by Aaron Schatz
New Orleans is now the clear number one atop this week's Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. That's no surprise after the Saints dismantled the previously unbeaten New York Giants on Sunday, 48-27. The Saints look ready to cruise to a first-round bye -- they are also the most consistent team in the league by VARIANCE, and their future schedule ranks 30th in the NFL.
The team that ranks second behind New Orleans is a bit more of a surprise -- or not, if you're a long-time Football Outsiders reader. Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles are still number two despite their embarrassing loss to Oakland this past weekend. The explanation for this is pretty simple, to be honest: Their three wins have been huge. They came against very bad teams, but DVOA won't fully penalize them until opponent adjustments are at full strength in Week 10. (We don't do full opponent adjustments now to make up for the small sample size that comes with fewer games. Who knows -- to give an example, maybe Carolina is better than everyone thinks.) Meanwhile, the Eagles two losses have been close by DVOA standards. They only lost to Oakland by four points, so their DVOA for that game is currently -12.0%. They lost to New Orleans by a big score, 48-22, but of course that's a loss to the best team in the league, so DVOA moves the rating up a bit. There were also three fumbles in that game that were all recovered by the Saints, so overall Philly's DVOA for that game is currently listed as a positive 2.3%.
Anyway, enough of that longtime Football Outsiders hobby, apologizing for our Eagles stats. Let's move on to another of our longtime hobbies, trying to figure out where our preseason projections went wrong. We could look at early performance and wonder about flukes, but at this point it is pretty clear that Denver is far better than we projected and San Diego is far worse. Obviously, San Diego has had some injury troubles, but they don't have enough injuries to represent the difference between a historically strong projection and ranking 24th in DVOA through five games. That leads to the question: What could the projection system have missed? We're talking about objective numbers here; our projections weren't based on a desire to criticize Josh McDaniels or an irrational love of Antonio Cromartie. The trends all still make sense looking back -- the Broncos brought in a quarterback with lower career numbers, the Broncos had a historically bad defense a year ago, old secondaries often struggle, San Diego had a lot of defensive injuries last year, and so forth. So what did we miss? At this point, I'd actually like to hear suggestions from the audience. We're looking for objective facts that we knew before the season that should have been indicators that Denver's defense would make a colossal turnaround, or that San Diego wouldn't be the best team in the league. They need to be suggestions that would be useful when looking at teams in general, trends that we can see with other teams from the past that significantly improved or declined from one year to the next. For example, "the Broncos hired Mike Nolan" wouldn't work, because as I discussed last week [1], there's no consistent history of well-regarded veteran coordinators significantly improving bad defenses. I also don't think "Norv Turner sucks" works, because Norv Turner's poor coaching is already reflected in San Diego's ratings from the last two seasons.
Most readers know that I often don't have the time to read through all the comments in the discussion threads, but I will look through this week and see if people have offered some serious suggestions that could help make the projection system more accurate in future years.
Finally, you may have been wondering where the Patriots' 59-0 shellacking of the Titans fits in on the list of the best DVOA games of all-time. The surprising answer: It doesn't. New England's DVOA rating for this week's win was "only" 117.5%. That's definitely the best single-game rating so far this year, but it doesn't make the list of the top ten DVOA games. That could change by the end of the year, but the Titans would have to get their act together enough to significantly change the opponent adjustments. (The list of the ten best DVOA games is found here [2].) The main reason why the Patriots don't make the list is that they didn't just take their foot off the gas in the fourth quarter -- they pulled the emergency brake and let the second-string offense skid all over in the snow. In their final two drives, the Patriots fell short on two third downs and a fourth down, and added a false start just for fun. Obviously, it doesn't matter when you are winning by 59, but DVOA does count every play, although at reduced strength because of the score. Here is New England's offensive DVOA by quarter on Sunday:
Fumbles were also a reason why the Patriots did not set a DVOA record -- not fumble recovery, but the fumbles themselves. The Titans fumbled six times, but three of those were aborted snaps; in the new DVOA introduced last July, the defense no longer gets any credit for "causing" a bad snap.
