Week 4 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

(Note 10/7: The original posting of these ratings had an error in the defensive and total DAVE ratings. Those ratings are now fixed, as are the stats pages and playoff odds. Our apologies.)

New Orleans moves back into the top spot of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings this week as we begin to include opponent adjustments for the first time in 2009. Those adjustments are currently at 40 percent strength and will go up 10 percent each week until we get to Week 10.

The shocking thing about the Saints is not that their offense ranks second. It's that their defense ranks first in the entire league. In fact, this year's defensive DVOA ratings seem like a testament to the power of coaching changes. The Giants and Eagles are in there, sure, and we all knew they would have good defenses. But the Saints are first, the Broncos third, and the Jets fifth. I don't remember a lot of teams where a defensive coordinator or head coach had this much effect on the quality of the defense. This certainly didn't happen when Mike Nolan arrived in San Francisco, or when Gregg Williams went to the Jaguars last year.

So are these defenses for real -- particularly the Saints and Broncos, who were so bad on defense last year? I decided to go and look for the defenses with the biggest difference between DVOA one season and DVOA over the first four games of the next season. Here's that list going back to 1994:

BEST DEFENSIVE DVOA IMPROVEMENT IN FIRST FOUR GAMES vs. PREVIOUS YEAR
YEAR	TEAM	DVOA AFTER FOUR GAMES	DVOA Y-1	DIF	FINAL DVOA
1996	GB	-52.2%	4.8%	-57.0%	-24.3%
2009	DEN	-25.4%	24.7%	-50.1%	???
1996	DEN	-33.3%	11.0%	-44.3%	-20.8%
2001	CLE	-32.2%	8.2%	-40.3%	-17.0%
1999	JAC	-40.3%	-0.8%	-39.6%	-15.2%
2009	NO	-28.7%	10.7%	-39.5%	???
2008	BAL	-45.5%	-8.7%	-36.9%	-24.5%
2006	ATL	-25.3%	10.7%	-36.0%	3.1%
1998	MIA	-27.5%	7.7%	-35.2%	-26.1%
1996	NE	-21.7%	11.4%	-33.1%	-9.2%
2007	WAS	-17.7%	14.9%	-32.6%	-6.7%
2001	STL	-18.4%	13.5%	-32.0%	-16.3%

As you can see, only one of these defenses ended up being a fluke: the 2006 Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons had not added any particularly notable free agents or coaches. They simply had a nice four-game run, keeping Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Arizona to a combined 19 points. The other game in that string was the well-remembered "return to the Superdome" Monday night contest against the Saints, but that game was actually a lot closer than the emotion made it seem at the time. The Falcons only allowed 16 points on defense (plus a special teams touchdown). However, after their Week 5 bye, the Falcons defense disintegrated, giving up at least three touchdowns in six of the next seven games.

For the other teams on this list, however, strong defense early was an indicator of defensive improvement that would last for the season. (The 2007 Redskins were essentially average over the rest of the year, but even that was a big improvement on 2006.) There are a lot of good teams on this list. Three of them made the Super Bowl. The 1996 Broncos went 13-3, the 1999 Jaugars 14-2. The 2001 Browns went 7-9 despite ranking 30th out of 31 teams in offensive DVOA.

What if we look only at good defenses through four games, no matter how good those defenses were the year before? From 1994-2008, 60 different teams had defensive DVOA better than -20% after four games. Only eight of those teams finished the season with a defensive DVOA above 0%, and only one finished with a defensive DVOA higher than 4.0% (the 2004 Seahawks, at 5.7%).

Based on all these stats, the chances seem pretty good that the Saints and Broncos defenses are for real. They may not be among the top three defenses at the end of the year, but they should be good defenses for the rest of the season. Combined with their current offensive levels, that should be enough for Denver to make a serious playoff run and for New Orleans to be a major Super Bowl contender.

For all those curious, here's the same list for offenses with the biggest improvement in the first four weeks compared to the previous season.

