Another 1 Bites the Dust: Bills Continue DVOA Drought

NFL Conference Championship - It's the conference championship round, and the cream has risen to the top! Four of the top five teams in DVOA have made it to the final four, so we have the best possible combination of teams remaining as we approach the Super Bowl. Yes sir, there's no way we could improve this year's final four, no siree Bob.

Hrm? What's that? What about the other team in the top five? Where's No. 1? Well, about that…

Four of the top five teams by DVOA are still standing 👑 pic.twitter.com/jxm9YVOyqx

— Football Outsiders (@fboutsiders) January 23, 2023

When the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Buffalo Bills, it didn't just put Joe Burrow and company a game away from the Super Bowl. It also continued two streaks that have been mildly annoying us for the past few seasons. It has now been six years since the top team in regular-season DVOA has won the Super Bowl—and that has happened just twice in the past 20 years. And we have never, ever had the top four teams in DVOA all appear in the conference championship round at the same time.

In fact, more often than not, the top team in the regular season does not go on to win the title. While we're in a bit of a dry spell at the moment, even if you look back at the full, 42-year history of DVOA, the top team by our numbers only goes on to win the championship one-third of the time.

Is that surprising? Maybe a little, and we always get a healthy heaping of criticism whenever our top team does eventually bow out. And I was expecting there to be some notable difference in the DVOAs between the first-ranked teams that won the Super Bowl and those that ducked out early; not every No. 1 seed is made equal, after all. There's a little bit of a trend there, if you kind of squint, but nothing that seems particularly significant.

Of course, that's just how the NFL is set up. The top team in the regular season rarely wins the title, no matter which numbers you use. The top team in Pro Football Reference's Simple Rating System has won the Super Bowl 18 times, or 31.6% of the time. By point differential, it's 15 times, or 26.8%, although San Francisco could still win it this year (which would make it 28.6%). Nonetheless, this isn't an issue of "DVOA can't find the best teams"; it's "the best teams usually don't win."

The fact that the 21st century, specifically, has had so many top teams fall short is interesting, because there was a period there where the top team seemingly always won the Super Bowl—from 1989 to 2002, the top team in DVOA ended up as Super Bowl champion 10 times in 14 seasons, and you have similar runs of success with other systems. This is probably mostly a case of splits just happening—flip a coin often enough, and you'll get a run of 10 heads in a row, despite the statistical improbability of that happening. It is intriguing, however, that the run stops right when realignment hit. The 1989-to-2002 run almost perfectly lines up with one specific playoff format. In 1990, the NFL expanded the playoffs to 12 teams, taking away a bye week from the worst of three division winners. And in 2002, they realigned to four divisions, taking away a home game from the top wild card and handing it to the worst divisional winner.

Basically, top teams in the 1990-to-2001 format were more likely to have a rest advantage than in years previous, as a bye week was taken away from a straggling winner in a weaker division. And they were more likely to have a home game than in years after, as you could still earn home field in the first round even if you happened to play in a division with another top team. I would argue that, at least in the DVOA era, this was the format which most benefitted top teams. So perhaps some of the drop in top teams winning the title can be chalked up to the change in format alongside a healthy portion of regression to the mean. It can't explain everything—there's not a rash of top DVOA teams getting stuck with the fifth seed post-2002 or anything. But I'm sure teams such as the 1990 Giants and 1992 Cowboys sure didn't mind their divisional-round opponents having to fight through the wild-card round to get to them while they stayed at home with their feet up.

And with the loss of a second bye week, things are getting even tougher for top teams—this year's Bills would have received a week off in a 12-team format and had the advantage of a rest week before playing Cincinnati. Bills players talked about being "emotionally drained" after everything they had to deal with to close the season, running out of gas at the end. Maybe that doesn't happen with a week off to gather and reflect!

And that does kind of get down the heart of the matter—if we wanted to have the best team win the title every year, a single-elimination tournament is pretty much the worst possible way to do it. Imagine, for a moment, that the best team in the league wins 70% of the time against other playoff-caliber teams and will always earn the top seed and bye week, both of which are exceptionally charitable estimates. The odds of that team winning three games in a row and becoming champion are 34.3%, or about as often as the top team in DVOA actually wins the title. And that drops to 24.0% when you add in a fourth game by going to 16 teams, as is often rumored.

