Week 17 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

Here are the latest DVOA ratings, with commentary now up on FOXSports.com [1]. Prepare to be subjected to more long-winded Houston Texans analysis.

Pages are up now for offense, defense, and special teams. Individual stats also updated. Adjusted line yards stats will be updated later tonight. You can also check out the Mike Harris Playoff Odds Report [2]. Mike has updated it with fixed tiebreaker rules, and you can even click a link that tells you how many times each tiebreaker comes into play in the 10,000 times it runs the remainder of the season.

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EXCITING NEWS!

Apparently, the Amazon folks decided they better get all the Pro Football Prospectus books out of the warehouse or something, because they've dramatically cut the price on our first two books to $2.99 each. There is a lot of stuff in these books that is evergreen research, and not at all dated just because the 2005 season is history and the 2006 season is close to done. The Patrick-Theismann-Maguire parody in the 2006 book is worth the three bucks alone. If you are new to Football Outsiders and want to know more about what we do, or you just never got around to buying one or both of the books, this is your chance. Please order through our site so that we get a small percentage.

It feels strange to be on remainder, but hey, our loss is your gain, and it isn't really our loss anyway, because maybe we'll get some more royalties or something.

The 2007 book is also on Amazon for pre-order, for anyone who likes to do things really, really, really early.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through Week 16 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. 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	WEIGHTED DVOA	RANK	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	SD	33.0%	1	13-2	29.8%	2	23.5%	2	-5.5%	11	4.0%	4
2	BAL	31.0%	3	12-3	30.5%	1	2.8%	13	-24.7%	1	3.5%	5
3	CHI	29.3%	2	13-2	22.9%	5	0.5%	16	-20.5%	2	8.3%	1
4	PHI	24.5%	6	9-6	19.6%	6	17.8%	3	-8.7%	8	-2.0%	22
5	NE	23.0%	5	11-4	25.9%	3	9.8%	7	-8.9%	7	4.3%	3
6	JAC	22.3%	4	8-7	25.3%	4	3.2%	11	-18.9%	3	0.2%	17
7	IND	18.4%	7	11-4	19.1%	7	33.0%	1	11.3%	26	-3.3%	26
8	NO	14.1%	10	10-5	17.7%	8	14.9%	4	1.2%	18	0.4%	15
9	DAL	12.4%	8	9-6	8.3%	10	12.3%	6	-1.0%	15	-0.9%	20
10	NYG	11.1%	9	7-8	6.4%	11	7.5%	9	-3.4%	13	0.3%	16
11	CIN	10.5%	11	8-7	10.2%	9	13.3%	5	4.3%	22	1.5%	12
12	PIT	6.2%	12	7-8	5.9%	12	2.7%	14	-8.0%	10	-4.5%	30
13	KC	4.9%	13	8-7	1.6%	15	4.3%	10	1.0%	17	1.6%	11
14	CAR	-0.2%	14	7-8	1.9%	14	-5.6%	20	-8.3%	9	-2.9%	24
15	BUF	-1.1%	15	7-8	-1.6%	17	-6.9%	22	-0.1%	16	5.8%	2
16	DEN	-3.3%	17	9-6	-3.5%	18	-5.2%	19	-1.7%	14	0.2%	18
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	W-L	WEIGHTED DVOA	RANK	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	MIA	-4.1%	16	6-9	0.6%	16	-12.8%	27	-10.3%	5	-1.6%	21
18	MIN	-5.7%	18	6-9	-5.2%	19	-14.4%	29	-13.2%	4	-4.5%	29
19	NYJ	-7.4%	19	9-6	-8.4%	21	1.5%	15	12.1%	27	3.1%	6
20	GB	-7.7%	22	7-8	-5.8%	20	-7.4%	23	-4.1%	12	-4.4%	28
21	ATL	-9.2%	21	7-8	-14.7%	23	-4.1%	18	1.4%	19	-3.7%	27
22	WAS	-10.4%	20	5-10	-16.1%	25	2.8%	12	14.6%	29	1.4%	13
23	TEN	-11.0%	23	8-7	5.3%	13	-8.1%	24	4.7%	23	1.8%	10
24	STL	-11.7%	24	7-8	-19.2%	28	9.0%	8	16.0%	31	-4.7%	31
25	SEA	-15.8%	26	8-7	-16.5%	26	-14.2%	28	3.7%	21	2.1%	9
26	CLE	-19.8%	25	4-11	-23.7%	31	-16.6%	30	5.8%	25	2.6%	8
27	TB	-20.6%	29	4-11	-19.0%	27	-18.4%	31	2.8%	20	0.6%	14
28	HOU	-20.8%	27	5-10	-15.5%	24	-0.9%	17	17.1%	32	-2.8%	23
29	ARI	-21.7%	30	5-10	-11.0%	22	-12.0%	26	4.8%	24	-4.9%	32
30	DET	-22.3%	31	2-13	-20.9%	30	-11.1%	25	14.1%	28	2.9%	7
31	SF	-22.6%	28	6-9	-19.3%	29	-6.9%	21	15.5%	30	-0.2%	19
32	OAK	-27.7%	32	2-13	-24.2%	32	-34.4%	32	-9.9%	6	-3.2%	25

