Week 11 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

Here's a look at this week's DVOA ratings. This week's commentary is now available at FOXSports.com [1].

One of the most common requests from FO readers is a Playoff Odds Report, similar to the one you'll find over at our sister site, BaseballProspectus.com [2]. Well, a FO reader named Mike Harris has put together one himself, running the season 15,000 times and listing how often each team gets playoff spots 1-6. Right now you'll find that report on his website [3].

I've never done a playoff odds report like this because I've never had the time to really work at making it as accurate as possible. Mike's algorithm for figuring out the winner of a future game based on DVOA is completely untested, and doesn't include any variables except DVOA and home field. There's nothing that considers injuries, for example, and we're using WEIGHTED DVOA instead of the midseason projections. So don't take this as gospel, or as "FO says that the Jaguars have a 41 percent chance of making the playoffs.") Nonetheless, this gives us something to work with, and if I can find the time, I'll go through past years and help Mike improve the algorithm. We've already made one substantial change, adding in all of the head-to-head and division/conference record tiebreakers instead of just flipping coins to get playoff spots when there are ties. (Mike pointed out to me in e-mail that adding correct tiebreakers really helps the New York Giants.)

I know that a few readers are creating sortable graphs and so forth and linking them in the comments. I don't have the time to go through all the comments but if you are one of those people, e-mail me and tell me about what you are doing. Perhaps we can help improve those tables as well, or incorporate them into our display of stats here at FO.

Opponent adjustments are now at full strength. Offense, defense, special teams are updated; individual pages and adjusted line yards will be updated later tonight.

Remember that you can always use the keyword "DVOA" to access the latest DVOA commentary at FOXSports.com.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through Week 10 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 [4].)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted based on strength of opponent as well as 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.

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	PHI	38.5%	2	5-4	35.3%	2	22.0%	3	-16.7%	4	-0.1%	17
2	CHI	36.4%	1	8-1	35.5%	1	-1.5%	18	-27.8%	1	10.2%	1
3	NYG	30.9%	4	6-3	31.0%	3	16.0%	4	-14.5%	5	0.4%	14
4	SD	29.9%	3	7-2	28.4%	4	25.7%	2	0.0%	17	4.2%	5
5	IND	22.5%	7	9-0	22.6%	5	34.4%	1	8.7%	24	-3.2%	29
6	DAL	20.3%	10	5-4	20.9%	6	9.8%	8	-10.9%	7	-0.4%	20
7	JAC	19.3%	6	5-4	16.6%	8	-7.0%	22	-25.4%	2	0.9%	13
8	BAL	19.1%	5	7-2	17.1%	7	-8.5%	23	-22.6%	3	5.0%	3
9	NE	12.4%	8	6-3	13.9%	9	8.5%	10	-2.6%	13	1.3%	11
10	DEN	10.4%	9	7-2	12.8%	10	4.4%	12	-5.7%	12	0.4%	15
11	KC	8.7%	11	5-4	10.0%	11	0.3%	17	-6.6%	11	1.8%	9
12	PIT	8.3%	12	3-6	9.1%	12	4.2%	13	-10.7%	8	-6.6%	31
13	NO	6.1%	13	6-3	5.4%	13	12.3%	6	9.4%	25	3.1%	7
14	CIN	4.5%	15	4-5	1.9%	14	15.2%	5	12.2%	26	1.4%	10
15	STL	0.9%	14	4-5	0.1%	16	10.7%	7	8.4%	23	-1.5%	24
16	CAR	-0.9%	16	5-4	1.0%	15	3.1%	14	0.4%	18	-3.5%	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	GB	-2.6%	20	4-5	-1.2%	17	2.5%	15	3.8%	20	-1.3%	23
18	MIN	-5.7%	17	4-5	-5.9%	20	-18.7%	28	-12.9%	6	0.1%	16
19	WAS	-5.8%	19	3-6	-5.1%	19	8.9%	9	15.9%	29	1.2%	12
20	MIA	-6.8%	21	3-6	-5.0%	18	-15.6%	26	-10.5%	9	-1.7%	25
21	ATL	-7.4%	18	5-4	-9.5%	22	-6.1%	21	-1.3%	15	-2.6%	28
22	SEA	-8.6%	23	6-3	-8.8%	21	-5.5%	20	5.3%	21	2.2%	8
23	NYJ	-13.4%	26	5-4	-13.8%	24	0.6%	16	17.6%	30	3.6%	6
24	CLE	-13.6%	24	3-6	-12.2%	23	-22.1%	29	-2.5%	14	6.0%	2
25	BUF	-15.5%	22	3-6	-18.1%	26	-14.8%	25	5.7%	22	4.9%	4
26	HOU	-16.1%	28	3-6	-14.9%	25	4.8%	11	18.9%	32	-2.0%	27
27	DET	-19.8%	25	2-7	-18.9%	27	-4.3%	19	15.2%	28	-0.3%	19
28	TB	-25.3%	27	2-7	-24.2%	28	-23.8%	30	-0.4%	16	-1.9%	26
29	OAK	-28.3%	30	2-7	-26.0%	29	-36.9%	32	-9.6%	10	-1.0%	22
30	TEN	-29.6%	32	2-7	-26.6%	30	-16.4%	27	13.0%	27	-0.2%	18
31	SF	-29.7%	29	4-5	-32.2%	31	-10.4%	24	18.6%	31	-0.7%	21
32	ARI	-36.0%	31	1-8	-36.1%	32	-24.2%	31	3.2%	19	-8.6%	32