Of course, the Titans still get penalized for blowing those snaps, and so while the Patriots don't land on the list of the ten best single-game DVOA ratings, the Titans do land on the list of the ten worst single-game DVOA ratings:
| Worst Single-Game DVOA Ratings, 1994-2009 | ||||||
| Year | Team | DVOA | Week | vs. | Score | Opp DVOA Rank for Year |
| 2002 | ARI | -169.2% | 13 | KC | 49-0 | 4 |
| 2005 | SF | -166.0% | 7 | WAS | 52-17 | 7 |
| 2005 | SF | -146.8% | 2 | PHI | 42-3 | 18 |
| 2000 | CLE | -165.2% | 14 | JAC | 48-0 | 16 |
| 2007 | KC | -157.1% | 14 | DEN | 41-7 | 17 |
| 1999 | CLE | -153.6% | 1 | PIT | 43-0 | 19 |
| 2009 | TEN | -153.0% | 6 | NE | 59-0 | 4 |
| 2003 | ARI | -144.5% | 11 | CLE | 44-6 | 22 |
| 2000 | ARI | -142.7% | 8 | DAL | 48-7 | 24 |
| 2008 | STL | -137.5% | 10 | NYJ | 47-3 | 17 |
* * * * *
Housekeeping notes: We've finally had a chance to update the "DVOA as of Week X" numbers in the Premium database to reflect the new version of DVOA we introduced in July. All of the week-to-week numbers have been redone, so you can see what DVOA would have looked like in Week 8 of 1994 or Week 12 of 2002 or whenever you would like. In addition, the game-by-game DVOA page now features not only single-game offensive and defensive DVOA but also both offense and defense split into rushing and passing. If you want to know the rushing DVOA of the Bengals when Corey Dillon broke the all-time record with 278 rushing yards, you can (Week 8 of 2000, if you want to look it up). All Premium DVOA stats are now updated through Week 6 of 2009, as are all individual stats and team stats pages, plus the playoff odds page [4] (with a few new "special Super Bowl" listings).
The other housekeeping note: I got myself on the Twitter. There's an "official" FO address, fb_outsiders, but that's actually Bill Barnwell talking. I'm now on at FO_ASchatz. I'm planning to mostly use it to follow NFL reporters rather than telling you what I'm eating for lunch or whatever, but feel free to follow my feed as well as Bill's, and use it to ask questions which I may or may not have time to answer. At some point we'll get up a list of all the FO writers with public twitter pages so you can follow whoever you would like.
* * * * *
These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through six 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 DVOA 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 60 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 19 percent of DAVE for teams with six games and 27 percent of DAVE for teams with five games.
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 | 54.4% | 1 | 37.6% | 2 | 5-0 | 41.0% | 1 | -19.4% | 2 | -6.0% | 29 |
| 2 | PHI | 44.2% | 2 | 33.6% | 4 | 3-2 | 13.2% | 13 | -26.7% | 1 | 4.3% | 5 |
| 3 | IND | 41.2% | 4 | 39.6% | 1 | 5-0 | 35.3% | 2 | -7.0% | 9 | -1.1% | 19 |
| 4 | NE | 34.8% | 9 | 33.7% | 3 | 4-2 | 34.1% | 3 | -1.5% | 15 | -0.8% | 18 |
