Week 6 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

Here's a look at this week's DVOA and DAVE ratings, with commentary now available on FOXSports.com [1]. Chicago is now dominating every stat imaginable, whether you're talking FO stats or conventional stats. While the preseason projection still counts for 46% of the DAVE rating, you'll see below that the DAVE ratings are very much in line with the DVOA ratings with just a few big exceptions:

Seattle is playing far below its projection, due in large part to that single blowout by the all-powerful Bears.
Indianapolis is playing far below its projection, despite being undefeated; see Any Given Sunday [2] for more on that issue.
St. Louis and New Orleans have continued to play well after surprising early wins -- but check out the colossal gap between the Rams' DVOA and their non-adjusted VOA.

Late Wednesday update: While DVOA is no longer the "official" FOXSports.com power rankings, we have created a keyword at FOX that will allow you to always access the latest DVOA commentary. Simply use keyword "DVOA" at FOXSports.com.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through Week 5 of 2006, 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 [3].)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted based on strength of opponent as well as to consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. Opponent adjustments are currently set at 50% and will increase each week until they are full strength after Week 10. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver/Mexico City) and week of season.

DAVE is the new early-season formula that combines early-season performance with our preseason projection to get a more accurate picture of how well teams will play over the course of the entire season. This is the rating used to rank teams at FOXSports.com. After Week 5, the preseason projection counts for 46% of the rating. (DAVE stands for "DVOA Adjusted for Variation Early.") The projection will count for 32.5% next week, 15% the week after that, and then will disappear after Week 8.

To save people some time, please use the zlionsfan template 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	DAVE	RANK	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	W-L	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
1	CHI	64.7%	1	40.4%	1	72.5%	5-0	19.5%	3	-34.2%	2	11.0%	1
2	PHI	45.5%	4	30.4%	3	40.0%	4-1	24.2%	1	-20.0%	7	1.3%	11
3	SD	41.5%	2	32.5%	2	56.6%	3-1	13.0%	5	-24.2%	5	4.3%	4
4	JAC	28.0%	14	17.4%	5	33.9%	3-2	3.3%	11	-25.4%	4	-0.6%	16
5	KC	25.2%	5	17.3%	6	24.0%	2-2	-4.0%	16	-20.5%	6	8.7%	3
6	BAL	24.6%	3	13.5%	9	39.8%	4-1	-16.0%	27	-38.0%	1	2.5%	9
7	NYG	17.8%	16	10.8%	11	14.9%	2-2	20.6%	2	2.5%	19	-0.3%	14
8	STL	16.2%	8	-2.2%	18	31.6%	4-1	11.6%	8	-4.6%	14	0.0%	13
9	DAL	14.6%	6	7.1%	15	11.6%	2-2	4.2%	10	-15.0%	10	-4.5%	27
10	NE	11.9%	11	9.9%	12	20.7%	4-1	12.6%	6	4.4%	21	3.7%	5
11	NO	11.1%	9	-6.0%	19	17.9%	4-1	4.4%	9	-3.0%	17	3.7%	6
12	ATL	9.8%	15	9.5%	13	23.3%	3-1	-8.9%	22	-26.2%	3	-7.5%	32
13	CIN	8.2%	13	13.5%	8	8.4%	3-1	-0.1%	13	-5.3%	13	3.0%	8
14	WAS	7.3%	7	5.7%	17	0.9%	2-3	12.5%	7	7.1%	23	2.0%	10
15	DEN	6.0%	22	12.0%	10	-1.7%	3-1	-4.8%	17	-14.1%	11	-3.3%	25
16	IND	4.6%	10	15.5%	7	13.1%	5-0	17.5%	4	11.6%	27	-1.3%	18
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	DAVE	RANK	NON-ADJ TOT VOA	W-L	OFFENSE DVOA	OFF. RANK	DEFENSE DVOA	DEF. RANK	SPECIAL DVOA	S.T. RANK
17	MIN	4.4%	19	-6.2%	20	-0.7%	3-2	-8.5%	21	-16.1%	9	-3.2%	24
18	CAR	3.6%	17	7.4%	14	3.8%	3-2	2.7%	12	-3.7%	15	-2.8%	22
19	SEA	-0.8%	21	18.2%	4	-5.2%	3-1	-9.8%	23	-10.5%	12	-1.4%	19
20	PIT	-1.2%	20	6.9%	16	-13.4%	1-3	-12.5%	25	-17.0%	8	-5.7%	29
21	BUF	-10.1%	12	-15.8%	25	-13.2%	2-3	-10.0%	24	0.5%	18	0.4%	12
22	GB	-20.6%	26	-16.9%	26	-28.4%	1-4	-6.1%	18	8.7%	25	-5.8%	30
23	CLE	-21.0%	24	-15.1%	23	-25.3%	1-4	-22.3%	28	8.4%	24	9.7%	2
24	DET	-21.6%	25	-15.3%	24	-29.3%	0-5	-7.2%	19	13.9%	28	-0.5%	15
25	SF	-22.2%	27	-23.4%	27	-22.9%	2-3	-3.4%	15	17.0%	29	-1.7%	20
26	TB	-22.4%	28	-14.8%	22	-31.9%	0-4	-14.4%	26	4.9%	22	-3.1%	23
27	MIA	-22.9%	23	-12.2%	21	-8.0%	1-4	-22.5%	29	-3.4%	16	-3.9%	26
28	NYJ	-27.3%	18	-26.7%	28	-26.5%	2-3	-7.4%	20	18.9%	30	-1.0%	17
29	ARI	-32.9%	30	-27.2%	29	-27.0%	1-4	-23.4%	30	3.0%	20	-6.5%	31
30	HOU	-39.2%	29	-30.5%	30	-36.9%	1-3	-2.7%	14	39.6%	32	3.1%	7
31	OAK	-51.9%	31	-32.4%	31	-60.1%	0-4	-38.3%	32	8.7%	26	-4.8%	28
32	TEN	-51.9%	32	-36.1%	32	-44.2%	0-5	-26.5%	31	23.6%	31	-1.8%	21