BEST OFFENSIVE DVOA IMPROVEMENT IN FIRST FOUR GAMES vs. PREVIOUS YEAR
YEAR	TEAM	DVOA AFTER FOUR GAMES	DVOA Y-1	DIF	FINAL DVOA
1999	WAS	49.0%	-3.8%	52.8%	17.1%
1999	OAK	20.4%	-28.1%	48.6%	15.2%
1999	STL	28.9%	-17.6%	46.5%	12.4%
2005	NYG	33.9%	-10.3%	44.3%	8.9%
2002	KC	49.6%	7.9%	41.7%	38.0%
2008	NYG	40.7%	-0.3%	40.9%	23.7%
2006	PHI	30.2%	-9.1%	39.3%	22.0%
2006	SF	-3.5%	-42.0%	38.5%	-7.5%
2006	NYJ	16.5%	-21.5%	37.9%	6.2%
2005	SEA	40.3%	4.1%	36.2%	27.4%

Surprised that the 1999 Rams aren't number one on this list? Me too. I love that the 2005 49ers were so bad that they show up on this list even though they still had a below-average offense in the first four games of the next season. There aren't any 2009 teams that come close to making this list, but there is one team on the opposite list, the teams with the biggest drop in offensive DVOA from one season to the first four games of the next season. Look at these teams, and you can see that the Carolina Panthers are in trouble unless they can somehow pull Matt Cassel [2] out of a hat:

WORST OFFENSIVE DVOA DROP IN FIRST FOUR GAMES vs. PREVIOUS YEAR
YEAR	TEAM	DVOA AFTER FOUR GAMES	DVOA Y-1	DIF	FINAL DVOA
2001	WAS	-62.0%	3.2%	-65.2%	-14.4%
1999	DEN	-30.5%	30.8%	-61.3%	-2.3%
2005	MIN	-42.1%	18.4%	-60.5%	-15.3%
2005	NYJ	-34.9%	22.1%	-57.0%	-21.5%
2004	MIA	-60.1%	-6.6%	-53.6%	-28.5%
2009	CAR	-33.5%	18.0%	-51.5%	???
1996	ATL	-35.5%	15.7%	-51.2%	-7.8%
2008	NE	-0.8%	45.2%	-46.0%	16.5%
2008	CIN	-27.5%	12.7%	-40.2%	-13.4%
1996	CHI	-18.5%	21.1%	-39.6%	-5.1%
2006	OAK	-41.3%	-2.2%	-39.1%	-36.5%

That leaves one more list: The teams that had the biggest defensive declines between one season and the first four games of the next season. There are two 2009 teams on this list. One of them is not very surprising. The other one is extremely surprising, especially because that team is sitting on top:

WORST DEFENSIVE DVOA DROP IN FIRST FOUR GAMES vs. PREVIOUS YEAR
YEAR	TEAM	DVOA AFTER FOUR GAMES	DVOA Y-1	DIF	FINAL DVOA
2009	PIT	14.5%	-26.9%	41.4%	???
2001	BUF	26.2%	-13.4%	39.5%	8.8%
1995	ARI	24.1%	-14.5%	38.6%	0.4%
2004	STL	23.3%	-13.9%	37.2%	15.8%
2001	DET	24.2%	-12.8%	37.0%	10.2%
2001	TEN	8.7%	-27.0%	35.7%	6.5%
2009	TB	28.1%	-7.3%	35.4%	???
1998	PHI	31.2%	-3.8%	34.9%	5.6%
1998	WAS	26.9%	-6.1%	32.9%	12.7%
1997	CIN	21.7%	-11.1%	32.8%	14.1%
2000	STL	12.4%	-19.1%	31.5%	13.5%
2005	BUF	1.5%	-28.8%	30.3%	7.8%

Tampa Bay has a new coach and a ton of new players. They got a lot worse. Not a shock. Pittsburgh, though? Thanks in large part to their complete defensive meltdown against San Diego -- with an absurd 93.8% DVOA for the fourth quarter -- the defending champions now rank 23rd in the league in defensive DVOA. They are also the first team whose defensive DVOA went up over 40 percentage points between one season and the first four games of the next season. You also might notice that none of these teams really got back their defensive mojo except for the 1995 Arizona Cardinals. Of course, none of these teams had a player like Troy Polamalu [3] who was injured in the first game but was expected back for most of the season. (The 2005 Bills lost Takeo Spikes [4] early, but he was gone for the year.) The Steelers should be putting a better defense on the field starting in a couple of weeks. But these numbers should still worry Steelers fans a little bit, just like those other numbers should give confidence to Broncos and Saints fans.

