 34.2% | 2 | 4-4 | 33.0% | 4 | 22.8% | 2 | -12.3% | 7 | -0.9% | 20 |
| 3 | SD | 34.1% | 4 | 6-2 | 34.0% | 2 | 22.7% | 3 | -8.0% | 10 | 3.3% | 7 |
| 4 | NYG | 33.4% | 3 | 6-2 | 33.1% | 3 | 17.1% | 4 | -15.7% | 6 | 0.6% | 15 |
| 5 | BAL | 26.8% | 5 | 6-2 | 26.3% | 5 | -7.3% | 23 | -29.0% | 1 | 5.1% | 3 |
| 6 | JAC | 23.9% | 7 | 5-3 | 23.3% | 6 | -1.7% | 19 | -24.4% | 3 | 1.2% | 13 |
| 7 | IND | 18.9% | 9 | 8-0 | 20.0% | 7 | 32.7% | 1 | 11.2% | 26 | -2.5% | 28 |
| 8 | NE | 18.4% | 6 | 6-2 | 19.8% | 8 | 11.9% | 7 | -4.6% | 14 | 1.9% | 11 |
| 9 | DEN | 17.9% | 12 | 6-2 | 19.7% | 9 | 9.1% | 8 | -7.6% | 11 | 1.2% | 14 |
| 10 | DAL | 16.5% | 8 | 4-4 | 17.4% | 10 | 5.9% | 11 | -11.8% | 8 | -1.2% | 22 |
| 11 | KC | 12.8% | 10 | 5-3 | 14.5% | 11 | 2.1% | 14 | -7.2% | 12 | 3.5% | 6 |
| 12 | PIT | 9.7% | 11 | 2-6 | 10.1% | 12 | -0.2% | 16 | -16.1% | 5 | -6.1% | 31 |
| 13 | NO | 9.5% | 15 | 6-2 | 9.5% | 13 | 7.8% | 10 | 2.4% | 20 | 4.1% | 4 |
| 14 | STL | 6.3% | 14 | 4-4 | 4.1% | 14 | 14.2% | 5 | 7.4% | 24 | -0.5% | 19 |
| 15 | CIN | 3.0% | 13 | 4-4 | 1.1% | 15 | 8.2% | 9 | 7.9% | 25 | 2.7% | 9 |
| 16 | CAR | -2.1% | 17 | 4-4 | -0.6% | 16 | 3.3% | 12 | 1.7% | 19 | -3.8% | 30 |
| TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
W-L | WEIGHTED DVOA |
RANK |
OFFENSE DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEFENSE DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
SPECIAL DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
|
| 17 | MIN | -2.5% | 18 | 4-4 | -2.5% | 17 | -18.8% | 27 | -16.2% | 4 | 0.1% | 16 |
| 18 | ATL | -4.6% | 16 | 5-3 | -6.9% | 20 | -1.3% | 17 | 0.0% | 17 | -3.3% | 29 |
| 19 | WAS | -4.7% | 20 | 3-5 | -5.0% | 19 | 12.5% | 6 | 19.5% | 30 | 2.3% | 10 |
| 20 | GB | -5.6% | 19 | 3-5 | -3.7% | 18 | 1.0% | 15 | 4.3% | 22 | -2.2% | 26 |
| 21 | MIA | -10.0% | 26 | 2-6 | -9.7% | 21 | -18.3% | 26 | -10.2% | 9 | -1.9% | 25 |
| 22 | BUF | -10.7% | 23 | 3-5 | -11.8% | 22 | -11.1% | 25 | 3.7% | 21 | 4.1% | 5 |
| 23 | SEA | -12.5% | 22 | 5-3 | -12.9% | 23 | -6.2% | 22 | 6.4% | 23 | 0.1% | 17 |
| 24 | CLE | -14.6% | 21 | 2-6 | -14.0% | 24 | -20.4% | 28 | 1.0% | 18 | 6.8% | 2 |
| 25 | DET | -17.9% | 27 | 2-6 | -17.2% | 25 | -1.4% | 18 | 15.3% | 27 | -1.3% | 23 |
| 26 | NYJ | -18.0% | 25 | 4-4 | -18.5% | 26 | -1.8% | 20 | 19.1% | 29 | 2.9% | 8 |
| 27 | TB | -23.5% | 24 | 2-6 | -22.8% | 27 | -21.4% | 29 | -0.2% | 16 | -2.3% | 27 |
| 28 | HOU | -24.2% | 28 | 2-6 | -23.8% | 28 | 3.2% | 13 | 26.2% | 32 | -1.2% | 21 |
| 29 | SF | -31.6% | 30 | 3-5 | -32.6% | 29 | -10.5% | 24 | 21.0% | 31 | -0.1% | 18 |
| 30 | OAK | -34.0% | 29 | 2-6 | -33.4% | 30 | -38.1% | 32 | -5.4% | 13 | -1.3% | 24 |
| 31 | ARI | -35.1% | 31 | 1-7 | -34.9% | 31 | -27.3% | 31 | -1.4% | 15 | -9.2% | 32 |
| 32 | TEN | -36.9% | 32 | 2-6 | -35.3% | 32 | -23.4% | 30 | 15.3% | 28 | 1.8% | 12 |
| TEAM |
TOTAL DVOA |
W-L |
NON-ADJ TOT VOA |
ESTIM. WINS |
RANK |
PAST SCHED |
RANK |
FUTURE SCHED |
RANK | VAR. | RANK | |
| 1 | CHI | 36.0% | 7-1 | 52.0% | 5.4 | 7 | -15.7% | 32 | -1.2% | 20 | 35.1% | 2 |