Is that a bad thing? I don't think it's ideal for the best team in the regular season to always win the Super Bowl. I like a certain degree of uncertainty in my postseason; if we know the best team after 18 weeks is going to win, the four weeks of playoff football are just kind of an uninteresting formality. That's not to say I want a 2007 Giants—or, indeed, a 2011 Giants—every year, but knowing that it's a possibility makes the playoffs that much more exciting. Just how often that should happen, though, is a matter of personal taste. I do want favorites to win a significant chunk of the time, because otherwise, the upsets stop being special. Plus, the importance of the regular season is diminished, and that's not ideal, either.

There's a happy medium somewhere, though exactly where that is is difficult to tune. Favorites winning a third of the time seems more or less right to me, so I fear the oft-rumored expansion of the postseason. I don't like the idea that the importance of earning a top seed will continue to fall and the benefits of being dominant for four months becoming smaller and smaller because, goodness knows, we need to make room for the Steelers to play the Chiefs on a Friday night. I mean, I find it hard to understand why the NFL feels the need to keep expanding and expanding the postseason and…

Sunday's Divisional clash between the @DallasCowboys and @49ers delivered 45.7 million viewers on FOX 🤯

This ranks as the most-watched matchup of the weekend and the second most-watched NFL Divisional playoff game on record.#NFLPlayoffs | #DALvsSF | #FTTB pic.twitter.com/SX2kpbZ7yi

— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) January 24, 2023

Oh. Right. Carry on, then.

Not Quite Perfect Conference Championships

Still, having four of the of the top five teams in the conference championships ain't bad. This is only the third time since 1981 that has actually occurred, joining 1989 and 1997. And if you extend our criteria to four of the five best possible teams, seeing as how we still need two NFC and two AFC teams in the championship games as things stand, you only add 2020 to that list. It's rare to see this sort of convergence of the top teams this late in the season.

And yet, the 16.9% gap between the Bills and Bengals in regular-season DVOA is pretty big; there's a significant difference between dropping the No. 1 team in DVOA and the No. 4 team. That 16.9% potential DVOA lost ranks 22nd out of the 42 conference championship weekends in DVOA history. Even if it's just one team being replaced by the next best possible option, it ends up basically being an average year when looked at in aggregate. The Bills were really good!

But that leads to the obvious question—how close have we gotten to the perfect conference championships? And, for that matter, what's the year with the most chaos, where the best teams fell earliest? We can rank those by potential DVOA lost—the gap between the combined DVOA of the four best possible teams and the actual four teams that reached the round. Let's take a look at the top and bottom five:

Closest to Perfect

1. 1989: 2.0% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: 49ers, Vikings, Browns, Broncos: 99.9% DVOA
Actual Four: 49ers, Rams, Browns, Broncos: 97.9% DVOA

In 1989, there was the 49ers, and then there was everyone else. Joe Montana and company put up a DVOA of 37.2%; no one else even hit 25.0%. Instead, there were six teams wedged between 14.0% and 24.0% in a battle to see who would best play second fiddle. That tightly-jammed middle pack means that there wasn't much too much to complain about when the 49ers destroyed No. 3 Minnesota (21.0%) 41-13 in the divisional round and then smashed No. 4 Los Angeles (19.0%) 30-3 in the NFC Championship Game. The gap between the Vikings and Rams was negligible at best, and we still got to see San Francisco cut through their toughest NFC opponents before demolishing the Broncos 55-10 in the Super Bowl. We still got the top two NFC teams and top two AFC teams playing each other that season; they just happened in different rounds. Fair enough.

🗓️ OTD in 1990: The 49ers advanced to the NFC Championship for the 2nd year in a row & the 5th time in 9 years by destroying the Vikings 41-13! Joe Montana tossed 4 TD's in the win while the D produced 4 sacks & forced 5 turnovers, including a pick 6 by Ronnie Lott...#FTTB pic.twitter.com/O8SDASDe6D

— 80s Football Cards 🏈 🙌 (@80sFootballCard) January 6, 2023

2. 1998: 2.0% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Broncos, Jets, Vikings, 49ers: 112.7% DVOA
Actual Four: Broncos, Jets, Vikings, Falcons: 110.6% DVOA

I had to dive into the database to get extra decimal points to determine the top spot here; 1998 loses 2.05% while 1989 loses just 1.98%, so it just fails to take the top spot. The Dirty Bird Falcons were actually ahead of the 49ers in weighted DVOA, and had the stronger defense to boot, so it's hardly an injustice that they knocked San Francisco off in the divisional round on their way to a Super Bowl appearance. Falcons fans will remember this as the day Jamal Anderson rushed all over their long-time rival from the old NFC West. 49ers fans will remember it as the day Garrison Hearst broke his ankle. Either way, it cost us a Vikings-49ers NFC Championship Game in Steve Young's final full season.

