Week 15 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

The top teams in this year's DVOA ratings stayed the same week after week for a long time, but we're starting to see some movement. Not in the top spot, of course -- the Patriots are still the greatest team DVOA has ever measured, even though this week they barely put up a DVOA of 0%. Below the Patriots, however, things are shuffling around. This week's loss to Philadelphia drops Dallas into third place. The Cowboys' rating for this game ends up a lot lower than the score would indicate because a) they kept recovering their own fumbles and b) I have scored Brian Westbrook's final run as a touchdown for the purposes of Philadelphia's DVOA and Westbrook's own ratings.

A weird quirk in how the formulas work drops the Colts to fifth in weighted DVOA, behind Jacksonville, the same week they rise to second in total DVOA for the season. That's because the Colts' blowout of New Orleans has now dropped out of the weighted DVOA formula entirely, and it is their second-highest rated game of the season. The highest-rated game is the victory over Baltimore, so perhaps the Colts should ask to play on NBC every week.

Jacksonville's victory over Pittsburgh really epitomized the direction that each team is heading. If you want to see two strong trends, check out the week-to-week graphs for these two teams. By the way, just for fun, I added a thin line that represents last year's Jacksonville Jaguars through Week 15, just to show you the absurd difference in consistency between that team and this one.

More on the Pats vs. history and the Bengals vs. common sense after we run the tables...

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Here are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 15 weeks of 2007, 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 [1].) OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted for opponent and consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver) and week of season.

To save people some time, we request that you please use the following format 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	WEIGHTED VOA	RANK	W-L	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	S.T. DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	NE	56.0%	1	50.6%	1	14-0	44.2%	1	-8.8%	5	2.9%	8
2	IND	35.4%	3	27.5%	5	12-2	27.2%	2	-13.2%	2	-5.0%	29
3	DAL	31.1%	2	29.1%	2	12-2	23.7%	3	-6.5%	9	0.9%	13
4	GB	26.9%	4	28.5%	3	12-2	20.4%	4	-1.1%	17	5.4%	5
5	JAC	23.2%	6	28.2%	4	10-4	18.6%	5	-2.0%	14	2.7%	10
6	TB	22.7%	7	22.9%	7	9-5	11.0%	9	-12.0%	3	-0.4%	16
7	SD	21.0%	8	25.5%	6	9-5	6.2%	12	-8.6%	7	6.2%	2
8	PIT	20.1%	5	10.2%	11	9-5	3.3%	15	-18.5%	1	-1.7%	17
9	SEA	14.8%	9	14.4%	9	9-5	3.9%	14	-8.7%	6	2.2%	12
10	MIN	12.2%	10	16.3%	8	8-6	4.8%	13	-4.6%	10	2.7%	9
11	PHI	7.7%	13	3.5%	13	6-8	8.6%	11	-3.4%	12	-4.4%	28
12	CLE	6.8%	11	13.6%	10	9-5	11.6%	8	11.0%	26	6.2%	3
13	TEN	2.6%	18	-4.3%	18	8-6	-5.9%	22	-11.1%	4	-2.5%	22
14	WAS	1.6%	15	1.2%	15	7-7	-2.7%	18	-3.9%	11	0.4%	14
15	CIN	0.4%	12	-0.4%	16	5-9	12.5%	6	12.2%	29	0.0%	15
16	DEN	-1.2%	14	-4.0%	17	6-8	10.0%	10	8.0%	22	-3.1%	25
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	WEIGHTED VOA	RANK	W-L	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	S.T. DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	NO	-2.5%	19	8.6%	12	7-7	12.4%	7	11.4%	28	-3.5%	26
18	NYG	-3.4%	16	-4.5%	19	9-5	-2.9%	20	-1.4%	16	-1.9%	18
19	BUF	-4.1%	17	2.2%	14	7-7	-5.1%	21	3.2%	19	4.1%	6
20	HOU	-4.4%	23	-5.4%	21	7-7	2.9%	16	9.8%	24	2.5%	11
21	CHI	-10.1%	21	-5.2%	20	5-9	-20.1%	31	-2.3%	13	7.7%	1
22	BAL	-11.5%	20	-14.3%	24	4-10	-15.6%	26	-6.8%	8	-2.7%	23
23	ARI	-11.6%	22	-12.9%	22	6-8	-2.8%	19	6.0%	20	-2.8%	24
24	DET	-17.5%	24	-19.5%	25	6-8	-0.1%	17	11.1%	27	-6.3%	31
25	KC	-19.8%	26	-23.4%	27	4-10	-19.3%	29	-1.9%	15	-2.4%	21
26	NYJ	-20.2%	25	-14.0%	23	3-11	-11.2%	24	12.4%	30	3.4%	7
27	OAK	-24.0%	28	-19.6%	26	4-10	-13.1%	25	6.6%	21	-4.3%	27
28	CAR	-25.5%	29	-27.9%	28	6-8	-17.7%	28	1.6%	18	-6.2%	30
29	ATL	-28.1%	27	-28.9%	29	3-11	-16.3%	27	9.8%	25	-1.9%	19
30	MIA	-31.4%	30	-36.5%	31	1-13	-9.9%	23	19.3%	32	-2.2%	20
31	STL	-34.8%	31	-30.4%	30	3-11	-20.0%	30	8.2%	23	-6.6%	32
32	SF	-39.9%	32	-39.4%	32	4-10	-30.6%	32	14.9%	31	5.6%	4