* * * * *

All team stats pages should be updated for Week. Here are some housekeeping notes regarding the Premium database and player pages:

The Head-to-Head Matchups View is now fixed and should properly show 2009 stats for matchups.
We've added a new view that shows how teams do in the shotgun compared to non-shotgun plays on both offense and defense. When looking at these numbers for past years, remember that until a couple years ago there still were a few teams that never used shotgun at all, so beware of small sample size.
Player pages now include 1998 penalty numbers, and 1998 individual defense numbers should be on the pages by this evening.
2009 rookies now have player pages, although there are no stats on them as of yet.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through four weeks of 2009, 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 [5].)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA 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. Because it is early in the season, opponent adjustments are currently at 40 percent strength.

As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

DAVE is a formula which combines our preseason projection with current DVOA to get a more accurate forecast of how a team will play the rest of the season. Right now, the preseason projection makes up 40 percent of DAVE (55 percent for teams that had a bye week).

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 DVOA	LAST WEEK	TOTAL DAVE	RANK	W-L	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	S.T. DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	NO	58.5%	2	32.2%	2	4-0	32.3%	2	-28.7%	1	-2.5%	19
2	PHI	43.8%	4	22.6%	6	2-1	14.7%	12	-25.9%	2	3.1%	7
3	BAL	41.1%	1	30.9%	3	3-1	27.5%	4	-16.0%	7	-2.5%	17
4	IND	40.8%	7	38.1%	1	4-0	36.6%	1	-5.6%	9	-1.4%	14
5	NYG	36.9%	8	27.8%	5	4-0	16.6%	10	-23.8%	4	-3.5%	24
6	MIN	36.7%	5	29.4%	4	4-0	12.7%	13	-15.5%	8	8.4%	3
7	DEN	36.5%	3	12.3%	10	4-0	14.7%	11	-25.4%	3	-3.6%	25
8	GB	20.8%	6	10.2%	11	2-2	21.0%	8	-3.9%	10	-4.1%	27
9	JAC	20.4%	17	19.6%	8	2-2	28.4%	3	10.0%	20	2.0%	9
10	NE	15.9%	11	20.2%	7	3-1	25.5%	7	7.9%	18	-1.7%	15
11	NYJ	12.0%	9	0.3%	16	3-1	-15.8%	27	-20.2%	5	7.6%	4
12	DAL	9.6%	10	5.7%	14	2-2	27.0%	5	18.4%	26	1.0%	12
13	PIT	8.2%	14	13.6%	9	2-2	26.1%	6	14.5%	23	-3.4%	22
14	ATL	3.3%	12	-7.5%	21	2-1	17.8%	9	15.3%	24	0.8%	13
15	SF	1.4%	22	-7.8%	22	3-1	-13.0%	24	-16.6%	6	-2.1%	16
16	CHI	1.1%	23	9.5%	12	3-1	-14.4%	25	-3.6%	11	11.9%	1
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	TOTAL DAVE	RANK	W-L	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	S.T. DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	MIA	-1.7%	26	-8.9%	23	1-3	1.8%	17	1.0%	13	-2.5%	18
18	HOU	-2.8%	21	-5.4%	18	2-2	2.7%	16	10.2%	21	4.7%	6
19	CIN	-3.1%	16	-3.8%	17	3-1	7.7%	14	1.9%	16	-8.9%	31
20	WAS	-6.7%	15	-6.6%	19	2-2	-6.4%	21	1.6%	15	1.4%	10
21	SEA	-7.3%	13	0.5%	15	1-3	-3.6%	19	4.6%	17	1.0%	11
22	ARI	-10.7%	24	-15.4%	24	1-2	-9.3%	23	-2.9%	12	-4.3%	28
23	SD	-11.9%	20	8.0%	13	2-2	6.2%	15	23.1%	30	5.0%	5
24	BUF	-19.7%	18	-22.9%	27	1-3	-7.6%	22	8.7%	19	-3.4%	23
25	TEN	-24.6%	19	-7.2%	20	0-4	-3.4%	18	10.3%	22	-10.9%	32
26	KC	-27.6%	25	-17.2%	25	0-4	-14.9%	26	15.6%	25	2.9%	8
27	CLE	-30.0%	32	-21.9%	26	0-4	-18.7%	29	21.9%	29	10.5%	2
28	TB	-36.3%	28	-26.2%	28	0-4	-5.4%	20	28.1%	32	-2.8%	20
29	OAK	-44.6%	27	-31.4%	31	1-3	-40.5%	32	1.1%	14	-2.9%	21
30	DET	-48.6%	30	-32.7%	32	1-3	-17.1%	28	26.2%	31	-5.3%	29
31	STL	-49.0%	29	-31.3%	30	0-4	-24.8%	30	20.6%	28	-3.6%	26
32	CAR	-60.0%	31	-26.8%	29	0-3	-33.5%	31	18.6%	27	-7.9%	30

ESTIMATED WINS [6] 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 [7] measures the statistical variance of the team's weekly DVOA performance. Teams are ranked from most consistent (#1, lowest variance) to least consistent (#32, highest variance).