3. 1997: 2.7% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Broncos, Chiefs, Packers, 49ers: 116.0% DVOA
Actual Four: Broncos, Steelers, Packers, 49ers: 113.3% DVOA

We did, in fact, get Broncos-Chiefs this year; it just took place in the divisional round. It's easy to forget that the Broncos didn't actually win the division in their first Super Bowl year; they had to travel to Arrowhead in the divisional round in large part because they lost to the Chiefs, in Kansas City, in the regular season. So despite having the second-best record in the AFC, the Broncos had to host a wild-card game before going on the road against the other top team in the conference the very next week. Tough draw, that, but the Broncos pulled through. I think Chiefs fans are still, to this day, questioning the fourth-down call that ended up handing Denver the win.

the dramatic ending of the 1997 Broncos @ Chiefs playoff game! pic.twitter.com/ZbvSltU94Q

— 📽️ Red Tribe Cinema (@ClayWendler) January 13, 2017

4. 1982: 3.7% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Jets, Dolphins, Giants, Redskins: 94.7% DVOA
Actual Four: Jets, Dolphins, Cowboys, Redskins: 91.0% DVOA

The shortened 1982 season is to blame here. Not only did the Giants not reach the NFC Championship Game despite being fourth in DVOA on the season; they didn't even make the expanded playoffs! They finished 4-5, losing out on the postseason on tiebreakers to the Lions. They had winnable games lost to the player's strike; games against the Cardinals, Rams, and Browns would have all seen the Giants heavily favored. New York was weak for a fourth-place team at only 16.0% DVOA, so the dropoff to the Cowboys really isn't that much. But only five teams have ranked higher than fourth and missed the playoffs in DVOA history, so the Giants really did get unlucky with half the season being cancelled.

5. 2004: 3.7% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Steelers, Patriots, Eagles, Packers: 98.2% DVOA
Actual Four: Steelers, Patriots, Eagles, Falcons: 94.5% DVOA

2004 was one of the more lopsided years in NFL history—nine of the top 11 teams in DVOA played in the AFC, including the entire top five. This is the biggest gap between the DVOA of the best possible conference championships and the best four teams in general at 32.9%. So sure, maybe we technically lost out a little when the Vikings shocked the Packers in the wild-card round, but Green Bay ranked 12th in DVOA (2.1%). It's hard to make too much of a case for us being historically deprived by not getting to see them make a deep run into the postseason. I think Randy Moss may have summed up the state of the NFC in 2004 better than anyone else.

January 9, 2005: During a Wild Card upset of the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota #Vikings WR Randy Moss controversially pretended to "moon" the crowd as his TD celebration
pic.twitter.com/t7FMzWyT2z

— Pro Sports Outlook (@PSO_Sports) January 9, 2022

Furthest From Perfect

1. 1987: 66.0% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: 49ers, Saints, Browns, Broncos: 118.6% DVOA
Actual Four: Redskins, Vikings, Browns, Broncos: 52.5% DVOA

Minnesota stumbled into the playoffs in 1987, losing three of their last four games and just barely squeezing into the postseason on the last day. They were the very definition of first-round fodder, having shuffled quarterbacks all year long in an attempt to get something going offensively. So of course, in back-to-back weeks, the Vikings (5.2%) upset the No. 2 Saints (30.7%) and No. 1 49ers (47.2%). And they weren't close games, either! They beat the Saints by 34 points and handled the 49ers by 12. Those 1987 49ers are still the best team by DVOA not to reach a Super Bowl, and no, I'm not over it, thank you.

The 1987 #Vikings playoff wins vs the #Saints and a huge upset over the #49ers pic.twitter.com/rWrX08kj7B

— Old Time Football 🏈 (@Ol_TimeFootball) December 13, 2019

2. 1995: 63.9% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: 49ers, Cowboys, Chiefs, Steelers: 119.4% DVOA
Actual Four: Packers, Cowboys, Colts, Steelers: 55.6% DVOA

What, we needed a fourth straight Cowboys-49ers NFC Championship Game? We were ready to cue it up once again in 1995, but some upstart named the "Green Bay Packers" decided enough was enough. I still can see the 49ers' first play from scrimmage when I close my eyes. And no, I'm not over it, thank you.

