Week 15 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

Here are the latest DVOA ratings, commentary is now available at FOXSports.com [1].

One small change this week in the ratings themselves: I've adjusted the baselines for kickoffs and punts. It seems like every year, kickoff distance gets longer and longer, and this year it's even longer than before. On the other hand, punt returns were far shorter than earlier years in 2005, and this year they've bounced back a bit. Last week, according to our numbers, the 32 teams combined to be 115 points over average on kickoffs, and 80 points above average on punt returns. That's sort of silly. This week, by changing the baselines, I've got that down to 33 points above average on kickoffs, and 11 on punt returns.

Pages are up now for offense, defense, and special teams. Individual stats and adjusted line yards will be updated later. You can also check out the Mike Harris Playoff Odds Report [2]. Since the Eagles have won twice since we started that special "McNabb injury version," we got rid of the special McNabb injury version.

Don't forget to check out the Football Outsiders swag shoppe [3] -- featuring ROBO-PUNTER shirts! They have our logo on the front, ROBO-PUNTER on the back with uniform number 1. Buy $50 worth of CafePress items before December 20, and get free shipping.

At this point the phrase "we've solved our server slowness" is like the phrase "Michael Vick finally gets it as a passer." I'm never going to use the phrase again until I'm absolutely, positively sure we're finally over the hump. If some of our funky comment features or comments on articles from two years ago disappear temporarily, don't be upset. That's part of our attempt to solve things.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through Week 14 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.

WEIGHTED DVOA is based on a formula which discounts games more than eight weeks ago in order to get a more accurate picture of how teams are playing now. This is the formula used for the rankings at FOXSports.com.

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

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	WEI. DVOA	RANK	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	CHI	33.2%	1	11-2	31.1%	1	-2.2%	17	-25.6%	1	9.8%	1
2	SD	32.8%	2	11-2	29.3%	3	27.1%	2	-2.3%	13	3.5%	5
3	BAL	30.8%	3	10-3	31.0%	2	2.5%	12	-24.9%	2	3.5%	4
4	JAC	27.8%	5	8-5	26.2%	4	5.1%	11	-21.0%	3	1.7%	10
5	PHI	19.5%	9	7-6	12.4%	11	14.7%	6	-7.8%	9	-3.0%	24
6	DAL	17.6%	4	8-5	17.8%	5	14.8%	5	-3.9%	12	-1.1%	20
7	NYG	16.6%	8	7-6	15.3%	10	12.2%	7	-4.4%	11	0.0%	16
8	CIN	15.9%	10	8-5	15.6%	8	19.8%	3	5.0%	24	1.1%	13
9	NE	15.5%	7	9-4	17.7%	6	6.5%	8	-6.9%	10	2.2%	8
10	IND	15.4%	6	10-3	15.5%	9	31.8%	1	12.1%	26	-4.4%	29
11	NO	15.0%	11	9-4	17.6%	7	18.7%	4	4.2%	21	0.6%	15
12	CAR	5.9%	13	6-7	8.9%	12	-2.5%	18	-10.3%	8	-1.9%	22
13	PIT	5.7%	14	6-7	3.9%	15	2.4%	13	-10.3%	6	-7.0%	32
14	KC	4.0%	12	7-6	6.1%	13	6.4%	9	3.8%	19	1.4%	12
15	MIA	-1.1%	18	6-7	4.5%	14	-9.4%	22	-10.3%	7	-2.0%	23
16	MIN	-3.2%	16	6-7	-2.5%	16	-11.7%	27	-12.8%	4	-4.3%	28
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	W-L	WEI. DVOA	RANK	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	BUF	-6.3%	20	6-7	-7.8%	19	-9.7%	24	1.6%	15	5.0%	2
18	DEN	-6.7%	15	7-6	-7.1%	18	-4.9%	21	1.2%	14	-0.7%	17
19	NYJ	-10.2%	17	7-6	-10.8%	21	-0.4%	16	13.2%	27	3.4%	6
20	ATL	-10.3%	21	7-6	-14.4%	24	-4.3%	20	1.9%	16	-4.0%	27
21	GB	-10.4%	26	5-8	-8.8%	20	-3.2%	19	3.5%	18	-3.7%	25
22	WAS	-11.8%	19	4-9	-14.4%	23	2.2%	14	14.7%	28	0.7%	14
23	TEN	-13.3%	25	6-7	-3.3%	17	-9.5%	23	6.3%	25	2.6%	7
24	SEA	-14.5%	23	8-5	-16.2%	26	-12.4%	28	4.1%	20	1.9%	9
25	CLE	-15.1%	22	4-9	-15.1%	25	-13.9%	29	4.9%	23	3.7%	3
26	STL	-15.8%	24	5-8	-20.8%	28	5.4%	10	16.7%	30	-4.5%	30
27	HOU	-17.9%	27	4-9	-13.1%	22	0.8%	15	17.8%	31	-0.9%	19
28	ARI	-23.7%	29	4-9	-20.6%	27	-13.9%	30	4.4%	22	-5.3%	31
29	TB	-24.3%	31	3-10	-24.5%	30	-21.3%	31	2.2%	17	-0.9%	18
30	OAK	-26.7%	28	2-11	-21.7%	29	-33.6%	32	-10.7%	5	-3.8%	26
31	SF	-26.9%	30	5-8	-29.6%	32	-9.7%	25	15.4%	29	-1.8%	21
32	DET	-28.4%	32	2-11	-28.7%	31	-10.8%	26	19.1%	32	1.5%	11