| 2 | PHI | 34.2% | 4-4 | 27.9% | 6.7 | 1 | -0.2% | 18 | 2.0% | 12 | 4.8% | 31 |
| 3 | SD | 34.1% | 6-2 | 42.9% | 6.2 | 3 | -6.8% | 31 | -5.8% | 26 | 5.5% | 30 |
| 4 | NYG | 33.4% | 6-2 | 30.6% | 6.4 | 2 | 0.3% | 16 | 9.8% | 3 | 9.0% | 24 |
| 5 | BAL | 26.8% | 6-2 | 37.1% | 5.7 | 4 | -1.2% | 22 | -4.0% | 24 | 9.9% | 20 |
| 6 | JAC | 23.9% | 5-3 | 27.5% | 5.0 | 9 | 3.0% | 9 | 0.2% | 18 | 35.4% | 1 |
| 7 | IND | 18.9% | 8-0 | 21.9% | 5.7 | 5 | 1.2% | 15 | -0.3% | 19 | 8.5% | 25 |
| 8 | NE | 18.4% | 6-2 | 24.5% | 5.5 | 6 | -1.5% | 24 | -6.6% | 29 | 9.2% | 22 |
| 9 | DEN | 17.9% | 6-2 | 11.5% | 5.2 | 8 | 5.5% | 5 | -3.7% | 22 | 14.2% | 11 |
| 10 | DAL | 16.5% | 4-4 | 17.1% | 4.7 | 11 | 2.6% | 10 | 2.1% | 11 | 11.3% | 18 |
| 11 | KC | 12.8% | 5-3 | 10.0% | 4.8 | 10 | -1.0% | 20 | 1.3% | 16 | 34.4% | 3 |
| 12 | PIT | 9.7% | 2-6 | 2.6% | 4.0 | 15 | 5.4% | 6 | 1.4% | 14 | 16.5% | 9 |
| 13 | NO | 9.5% | 6-2 | 12.5% | 4.7 | 12 | -1.2% | 21 | 2.8% | 10 | 11.6% | 15 |
| 14 | STL | 6.3% | 4-4 | 14.9% | 4.5 | 13 | -4.7% | 30 | -10.8% | 32 | 10.1% | 19 |
| 15 | CIN | 3.0% | 4-4 | 0.7% | 3.9 | 16 | 2.5% | 11 | 9.8% | 4 | 6.9% | 28 |
| 16 | CAR | -2.1% | 4-4 | -5.0% | 3.7 | 19 | 1.3% | 14 | 7.8% | 5 | 7.7% | 26 |
| TEAM |
TOTAL DVOA |
W-L |
NON-ADJ TOT VOA |
ESTIM. WINS |
RANK |
PAST SCHED |
RANK |
FUTURE SCHED |
RANK | VAR. | RANK | |
| 17 | MIN | -2.5% | 4-4 | 0.1% | 4.4 | 14 | -3.2% | 26 | -6.2% | 27 | 11.5% | 17 |
| 18 | ATL | -4.6% | 5-3 | 3.7% | 3.8 | 17 | -2.9% | 25 | 5.5% | 7 | 27.1% | 5 |
| 19 | WAS | -4.7% | 3-5 | -8.4% | 3.8 | 18 | 5.7% | 4 | 11.4% | 2 | 12.9% | 13 |
| 20 | GB | -5.6% | 3-5 | -8.6% | 3.6 | 20 | 1.8% | 13 | -3.8% | 23 | 12.4% | 14 |
| 21 | MIA | -10.0% | 2-6 | -1.9% | 3.0 | 23 | -3.9% | 28 | 3.1% | 8 | 9.0% | 23 |
| 22 | BUF | -10.7% | 3-5 | -12.0% | 3.6 | 21 | 2.4% | 12 | 1.8% | 13 | 17.8% | 8 |
| 23 | SEA | -12.5% | 5-3 | -11.0% | 3.1 | 22 | -0.1% | 17 | -8.6% | 31 | 9.4% | 21 |
| 24 | CLE | -14.6% | 2-6 | -19.4% | 2.5 | 29 | 4.6% | 7 | 1.2% | 17 | 3.6% | 32 |
| 25 | DET | -17.9% | 2-6 | -13.0% | 2.7 | 26 | -1.5% | 23 | -1.7% | 21 | 5.9% | 29 |
| 26 | NYJ | -18.0% | 4-4 | -13.1% | 2.9 | 24 | -3.6% | 27 | -4.1% | 25 | 15.7% | 10 |
| 27 | TB | -23.5% | 2-6 | -34.4% | 2.4 | 30 | 10.1% | 1 | 2.9% | 9 | 7.1% | 27 |
| 28 | HOU | -24.2% | 2-6 | -31.5% | 2.7 | 25 | 9.7% | 2 | -6.6% | 30 | 13.1% | 12 |
| 29 | SF | -31.6% | 3-5 | -38.2% | 2.5 | 28 | 6.7% | 3 | -6.2% | 28 | 27.2% | 4 |
| 30 | OAK | -34.0% | 2-6 | -37.8% | 1.9 | 31 | -0.7% | 19 | 5.6% | 6 | 11.6% | 16 |
| 31 | ARI | -35.1% | 1-7 | -27.1% | 2.5 | 27 | -4.2% | 29 | 1.3% | 15 | 25.3% | 6 |
| 32 | TEN | -36.9% | 2-6 | -33.5% | 1.9 | 32 | 4.1% | 8 | 17.5% | 1 | 18.5% | 7 |
Links:
[1] http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6147120
[2] http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php
[3] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods#dvoa
[4] http://www.footballoutsiders.com//info/glossary#estimated_wins
[5] http://www.footballoutsiders.com//info/glossary#variance