ESTIMATED WINS [2] 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.
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 [3] 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	NE	56.0%	14-0	56.0%	12.8	1	2.2%	10	-34.9%	26	14.2%	16
2	IND	35.4%	12-2	33.6%	11.3	2	2.1%	11	-1.7%	17	16.8%	12
3	DAL	31.1%	12-2	34.0%	10.2	4	-0.9%	18	-23.9%	21	18.2%	10
4	GB	26.9%	12-2	32.0%	10.3	3	-3.4%	26	-27.6%	24	9.4%	26
5	JAC	23.2%	10-4	18.8%	10.1	5	3.6%	6	-28.4%	25	6.0%	32
6	TB	22.7%	9-5	25.6%	9.5	6	-5.2%	29	-65.4%	32	21.1%	6
7	SD	21.0%	9-5	16.0%	8.6	7	3.2%	8	-25.2%	23	23.4%	4
8	PIT	20.1%	9-5	20.2%	8.2	10	-0.8%	17	-46.3%	30	25.8%	2
9	SEA	14.8%	9-5	22.9%	8.4	9	-10.2%	32	-39.6%	29	11.1%	22
10	MIN	12.2%	8-6	16.7%	8.5	8	-3.8%	27	0.4%	16	19.5%	8
11	PHI	7.7%	6-8	-0.8%	8.1	11	5.9%	2	-6.6%	19	19.1%	9
12	CLE	6.8%	9-5	8.1%	7.9	12	-2.8%	25	-39.5%	28	6.3%	31
13	TEN	2.6%	8-6	-0.6%	7.3	14	1.1%	13	15.3%	11	18.0%	11
14	WAS	1.6%	7-7	-5.5%	6.9	17	3.3%	7	43.3%	6	8.9%	28
15	CIN	0.4%	5-9	7.2%	7.6	13	-2.2%	23	-24.7%	22	9.3%	27
16	DEN	-1.2%	6-8	2.2%	6.6	19	0.4%	14	33.2%	8	36.5%	1
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VAR.	RANK
17	NO	-2.5%	7-7	-2.0%	7.2	15	-5.1%	28	-2.4%	18	13.7%	17
18	NYG	-3.4%	9-5	-2.5%	6.8	18	-1.8%	22	51.9%	4	7.5%	30
19	BUF	-4.1%	7-7	-9.4%	7.0	16	5.3%	3	4.2%	14	12.8%	20
20	HOU	-4.4%	7-7	-6.4%	6.5	20	-1.2%	19	58.7%	1	13.4%	18
21	CHI	-10.1%	5-9	-11.4%	5.9	21	2.9%	9	24.4%	10	7.6%	29
22	BAL	-11.5%	4-10	-15.6%	5.5	23	0.3%	15	34.9%	7	15.5%	13
23	ARI	-11.6%	6-8	-4.5%	5.3	24	-6.0%	30	-62.9%	31	22.9%	5
24	DET	-17.5%	6-8	-16.5%	5.9	22	5.0%	5	7.1%	13	20.2%	7
25	KC	-19.8%	4-10	-25.4%	4.6	25	5.2%	4	-37.6%	27	24.0%	3
26	NYJ	-20.2%	3-11	-23.8%	4.5	27	6.2%	1	-17.1%	20	10.5%	24
27	OAK	-24.0%	4-10	-21.9%	3.9	29	0.0%	16	44.2%	5	15.2%	15
28	CAR	-25.5%	6-8	-23.6%	4.6	26	-1.7%	21	53.7%	3	15.3%	14
29	ATL	-28.1%	3-11	-26.5%	4.2	28	-1.3%	20	3.2%	15	11.2%	21
30	MIA	-31.4%	1-13	-35.5%	3.4	30	2.1%	12	56.3%	2	13.1%	19
31	STL	-34.8%	3-11	-30.6%	3.0	32	-2.8%	24	8.5%	12	9.5%	25
32	SF	-39.9%	4-10	-32.9%	3.2	31	-6.8%	31	29.4%	9	10.7%	23