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	CHI	33.2%	11-2	40.3%	10.0	2	-8.6%	30	-21.0%	32	22.7%	2
2	SD	32.8%	11-2	39.2%	10.2	1	-6.7%	28	-11.4%	27	9.1%	26
3	BAL	30.8%	10-3	33.2%	9.5	3	-0.1%	18	-5.2%	22	18.3%	10
4	JAC	27.8%	8-5	27.8%	8.5	5	1.9%	12	2.1%	14	35.8%	1
5	PHI	19.5%	7-6	14.7%	9.1	4	-1.4%	19	8.0%	6	13.4%	18
6	DAL	17.6%	8-5	17.5%	7.8	11	1.1%	13	-6.4%	24	17.9%	12
7	NYG	16.6%	7-6	14.3%	7.9	9	3.4%	8	7.6%	7	10.5%	22
8	CIN	15.9%	8-5	11.4%	7.8	10	3.8%	6	4.8%	11	10.4%	23
9	NE	15.5%	9-4	19.1%	8.0	7	-1.5%	20	-1.1%	20	18.9%	9
10	IND	15.4%	10-3	14.2%	8.4	6	3.5%	7	-1.1%	19	15.6%	15
11	NO	15.0%	9-4	16.5%	7.9	8	-2.0%	22	3.6%	12	11.9%	20
12	CAR	5.9%	6-7	2.1%	6.6	15	0.8%	15	3.5%	13	8.2%	29
13	PIT	5.7%	6-7	2.7%	6.8	14	2.1%	11	17.5%	1	17.6%	13
14	KC	4.0%	7-6	4.6%	7.0	13	-4.0%	25	11.3%	5	22.0%	3
15	MIA	-1.1%	6-7	3.5%	6.1	16	0.9%	14	-0.4%	18	13.8%	17
16	MIN	-3.2%	6-7	1.7%	7.0	12	-4.9%	26	-12.1%	29	6.7%	30
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VAR.	RANK
17	BUF	-6.3%	6-7	-8.8%	6.0	17	4.5%	5	5.5%	8	16.0%	14
18	DEN	-6.7%	7-6	-6.3%	5.4	23	3.3%	9	-11.6%	28	19.4%	7
19	NYJ	-10.2%	7-6	-8.1%	5.7	19	0.7%	17	-10.3%	26	14.7%	16
20	ATL	-10.3%	7-6	-1.6%	5.9	18	-1.7%	21	14.3%	2	21.8%	4
21	GB	-10.4%	5-8	-12.2%	5.5	21	-3.6%	24	0.6%	16	19.3%	8
22	WAS	-11.8%	4-9	-17.3%	5.5	20	5.4%	4	5.3%	9	9.1%	27
23	TEN	-13.3%	6-7	-17.1%	5.4	22	9.0%	1	12.3%	4	18.3%	11
24	SEA	-14.5%	8-5	-8.4%	5.0	25	-9.8%	32	-6.1%	23	10.3%	24
25	CLE	-15.1%	4-9	-23.9%	4.6	28	6.0%	3	-3.8%	21	8.9%	28
26	STL	-15.8%	5-8	-6.0%	5.1	24	-7.7%	29	-13.9%	30	10.9%	21
27	HOU	-17.9%	4-9	-18.6%	4.8	26	3.2%	10	5.3%	10	12.5%	19
28	ARI	-23.7%	4-9	-14.2%	4.7	27	-8.6%	31	-0.3%	17	20.7%	5
29	TB	-24.3%	3-10	-34.8%	4.0	30	7.9%	2	1.2%	15	6.1%	31
30	OAK	-26.7%	2-11	-32.2%	3.5	31	0.8%	16	-7.3%	25	9.7%	25
31	SF	-26.9%	5-8	-26.7%	4.3	29	-2.6%	23	-15.0%	31	20.0%	6
32	DET	-28.4%	2-11	-25.0%	3.4	32	-5.9%	27	13.5%	3	5.9%	32