| 5 | NYG | 33.5% | 3 | 30.1% | 5 | 5-1 | 21.4% | 7 | -11.0% | 6 | 1.2% | 11 |
| 6 | DEN | 33.1% | 7 | 22.5% | 8 | 6-0 | 17.1% | 10 | -18.8% | 3 | -2.8% | 24 |
| 7 | MIN | 29.7% | 5 | 27.6% | 6 | 6-0 | 19.5% | 8 | -1.7% | 14 | 8.5% | 2 |
| 8 | GB | 28.9% | 8 | 19.6% | 9 | 3-2 | 13.4% | 12 | -15.8% | 4 | -0.3% | 15 |
| 9 | BAL | 27.6% | 6 | 25.3% | 7 | 3-3 | 24.6% | 6 | -6.3% | 11 | -3.3% | 25 |
| 10 | ATL | 19.9% | 10 | 10.3% | 11 | 4-1 | 18.3% | 9 | 2.2% | 17 | 3.8% | 6 |
| 11 | PIT | 14.1% | 12 | 15.8% | 10 | 4-2 | 27.1% | 5 | 7.1% | 21 | -6.0% | 28 |
| 12 | DAL | 12.5% | 11 | 9.0% | 12 | 3-2 | 27.2% | 4 | 13.9% | 25 | -0.7% | 17 |
| 13 | ARI | 8.3% | 22 | 0.7% | 16 | 3-2 | 2.5% | 18 | -7.3% | 8 | -1.6% | 21 |
| 14 | MIA | 3.3% | 17 | -2.7% | 18 | 2-3 | 13.5% | 11 | 8.9% | 22 | -1.3% | 20 |
| 15 | JAC | 2.7% | 15 | 5.8% | 13 | 3-3 | 13.1% | 14 | 11.8% | 23 | 1.4% | 10 |
| 16 | NYJ | 0.3% | 13 | -3.6% | 19 | 3-3 | -13.6% | 20 | -11.2% | 5 | 2.7% | 8 |
| 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 | SEA | -3.1% | 14 | -0.4% | 17 | 2-4 | -3.1% | 19 | 0.8% | 16 | 0.7% | 12 |
| 18 | HOU | -4.4% | 20 | -5.0% | 20 | 3-3 | 8.7% | 15 | 16.1% | 26 | 3.0% | 7 |
| 19 | CHI | -5.2% | 16 | 2.3% | 15 | 3-2 | -16.4% | 25 | -3.1% | 13 | 8.1% | 3 |
| 20 | CIN | -6.3% | 18 | -6.3% | 21 | 4-2 | 5.8% | 17 | 5.8% | 19 | -6.3% | 31 |
| 21 | SF | -7.3% | 21 | -11.4% | 23 | 3-2 | -15.0% | 24 | -10.3% | 7 | -2.5% | 23 |
| 22 | WAS | -8.8% | 19 | -8.6% | 22 | 2-4 | -14.8% | 23 | -6.1% | 12 | -0.1% | 14 |
| 23 | BUF | -10.4% | 24 | -14.0% | 24 | 2-4 | -17.5% | 26 | -6.9% | 10 | 0.2% | 13 |
| 24 | SD | -10.5% | 23 | 2.8% | 14 | 2-3 | 7.0% | 16 | 19.2% | 28 | 1.7% | 9 |
| 25 | KC | -22.3% | 26 | -18.4% | 25 | 1-5 | -14.5% | 22 | 13.6% | 24 | 5.8% | 4 |
| 26 | CLE | -30.7% | 25 | -26.7% | 27 | 1-5 | -26.1% | 31 | 18.3% | 27 | 13.8% | 1 |
| 27 | CAR | -34.9% | 29 | -25.1% | 26 | 2-3 | -22.6% | 29 | 6.1% | 20 | -6.2% | 30 |
| 28 | STL | -41.3% | 30 | -34.3% | 28 | 0-6 | -18.4% | 27 | 21.1% | 29 | -1.7% | 22 |
| 29 | TB | -41.3% | 28 | -35.8% | 30 | 0-6 | -13.9% | 21 | 27.1% | 32 | -0.4% | 16 |
| 30 | TEN | -46.4% | 27 | -34.5% | 29 | 0-6 | -18.5% | 28 | 21.3% | 30 | -6.6% | 32 |
| 31 | OAK | -47.3% | 32 | -40.9% | 31 | 2-4 | -38.9% | 32 | 5.1% | 18 | -3.3% | 26 |
| 32 | DET | -54.3% | 31 | -45.6% | 32 | 1-5 | -25.9% | 30 | 22.7% | 31 | -5.7% | 27 |
| TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
W-L | NON-ADJ TOT VOA |
ESTIM. WINS |
RANK | PAST SCHED |
RANK | FUTURE SCHED |
RANK | VAR. | RANK | |
| 1 | NO | 54.4% | 5-0 | 57.9% | 6.0 | 1 | 2.2% | 17 | -11.2% | 30 | 2.2% | 1 |
| 2 | PHI | 44.2% | 3-2 | 55.2% | 4.3 | 5 | -15.2% | 30 | 10.5% | 6 | 23.1% | 29 |
| 3 | IND | 41.2% | 5-0 | 47.7% | 4.7 | 2 | -5.9% | 23 | -1.5% | 19 | 16.2% | 20 |
| 4 | NE | 34.8% | 4-2 | 32.4% | 4.2 | 7 | 4.0% | 14 | 1.4% | 12 | 21.0% | 26 |
| 5 | NYG | 33.5% | 5-1 | 33.9% | 4.3 | 6 | -8.8% | 26 | 13.8% | 5 | 11.9% | 16 |
| 6 | DEN | 33.1% | 6-0 | 39.1% | 4.6 | 4 | -7.9% | 25 | 5.0% | 8 | 5.0% | 9 |