Best and Worst DVOA Ever Watch

BEST TOTAL DVOA AFTER WEEK 15			BEST OFFENSIVE DVOA AFTER WEEK 15			WORST TOTAL DVOA AFTER WEEK 15			WORST OFFENSIVE DVOA AFTER WEEK 15
2007	NE	56.0%	2004	IND	44.9%	2005	SF	-61.4%	2005	SF	-44.2%
1999	STL	46.6%	2007	NE	44.2%	1999	CLE	-48.4%	1997	NO	-39.6%
2005	IND	41.5%	2002	KC	37.8%	2000	ARI	-47.4%	2004	CHI	-37.7%
2004	IND	40.2%	2006	IND	32.9%	2000	CLE	-46.0%	2002	HOU	-37.4%
2001	STL	39.4%	2000	STL	32.1%	2004	SF	-45.4%	2006	OAK	-35.3%
1996	GB	37.5%	2004	KC	31.5%	2000	CIN	-45.0%	1999	ARI	-33.3%
2002	TB	36.7%	2000	IND	30.8%	2003	ARI	-43.0%	2000	CLE	-32.3%
2004	PIT	36.4%	2005	IND	30.6%	2002	ARI	-41.6%	2007	SF	-30.6%
2007	IND	35.4%	1998	DEN	30.3%	1998	PHI	-39.6%	2004	MIA	-30.5%
2004	NE	35.3%	2003	KC	30.0%	2007	SF	-39.9%	2000	SD	-29.7%

The Patriots are still the best team ever, and the gap between them and the other great teams of the past is still pretty big despite this week's uninspiring performance. This is because of a weird historical trend featuring upsets and/or great teams winning squeakers over bad teams in Week 15. Remember that last week [4], the "best DVOA ratings through Week 14" table had eight teams over 40%. This week we only have four. 14 teams since 1996 put up a DVOA of 34% or more through Week 14, and 12 of those teams dropped between Week 14 and Week 15, including this year's Patriots, Cowboys, and Colts. The only teams which went up between Week 14 and Week 15 were the 2004 and 2005 Colts. Of course, that sounds strange because this was the week the 2005 Colts actually lost for the first time, but it was a close loss to a very good San Diego team, so their DVOA stayed basically the same.

Brad Smith Option

One last note on the Pats-Jets game. This somehow got left out of Audibles, but Mike Tanier drew up a "TDZ" diagram of the Brad Smith Pistol Option play. As Mike points out, "In the bottom right corner, you can see Chad Pennington getting ready to come in, trying to throw passes into the wind."

Congratulations to San Francisco, which looks now to be pretty safely out of the "worst DVOA of all-time" neighborhood. Their win over the Bengals once again brings up the question: How the hell do the Bengals have a positive DVOA rating? They've dropped to 15th this week, but still... we're talking about a 5-9 team where most of the indicators of "luck" don't seem to apply. The Bengals have a below-average schedule. Opponents have been average on kickoffs and above-average on field goals. On offense, the Bengals have recovered less than half their fumbles. The one "luck element" that seems to be an issue is recovering fumbles on defense, where the Bengals have recovered 14 of 17 opponent fumbles.

Cincinnati is 29th in defense, which seems reasonable, and exactly 0.0% on special teams, so that's not the issue. The problem seems to be offense. They don't seem to be terribly efficient, so how can they be 13th in points and ninth in yards but sixth in offensive DVOA?

The answer seems to be that the Bengals are more efficient than we are giving them credit for, particularly on first down. The Bengals gain at least 45 percent of needed yards on 47 percent of first downs, which is third-best in the league behind New England and New Orleans.

The Bengals also have a weird pattern when they get close to the goal line. The Bengals have the best offensive DVOA in the league in goal-to-go situations. However, they are 23rd in the zone I call "RED2," which consists of non-goal-to-go red zone situations. That means the Bengals get stuck settling for a lot of short field goals. Looking at Jim Armstrong's drive stats [5] through Week 14 (I don't have an update for this week yet), the Bengals are 19th in points per red zone appearance but second in field goals per drive. They score a field goal on 19 percent of drives. (The only team higher is, oddly enough, the Jets and FO whipping boy Mike Nugent, at 19.5 percent.) The average Cincinnati field-goal attempt comes from the 14-yard line, closer than every team except Indianapolis, New England, and Jacksonville.

The trick for Cincinnati is to turn a lot of those short field goals into goal-line situations. Last year, the Bengals were third overall in the red zone, so this is really a one-year trend. If it reverses next year, the 2008 Bengals could really surprise people... with lots of much-closer shootout losses handed to the other team by the still-crappy Cincinnati defense. Oh well.

On to the housekeeping... All the team stats pages and individual stats pages are now updated. Loser League results [6] and the DVOA Premium database [7] are both now updated. The playoff odds page [8] is now updated as well.

For (short) comments on every team, remember to look for DVOA on AOL, every Wednesday. (This will be linked on the FO Goes Mainstream [9] page.)