	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VAR.	RANK
1	NO	58.5%	4-0	62.4%	4.0	1	-3.1%	19	-15.1%	32	0.6%	1
2	PHI	43.8%	2-1	50.6%	2.3	13	-7.3%	23	2.4%	12	25.5%	28
3	BAL	41.1%	3-1	47.9%	3.2	4	-13.4%	28	1.9%	13	20.2%	26
4	IND	40.8%	4-0	44.1%	3.2	3	0.2%	16	0.3%	16	14.7%	24
5	NYG	36.9%	4-0	35.7%	2.8	6	-15.2%	30	8.2%	4	8.2%	13
6	MIN	36.7%	4-0	41.3%	3.2	2	-14.1%	29	-5.8%	26	1.0%	2
7	DEN	36.5%	4-0	46.4%	3.0	5	-17.0%	31	4.7%	8	9.4%	16
8	GB	20.8%	2-2	24.5%	2.5	9	-3.6%	20	-6.9%	27	12.3%	23
9	JAC	20.4%	2-2	19.9%	2.7	7	0.7%	15	-7.7%	28	29.6%	30
10	NE	15.9%	3-1	14.1%	2.4	11	9.1%	8	1.8%	14	4.5%	7
11	NYJ	12.0%	3-1	11.4%	2.4	10	11.7%	6	-8.9%	30	10.4%	19
12	DAL	9.6%	2-2	11.7%	2.5	8	-5.7%	21	8.5%	3	8.0%	12
13	PIT	8.2%	2-2	18.8%	2.3	12	-9.6%	26	-0.8%	20	2.2%	3
14	ATL	3.3%	2-1	10.5%	2.2	14	-11.4%	27	5.2%	7	5.0%	9
15	SF	1.4%	3-1	4.7%	1.9	17	-7.6%	24	-1.1%	21	8.0%	11
16	CHI	1.1%	3-1	12.5%	2.0	16	-6.7%	22	3.5%	10	12.0%	22
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VAR.	RANK
17	MIA	-1.7%	1-3	0.3%	1.5	22	3.1%	12	0.0%	18	28.9%	29
18	HOU	-2.8%	2-2	5.3%	1.9	18	-9.2%	25	0.3%	17	11.3%	20
19	CIN	-3.1%	3-1	1.8%	2.1	15	8.9%	10	-2.1%	23	8.7%	14
20	WAS	-6.7%	2-2	4.0%	1.8	19	-24.2%	32	8.1%	5	2.2%	4
21	SEA	-7.3%	1-3	-15.5%	1.5	23	-1.4%	17	-7.8%	29	5.3%	10
22	ARI	-10.7%	1-2	-10.5%	1.6	21	15.6%	4	-12.6%	31	42.7%	32
23	SD	-11.9%	2-2	-15.5%	1.8	20	0.8%	14	-0.1%	19	2.5%	5
24	BUF	-19.7%	1-3	-26.0%	1.4	24	9.1%	9	-3.5%	24	25.0%	27
25	TEN	-24.6%	0-4	-30.4%	1.3	25	9.5%	7	1.4%	15	9.8%	18
26	KC	-27.6%	0-4	-31.0%	1.0	27	19.3%	3	-1.4%	22	4.9%	8
27	CLE	-30.0%	0-4	-43.2%	1.1	26	27.8%	1	-4.6%	25	30.2%	31
28	TB	-36.3%	0-4	-31.6%	0.6	30	5.0%	11	7.2%	6	9.3%	15
29	OAK	-44.6%	1-3	-36.2%	0.7	29	-1.4%	18	9.1%	2	11.8%	21
30	DET	-48.6%	1-3	-59.3%	0.9	28	22.4%	2	2.5%	11	9.4%	17
31	STL	-49.0%	0-4	-52.7%	0.6	31	2.1%	13	4.5%	9	2.8%	6
32	CAR	-60.0%	0-3	-63.1%	0.0	32	14.1%	5	9.2%	1	18.4%	25