by Aaron Schatz
OK, folks, here they are: the 2007 DVOA projections. However, before we get to the projections, let's clear up some issues about DVOA in the upcoming season.
DVOA (and its early-season cousin, DAVE) will still be updated on Football Outsiders every Tuesday, and will remain absolutely free. Our new premium database [1] will include all the splits of 2007 DVOA beginning in Week 2 -- by down, by zone, by single game, etc. -- but the general DVOA ratings will still run for free, just as they have every week since Football Outsiders started four years ago.
DVOA commentary will no longer appear at FOXSports.com. DVOA commentary, and some of the other material that used to appear on FOX, will probably be appearing somewhere else, but I can't quite say where yet. For now, DVOA may go back to the old style of commentary, otherwise known as "Aaron rambles about whatever he feels like that week." Some of our articles will continue to run on FOX, including Rundown and Quick Reads.
OK, enough digression. Here's the requisite link to an explanation of DVOA [2], which stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average and measures a team's performance on every play of the season compared to league average in the same situation, adjusted for opponent. I know a lot of people are coming here from various message boards and this is just going to look like a jumble of pointless numbers. Trust me, there is a method to the madness, and over the past seven seasons DVOA has been a far more accurate predictor of future performance than wins or points.
Offense, defense, and special teams DVOA are all projected separately using a system based on 2000-2006 numbers. The equations include a number of variables based on performance over the past two seasons in different splits (by down, passing vs. rushing, red zone vs. whole field) plus variables based on recent draft history, injury history, offensive and defensive pace, coaching experience, quarterback experience, and even weather. Strength of schedule was then figured based on the average projected total DVOA of all 16 opponents for 2007 (yes, projected performance, not 2006 performance).
There are no manual adjustments. The numbers we are presenting here are exactly what the projection system spit out. A few of them will look strange to you. A few of them look strange to us. At the bottom of the page, we'll talk a little bit about the reasons for some of the projections that disagree with conventional wisdom.
The projections here are updated from Pro Football Prospectus 2007 based on changes in some of the variables, usually related to injuries, offensive line continuity, and quarterback experience.
| TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
TOTAL RANK |
OFFENSE DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEFENSE DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
SPECIAL DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
SCHED | SCHED RANK |
| NE | 31.9% | 1 | 25.7% | 1 | -5.1% | 9 | 1.1% | 7 | 1.6% | 9 |
| PHI | 26.0% | 2 | 22.2% | 3 | -3.9% | 12 | -0.1% | 18 | 0.2% | 12 |
| JAC | 24.7% | 3 | 8.2% | 6 | -16.6% | 1 | -0.1% | 19 | -2.5% | 28 |
| BAL | 12.0% | 4 | 6.0% | 11 | -6.5% | 7 | -0.5% | 22 | -0.9% | 17 |
| WAS | 11.2% | 5 | -1.8% | 15 | -11.5% | 4 | 1.5% | 3 | 1.8% | 7 |
| TB | 10.5% | 6 | 2.9% | 14 | -7.5% | 5 | 0.1% | 17 | -1.4% | 21 |
| CAR | 10.5% | 7 | -2.8% | 17 | -12.0% | 3 | 1.3% | 5 | -1.8% | 23 |
| PIT | 10.2% | 8 | -3.5% | 19 | -14.9% | 2 | -1.2% | 26 | -0.1% | 13 |
| SD | 8.8% | 9 | 18.4% | 4 | 10.8% | 29 | 1.2% | 6 | -2.0% | 25 |
| NYJ | 7.8% | 10 | 7.8% | 7 | 0.4% | 19 | 0.4% | 12 | 1.7% | 8 |
| IND | 7.0% | 11 | 22.8% | 2 | 15.2% | 32 | -0.6% | 23 | 2.1% | 6 |
| GB | 5.7% | 12 | 5.0% | 12 | -5.9% | 8 | -5.2% | 32 | -3.0% | 29 |
| CHI | 3.8% | 13 | -5.6% | 20 | -6.6% | 6 | 2.8% | 2 | -2.2% | 27 |
| DEN | 0.2% | 14 | 6.5% | 9 | 5.9% | 24 | -0.4% | 21 | -3.4% | 30 |
| ATL | 0.2% | 15 | -2.2% | 16 | -3.9% | 11 | -1.5% | 28 | -1.0% | 19 |
| SEA | 0.1% | 16 | 3.0% | 13 | 3.0% | 22 | 0.1% | 16 | -2.1% | 26 |
| TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
TOTAL RANK |
OFFENSE DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEFENSE DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
SPECIAL DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
SCHED | SCHED RANK |
| SF | -1.5% | 17 | -6.2% | 22 | -4.4% | 10 | 0.2% | 14 | -4.5% | 32 |
| CIN | -3.5% | 18 | 6.9% | 8 | 10.0% | 27 | -0.4% | 20 | -1.9% | 24 |
| NYG | -3.5% | 19 | 6.2% | 10 | 7.7% | 25 | -2.0% | 29 | 4.1% | 4 |
| NO | -4.5% | 20 | 9.1% | 5 | 13.6% | 31 | 0.1% | 15 | 2.2% | 5 |
| BUF | -4.7% | 21 | -6.3% | 23 | 2.0% | 21 | 3.7% | 1 | 6.8% | 1 |
| TEN | -6.6% | 22 | -3.5% | 18 | 4.0% | 23 | 0.8% | 9 | 1.3% | 10 |