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 [4] 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. With just one game left, there's no need to list FUTURE SCHEDULE anymore.
VARIANCE [5] 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	VARIANCE	RANK
1	SD	33.0%	13-2	38.7%	11.5	1	-5.8%	28	8.2%	30
2	BAL	31.0%	12-3	33.3%	11.0	3	-1.7%	22	17.4%	11
3	CHI	29.3%	13-2	38.4%	10.7	4	-9.0%	32	22.5%	2
4	PHI	24.5%	9-6	20.1%	11.0	2	-0.1%	18	13.8%	20
5	NE	23.0%	11-4	24.8%	10.2	5	-0.3%	19	19.9%	4
6	JAC	22.3%	8-7	20.1%	9.0	7	1.8%	12	31.7%	1
7	IND	18.4%	11-4	15.9%	9.8	6	2.7%	10	17.9%	9
8	NO	14.1%	10-5	15.0%	9.0	8	-1.6%	21	15.4%	16
9	DAL	12.4%	9-6	11.7%	8.5	9	1.5%	14	17.7%	10
10	NYG	11.1%	7-8	5.7%	8.4	10	4.7%	5	12.9%	22
11	CIN	10.5%	8-7	7.3%	8.3	11	4.1%	6	10.3%	26
12	PIT	6.2%	7-8	2.8%	7.8	14	2.8%	9	18.6%	8
13	KC	4.9%	8-7	5.5%	8.1	12	-2.9%	24	20.4%	3
14	CAR	-0.2%	7-8	-1.7%	7.1	16	0.2%	17	11.6%	24
15	BUF	-1.1%	7-8	-4.8%	7.5	15	3.9%	8	15.7%	15
16	DEN	-3.3%	9-6	-3.2%	6.7	19	2.7%	11	17.2%	12
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	VARIANCE	RANK
17	MIA	-4.1%	6-9	0.0%	6.7	20	1.6%	13	14.1%	19
18	MIN	-5.7%	6-9	-1.8%	7.8	13	-4.1%	27	6.4%	32
19	NYJ	-7.4%	9-6	-6.2%	6.9	17	1.2%	15	14.4%	18
20	GB	-7.7%	7-8	-8.9%	6.6	21	-3.3%	25	16.9%	14
21	ATL	-9.2%	7-8	-2.4%	6.8	18	-1.1%	20	19.0%	7
22	WAS	-10.4%	5-10	-13.7%	6.5	23	4.0%	7	9.9%	27
23	TEN	-11.0%	8-7	-13.1%	6.6	22	8.6%	1	16.9%	13
24	STL	-11.7%	7-8	-0.5%	6.4	24	-8.3%	30	11.8%	23
25	SEA	-15.8%	8-7	-12.1%	5.5	27	-6.7%	29	10.6%	25
26	CLE	-19.8%	4-11	-26.0%	4.8	31	5.3%	4	13.5%	21
27	TB	-20.6%	4-11	-29.2%	4.9	30	6.1%	2	8.8%	29
28	HOU	-20.8%	5-10	-22.0%	5.2	28	5.3%	3	14.6%	17
29	ARI	-21.7%	5-10	-12.3%	5.5	26	-8.6%	31	19.2%	6
30	DET	-22.3%	2-13	-22.6%	5.0	29	-2.6%	23	8.1%	31
31	SF	-22.6%	6-9	-22.3%	5.5	25	-3.7%	26	19.3%	5
32	OAK	-27.7%	2-13	-33.5%	3.9	32	0.3%	16	9.3%	28