ESTIMATED WINS [4] 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 [5] 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	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VARIANCE	RANK
1	CHI	64.7%	5-0	4.8	1	-12.1%	28	-10.0%	30	10.6%	15
2	PHI	45.5%	4-1	4.7	2	-9.9%	24	2.7%	11	0.5%	32
3	SD	41.5%	3-1	3.9	3	-16.1%	30	-4.7%	22	8.1%	17
4	JAC	28.0%	3-2	3.2	7	8.9%	7	-10.0%	31	36.6%	4
5	KC	25.2%	2-2	3.1	10	-10.2%	26	0.7%	16	43.5%	3
6	BAL	24.6%	4-1	3.4	5	-12.0%	27	-1.6%	20	17.6%	10
7	NYG	17.8%	2-2	3.2	6	14.2%	4	7.2%	6	7.2%	20
8	STL	16.2%	4-1	3.2	8	-18.2%	31	3.5%	9	10.6%	14
9	DAL	14.6%	2-2	2.6	18	5.8%	11	0.1%	17	21.6%	7
10	NE	11.9%	4-1	3.1	9	-9.2%	23	-8.3%	28	6.3%	23
11	NO	11.1%	4-1	2.9	13	-10.1%	25	7.8%	4	13.4%	11
12	ATL	9.8%	3-1	3.6	4	-8.1%	22	6.0%	8	48.0%	1
13	CIN	8.2%	3-1	2.7	17	3.0%	15	2.7%	13	12.2%	12
14	WAS	7.3%	2-3	2.9	14	6.4%	9	7.9%	3	21.1%	9
15	DEN	6.0%	3-1	2.8	15	15.6%	3	-5.5%	24	10.6%	13
16	IND	4.6%	5-0	3.0	11	-14.5%	29	-0.2%	18	7.5%	19
	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	W-L	ESTIM. WINS	RANK	PAST SCHED	RANK	FUTURE SCHED	RANK	VARIANCE	RANK
17	MIN	4.4%	3-2	3.0	12	11.0%	6	-6.3%	26	4.3%	28
18	CAR	3.6%	3-2	2.7	16	-3.6%	21	11.9%	2	8.0%	18
19	SEA	-0.8%	3-1	2.5	19	5.6%	14	-5.7%	25	5.9%	24
20	PIT	-1.2%	1-3	2.4	20	13.7%	5	-0.3%	19	5.6%	25
21	BUF	-10.1%	2-3	2.1	21	6.2%	10	-6.6%	27	25.3%	6
22	GB	-20.6%	1-4	1.8	25	23.2%	1	-4.8%	23	4.6%	27
23	CLE	-21.0%	1-4	1.3	28	-1.1%	19	2.0%	15	4.0%	29
24	DET	-21.6%	0-5	1.5	26	16.0%	2	-2.5%	21	3.4%	31
25	SF	-22.2%	2-3	1.9	22	0.4%	18	6.1%	7	43.7%	2
26	TB	-22.4%	0-4	1.8	24	1.3%	17	14.5%	1	7.2%	21
27	MIA	-22.9%	1-4	1.4	27	-22.6%	32	2.7%	12	5.2%	26
28	NYJ	-27.3%	2-3	1.3	29	-3.5%	20	-11.7%	32	28.9%	5
29	ARI	-32.9%	1-4	1.8	23	5.7%	13	2.8%	10	10.3%	16
30	HOU	-39.2%	1-3	1.2	30	8.6%	8	-9.1%	29	3.4%	30
31	OAK	-51.9%	0-4	0.4	32	5.7%	12	2.2%	14	6.9%	22
32	TEN	-51.9%	0-5	0.5	31	2.1%	16	7.2%	5	21.4%	8