| MIN | -9.0% | 23 | -9.0% | 25 | -1.1% | 16 | -1.1% | 25 | -0.4% | 15 |
| DET | -9.5% | 24 | -12.9% | 28 | -2.8% | 13 | 0.5% | 11 | -0.8% | 16 |
| CLE | -9.7% | 25 | -10.7% | 27 | -0.4% | 17 | 0.6% | 10 | -1.0% | 18 |
| DAL | -9.8% | 26 | -9.1% | 26 | -0.1% | 18 | -0.8% | 24 | 4.1% | 3 |
| OAK | -12.2% | 27 | -14.4% | 29 | -1.3% | 15 | 1.0% | 8 | -3.6% | 31 |
| MIA | -14.3% | 28 | -17.1% | 32 | -1.5% | 14 | 1.3% | 4 | 4.6% | 2 |
| HOU | -17.3% | 29 | -5.7% | 21 | 10.3% | 28 | -1.2% | 27 | 0.9% | 11 |
| ARI | -18.6% | 30 | -17.0% | 31 | 1.8% | 20 | 0.2% | 13 | -1.5% | 22 |
| STL | -24.3% | 31 | -7.4% | 24 | 13.2% | 30 | -3.8% | 31 | -1.2% | 20 |
| KC | -25.6% | 32 | -15.2% | 30 | 8.1% | 26 | -2.3% | 30 | -0.2% | 14 |
Here are some updated projections for the season, including each team's chances to make the playoffs according to the DVOA projection system. Just as we did for the book, this projection plays out the season 10,000 times, with some adjustments to lower the number of teams with records of 0-16, 1-15, 15-1, and 16-0. We give the mean projected wins for those simulations, as well as the standard deviation, the percentage of time each team won the division, and the percentage of time each team made the playoffs. The higher the standard deviation, the stronger the chances this team will play either better or worse than its projection. Thank you to Dr. Ben Alamar, who wrote the code to create the simulations.
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Here's a look at the teams whose mean projected wins have changed by more than 0.25 since the book, and why. First, the teams that have dropped:
Now the teams that moved up:
Finally, let's see if we can answer your questions about the teams where our projections differ most from the conventional wisdom.
Tampa Bay and New Orleans: Read here [3]. Short version: we don't believe these projections either, and the system doesn't understand that two-year variables may not be useful for the Saints because one of those seasons was destroyed by a hurricane.
Green Bay, Jacksonville, and Washington: Read here [4].
Indianapolis: Other than a small drop on offense, this forecast comes close to the Colts' actual 2006 regular-season DVOA. Remember, they were a completely different team in the postseason. That being said, I don't think a single FO staff member submitted a set of picks that didn't include the Colts as one of the six AFC playoff teams.
Chicago: Simply put, the odds they can continue to dominate on defense and special teams are not good, and it seems unlikely that the offense would improve enough to make up for that.
Dallas: A quick summary of the biggest issues here: 1) Third-down offense far better than overall offense; 2) Romo regressed at the end of the season; 3) worst defense in the NFL last six weeks of 2006; 4) new coordinators means learning new systems; 5) extremely unlikely that entire offensive line will remain healthy for all 16 games again.
San Diego: This is an interesting one because I've made some changes between the book and now. The main reason for the projected San Diego decline is not the new coaching staff, but rather the very specific problems that the defense had last year. The Chargers had the worst red-zone defense in the NFL and ranked 30th in third-down run defense. Third-down run defense is a negative indicator, separate from the overall "third-down rebound" trend. However, I realized over the last couple of months that it might be worthwhile to project San Diego using only the weeks when Shawne Merriman was in the lineup. The defense was significantly worse without him, and he should be there for the entire 2007 season, barring injury. This change improved San Diego's overall projection by a small amount -- not enough to suggest that they might match last year's 14-2 record, but enough to move the Chargers ahead of the Broncos as the most likely winner of the AFC West.
Why didn't removing Weeks 9-12 have a larger effect? While the overall San Diego defense was much better with Merriman in the lineup, both of these negative indicators were actually even more negative once we removed the weeks without Merriman.
| Overall Defense |
3rd Down Run Defense |
Red Zone Defense |
|
| San Diego DVOA with Merriman: Weeks 1-8, 13-17 | -6.9% | 48.0% | 65.0% |
| San Diego DVOA without Merriman: Weeks 9-12 | 12.3% | 29.5% | 6.7% |
Tomorrow, we'll have our annual look at staff predictions for 2007.
Links:
[1] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/store/premium
[2] http://www.footballoutsiders.com//info/methods
[3] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/08/24/extra-points/5391/
[4] http://www.slate.com/id/2173233/entry/2173269/