Week 1 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

You love them when your team is high! You hate them when your team is low! DVOA ratings are in effect for 2008!

Just in case you were wondering how important DVOA ratings are after one week, I have four words for you: Atlanta is number two.

This year's DVOA ratings feature the return of DAVE, our rating that combines the preseason projection with the results of early games to give us a better prediction of how each team will rank at the end of the year. For those who don't know the story, this metric is called DAVE as a reaction to criticism that our stats are too much alphabet soup. I mean, who can argue with a guy named Dave? (Technically, it stands for DVOA Adjusted for Variation Early.) In this week's DAVE ratings, the preseason projection counts for 90 percent, and the current VOA counts for 10 percent. Also, the projections used in DAVE have been tweaked to account for some of the Week 1 injuries -- obviously, that starts with Tom Brady, but it also includes injuries on the Jacksonville offensive line and among Seattle wide receivers.

Congratulations to Carolina, the only team to win in Week 1 despite a lower VOA than its opponent.

Offense [1], defense [2], and special teams [3] pages are now updated with 2008 data. The DVOA Premium Database [4] will be updated with 2008 numbers after Week 2. Individual stats pages and offensive line/defensive front seven pages will be updated with 2008 numbers after Week 2.

For those wondering, the first week of Quick Reads was delayed while we got used to the schedule of our new relationship with ESPN.com. It will be up later today, expanded with Monday Night Football included. The first Any Given Sunday (Bears over Colts) should be up later today as well.

However, DVOA ratings will only be posted on Football Outsiders this year. It's like old times. We're going back to the future! Seriously, words can't express how happy I am that I don't need to think of a comment for all 32 teams every single week.

* * * * *

Before we get into the numbers... I want to invite our readers in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Philadelphia to come say hello on the PFP 2008 book tour, just in case you didn't see the dates over on the side of the page.

Tonight, I'm in Indianapolis at the IUPUI Barnes and Noble. Yes, I know that nobody in Indianapolis knows there is a Barnes and Noble on the campus of IUPUI. Really, the store does exist [5]. So come on out and say hello to me, Will Carroll, and Ned Macey at 6 p.m. TONIGHT.

Wednesday, I'm in Chicago. You can catch me on the WGN News at Noon and then at the Barnes and Noble DePaul at 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, it's off to Philadelphia. This time, the location is the Barnes and Noble at University of Pennsylvania, and the time is 5:00 p.m.

Because I'm traveling all over for the book tour, I'm not able to get to a lot of reader mail this week, but in next week's DVOA ratings I'll answer some questions that came up after we posted our preseason projections.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through one week of 2008, 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 [6].)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE VOA are adjusted to consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. SPECIAL TEAMS VOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver) and week of season.

There are no opponent adjustments in VOA until the fourth week of the season, which is why it is VOA right now rather than DVOA. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

To save people some time, 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 VOA	DAVE	RANK	W-L	OFFENSE VOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE VOA	DEF. RANK	S.T. VOA	S.T. RANK
1	PHI	110.1%	41.0%	1	1-0	62.6%	4	-36.0%	4	11.4%	3
2	ATL	81.5%	-28.4%	30	1-0	96.9%	1	19.8%	25	4.5%	13
3	DEN	81.0%	10.8%	10	1-0	72.6%	2	-12.0%	12	-3.5%	23
4	DAL	72.8%	17.7%	6	1-0	65.1%	3	-13.9%	11	-6.2%	26
5	BUF	71.0%	-6.1%	21	1-0	15.1%	14	-39.2%	3	16.7%	2
6	BAL	69.6%	9.8%	11	1-0	13.6%	15	-58.0%	1	-2.0%	21
7	PIT	59.0%	11.8%	9	1-0	32.2%	5	-22.1%	6	4.8%	12
8	NE	40.8%	25.9%	3	1-0	16.9%	11	-19.9%	7	3.9%	14
9	NYG	32.3%	8.8%	12	1-0	16.4%	13	-16.2%	10	-0.3%	17
10	ARI	31.0%	2.0%	16	1-0	4.8%	20	-25.8%	5	0.4%	16
11	GB	29.1%	35.8%	2	1-0	17.3%	10	6.1%	14	17.9%	1
12	CHI	16.4%	-0.3%	18	1-0	16.8%	12	6.3%	16	6.0%	9
13	SD	13.0%	25.1%	4	0-1	24.7%	6	18.2%	24	6.4%	6
14	NYJ	12.2%	-3.3%	20	1-0	6.1%	18	-16.6%	9	-10.5%	29
15	TEN	10.3%	-1.3%	19	1-0	-17.5%	25	-45.5%	2	-17.7%	30
16	NO	8.4%	1.6%	17	1-0	23.1%	7	7.9%	17	-6.8%	27
	TEAM	TOTAL VOA	DAVE	RANK	W-L	OFFENSE VOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE VOA	DEF. RANK	S.T. VOA	S.T. RANK
17	CAR	-0.1%	3.9%	15	1-0	18.2%	9	24.7%	27	6.4%	7
18	TB	-8.2%	17.1%	7	0-1	7.9%	16	23.1%	26	7.0%	5
19	IND	-15.3%	15.9%	8	0-1	6.3%	17	16.8%	21	-4.8%	24
20	JAC	-22.3%	7.1%	13	0-1	-45.5%	31	-17.5%	8	5.7%	10
21	SF	-24.4%	-27.5%	29	0-1	-25.8%	28	4.8%	13	6.2%	8
22	MIN	-29.7%	18.2%	5	0-1	6.1%	19	17.3%	23	-18.5%	31
23	MIA	-32.8%	-22.4%	27	0-1	-16.6%	24	6.1%	15	-10.1%	28
24	WAS	-33.2%	-11.7%	24	0-1	-16.2%	23	16.4%	20	-0.6%	19
25	KC	-37.2%	-18.8%	25	0-1	-19.9%	26	16.9%	22	-0.4%	18
26	HOU	-59.6%	-8.5%	22	0-1	-22.1%	27	32.2%	28	-5.3%	25
27	CIN	-71.0%	-8.9%	23	0-1	-58.0%	32	13.6%	18	0.6%	15
28	CLE	-73.8%	-19.3%	26	0-1	-13.9%	22	65.1%	30	5.2%	11
29	SEA	-74.8%	6.5%	14	0-1	-39.2%	30	15.1%	19	-20.5%	32
30	OAK	-76.7%	-29.0%	31	0-1	-12.0%	21	72.6%	31	7.9%	4
31	DET	-78.4%	-27.4%	28	0-1	19.8%	8	96.9%	32	-1.3%	20
32	STL	-101.7%	-34.8%	32	0-1	-36.0%	29	62.6%	29	-3.1%	22