| 7 | MIN | 29.7% | 6-0 | 37.7% | 4.6 | 3 | -12.8% | 27 | -2.4% | 21 | 3.1% | 3 |
| 8 | GB | 28.9% | 3-2 | 35.7% | 4.1 | 9 | -12.9% | 28 | -5.0% | 26 | 18.4% | 21 |
| 9 | BAL | 27.6% | 3-3 | 31.8% | 4.2 | 8 | -0.9% | 20 | -1.2% | 18 | 12.4% | 18 |
| 10 | ATL | 19.9% | 4-1 | 28.8% | 4.0 | 10 | -1.5% | 21 | 6.3% | 7 | 4.6% | 6 |
| 11 | PIT | 14.1% | 4-2 | 30.5% | 3.8 | 12 | -25.6% | 31 | 4.4% | 9 | 4.2% | 5 |
| 12 | DAL | 12.5% | 3-2 | 15.3% | 3.9 | 11 | -5.3% | 22 | 14.7% | 4 | 3.9% | 4 |
| 13 | ARI | 8.3% | 3-2 | 9.3% | 3.2 | 14 | 4.9% | 12 | -14.2% | 32 | 35.9% | 32 |
| 14 | MIA | 3.3% | 2-3 | 2.8% | 2.8 | 18 | 6.8% | 8 | 0.4% | 14 | 18.9% | 22 |
| 15 | JAC | 2.7% | 3-3 | 1.8% | 3.4 | 13 | -7.6% | 24 | -4.2% | 25 | 22.3% | 28 |
| 16 | NYJ | 0.3% | 3-3 | 0.8% | 3.0 | 15 | 5.2% | 10 | -3.8% | 24 | 14.1% | 19 |
| TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
W-L | NON-ADJ TOT VOA |
ESTIM. WINS |
RANK | PAST SCHED |
RANK | FUTURE SCHED |
RANK | VAR. | RANK | |
| 17 | SEA | -3.1% | 2-4 | -6.0% | 2.4 | 24 | -0.2% | 19 | -11.6% | 31 | 24.7% | 30 |
| 18 | HOU | -4.4% | 3-3 | 8.1% | 3.0 | 16 | -14.8% | 29 | 1.5% | 11 | 8.0% | 12 |
| 19 | CHI | -5.2% | 3-2 | 1.0% | 2.8 | 19 | 0.9% | 18 | 2.9% | 10 | 8.1% | 13 |
| 20 | CIN | -6.3% | 4-2 | -4.6% | 3.0 | 17 | 11.4% | 5 | -9.8% | 29 | 9.3% | 14 |
| 21 | SF | -7.3% | 3-2 | -15.3% | 2.7 | 21 | 2.3% | 16 | -2.9% | 22 | 12.4% | 17 |
| 22 | WAS | -8.8% | 2-4 | 6.3% | 2.6 | 23 | -26.8% | 32 | 19.7% | 1 | 4.9% | 8 |
| 23 | BUF | -10.4% | 2-4 | -15.2% | 2.7 | 22 | 3.5% | 15 | -0.6% | 16 | 19.3% | 23 |
| 24 | SD | -10.5% | 2-3 | -14.8% | 2.7 | 20 | 5.1% | 11 | -6.1% | 27 | 2.6% | 2 |
| 25 | KC | -22.3% | 1-5 | -24.4% | 1.8 | 25 | 10.3% | 6 | -3.3% | 23 | 4.6% | 7 |
| 26 | CLE | -30.7% | 1-5 | -39.7% | 1.6 | 26 | 14.6% | 3 | -7.2% | 28 | 20.6% | 25 |
| 27 | CAR | -34.9% | 2-3 | -43.1% | 1.3 | 28 | 4.4% | 13 | 18.7% | 2 | 19.7% | 24 |
| 28 | STL | -41.3% | 0-6 | -46.2% | 1.4 | 27 | 7.0% | 7 | -0.8% | 17 | 5.6% | 10 |
| 29 | TB | -41.3% | 0-6 | -37.6% | 0.9 | 32 | 6.0% | 9 | 17.8% | 3 | 7.9% | 11 |
| 30 | TEN | -46.4% | 0-6 | -56.8% | 1.1 | 29 | 14.8% | 2 | -2.1% | 20 | 35.0% | 31 |
| 31 | OAK | -47.3% | 2-4 | -48.9% | 0.9 | 30 | 12.3% | 4 | 0.9% | 13 | 21.9% | 27 |
| 32 | DET | -54.3% | 1-5 | -64.9% | 0.9 | 31 | 18.9% | 1 | 0.1% | 15 | 9.9% | 15 |
Links:
[1] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2009/week-5-dvoa-ratings
[2] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2009/1994-dvoa-ratings-and-commentary
[3] http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/footballoutsiders.fsv/ros;sect=ros;fantasy=yes;game=no;tile=3;sz=300x250;ord=' random_number '?
[4] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/playoffodds
[5] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/methods#dvoa
[6] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/glossary#estimated_wins
[7] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/glossary#variance