NON-ADJ VOA shows what the rating looks like without adjustments for strength of schedule, luck recovering fumbles, or weather and altitude on special teams.
ESTIMATED WINS [5] uses a statistic known as "Forest Index" that emphasizes consistency as well as DVOA in the most important specific situations: red zone defense, first quarter offense, and performance in the second half when the score is close. It then projects a number of wins adjusted to a league-average schedule and a league-average rate of recovering fumbles. Teams that have had their bye week are projected as if they had played one game per week.
PAST SCHEDULE lists average DVOA of opponents played this season, ranked from hardest schedule (#1, most positive) to easiest schedule (#32, most negative). It is not adjusted for which games are home or road.
FUTURE SCHEDULE lists average DVOA of opponents still left to play this season, ranked from hardest schedule (#1, most positive) to easiest schedule (#32, most negative). It is not adjusted for which games are home or road.
VARIANCE [6] measures the statistical variance of the team's weekly DVOA performance. Teams are ranked from least consistent (#1, highest variance) to most consistent (#32, smallest variance).

	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VAR.	RANK
1	PHI	38.5%	5-4	30.4%	7.7	1	-0.3%	14	4.3%	8	5.1%	31
2	CHI	36.4%	8-1	48.2%	6.6	3	-10.4%	32	-7.6%	28	31.6%	2
3	NYG	30.9%	6-3	25.6%	6.6	4	6.1%	5	6.8%	4	8.9%	24
4	SD	29.9%	7-2	38.1%	6.7	2	-6.6%	31	-8.4%	29	5.6%	29
5	IND	22.5%	9-0	24.4%	6.6	5	-0.8%	16	4.3%	7	7.9%	26
6	DAL	20.3%	5-4	22.8%	5.5	8	-0.6%	15	6.5%	5	11.4%	17
7	JAC	19.3%	5-4	21.2%	5.3	9	4.3%	6	3.2%	12	36.7%	1
8	BAL	19.1%	7-2	31.6%	5.9	6	-5.2%	29	-1.0%	20	12.8%	14
9	NE	12.4%	6-3	19.1%	5.5	7	-3.7%	25	-2.7%	22	11.0%	19
10	DEN	10.4%	7-2	10.3%	5.3	10	0.2%	12	-0.2%	19	16.1%	10
11	KC	8.7%	5-4	9.0%	5.1	11	-3.0%	23	1.2%	15	30.6%	3
12	PIT	8.3%	3-6	2.6%	4.7	14	4.0%	7	-1.5%	21	15.4%	11
13	NO	6.1%	6-3	7.3%	4.9	12	-1.0%	17	1.7%	14	11.4%	16
14	CIN	4.5%	4-5	-0.2%	4.6	16	3.5%	9	3.5%	10	7.3%	27
15	STL	0.9%	4-5	11.6%	4.7	13	-6.2%	30	-10.0%	31	9.3%	23
16	CAR	-0.9%	5-4	0.3%	4.3	18	-3.0%	24	10.2%	2	6.9%	28
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VAR.	RANK
17	GB	-2.6%	4-5	-4.7%	4.4	17	-0.2%	13	-4.0%	24	11.9%	15
18	MIN	-5.7%	4-5	-2.5%	4.6	15	-3.8%	26	-5.9%	27	11.3%	18
19	WAS	-5.8%	3-6	-14.2%	4.2	19	11.2%	2	6.1%	6	10.2%	21
20	MIA	-6.8%	3-6	-2.1%	3.6	24	-1.3%	20	0.0%	18	9.7%	22
21	ATL	-7.4%	5-4	3.3%	4.1	20	-5.1%	28	7.4%	3	25.6%	4
22	SEA	-8.6%	6-3	-7.4%	3.9	21	-1.3%	21	-11.8%	32	10.3%	20
23	NYJ	-13.4%	5-4	-9.1%	3.7	22	-2.1%	22	-5.5%	26	17.1%	9
24	CLE	-13.6%	3-6	-16.8%	3.0	27	2.2%	11	1.1%	16	2.7%	32
25	BUF	-15.5%	3-6	-15.8%	3.5	25	3.9%	8	0.3%	17	17.4%	8
26	HOU	-16.1%	3-6	-26.1%	3.7	23	12.1%	1	-9.4%	30	13.0%	13
27	DET	-19.8%	2-7	-13.6%	2.9	28	-5.1%	27	2.6%	13	5.4%	30
28	TB	-25.3%	2-7	-35.7%	2.5	31	7.5%	4	4.2%	9	8.0%	25
29	OAK	-28.3%	2-7	-34.6%	2.5	32	-1.1%	18	3.3%	11	13.3%	12
30	TEN	-29.6%	2-7	-29.7%	2.6	30	7.7%	3	13.2%	1	19.0%	7
31	SF	-29.7%	4-5	-31.6%	3.0	26	2.7%	10	-5.5%	25	24.3%	5
32	ARI	-36.0%	1-8	-31.7%	2.8	29	-1.2%	19	-3.2%	23	23.1%	6