Wayne Simmons called, he wants the ball back

(from Packers v. 49ers 1995 Divisional Playoffs) pic.twitter.com/53u5OVWi8W

— Joe Kipp (day 1 christian watson fan) (@joepkipp) July 8, 2020

The very next day, the No. 1-seeded Chiefs were playing in -9 wind chill and hosting the underdog Colts. But Lin Elliott missed three field goals, including a game-tying 42-yarder with 37 seconds left, and Indianapolis escaped with a 10-7 victory. Both underdogs then went on to lose in the conference championships, though they at least put a scare into both the Cowboys and Steelers.

3. 2019: 59.3% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Ravens, Patriots, Saints, 49ers: 133.7% DVOA
Actual Four: Titans, Chiefs, Packers, 49ers: 74.3% DVOA

The Titans squeaked into the playoffs, but were better than their season-long 7.6% DVOA. After benching Marcus Mariota for Ryan Tannehill, the 10th-ranked Titans went on a Cinderella run, beating Tom Brady in his last start for the Patriots and then taking down MVP Lamar Jackson and the Ravens in an outcome that still feels like Baltimore has never quite recovered from to this day, considering the ongoing drama over Jackson's contract status.

Tom Brady's last pass as a New England Patriot.

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/7FUOgyHbQo

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 17, 2020

And on the other side of the bracket, the Vikings were once again screwing up the NFC race, knocking the Saints out in overtime of the wild-card round, one of a string of seasons where the highly rated Saints fell apart in the postseason—quite often to Minnesota to boot.

4. 2012: 53.0% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Seahawks, 49ers, Broncos, Patriots: 138.3% DVOA
Actual Four: Falcons, 49ers, Ravens, Patriots: 85.3% DVOA

The Seahawks and Broncos would meet in the Super Bowl the next season, but 2012 saw them get handed their walking papers early. Seattle ended up falling to Atlanta in the divisional round as the Falcons took a 20-0 lead and for once didn't actually blow it, despite a furious Seahawks comeback that saw them score 21 points in the fourth quarter before Matt Bryant ended things with a 49-yard field goal in the closing seconds. That was dramatic enough, but the day before, the Broncos had gone home after the Mile High Miracle.

10 years ago today, The Mile High Miracle 🙌 (via @NFLLegacy) pic.twitter.com/R7EHFV3hqt

— NFL (@NFL) January 12, 2023

Joe Flacco's 70-yard game-tying bomb would have been enough to make the game memorable, but we also saw three return touchdowns, five lead changes, and double overtime. I suppose if you're going to lose, you might as well make it memorable, ay, Denver?

5. 2021: 50.6% DVOA Lost
Best Possible Teams: Cowboys, Buccaneers, Bills, Patriots: 109.4% DVOA
Actual Four: 49ers, Rams, Chiefs, Bengals: 58.8% DVOA

You may remember this one. Last year's quartet had the fourth-lowest combined DVOA of conference champions ever, which is one reason it's so nice to see this year's foursome scoring so highly … even if three of the actual teams are the same. 2021 joins 2009 as the only seasons to see none of the top four teams in DVOA reach the conference championships.

The wild-card round saw the Bills clear some serious baggage by grinding the Patriots into a fine powder—the first team ever that did not punt, kick a field goal, face a fourth down, or turn the ball over, as well as the first to score seven touchdowns on seven consecutive drives. That's about as clear a statement as you can make. It also saw the 49ers take down the top-rated Cowboys, who seemed to forget how time works as they ran out the clock while losing.

The Buccaneers fell in the divisional round, clawing back from a 27-3 deficit to the Rams before Los Angeles managed to win on a field goal on the last play of the game. And, of course, that was followed by the Bills losing to the Chiefs in one of the greatest games ever played.

One year ago today...

Was this the greatest playoff game you've ever seen? pic.twitter.com/PxpOhEVVlY

— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2023

Yeah, I'm fine with losing some great teams as long as we get games like that.

Staff Playoff Fantasy Update

With three games to go, it looks like we're down to a three-horse race in the staff league.

Jackson and I are neck-and-neck, the two teams with over 200 points. The 49ers didn't exactly have a banner day from a fantasy perspective in the divisional round, but having nearly every single player on the roster was still enough for me to rack up a significant number of points. Jackson, of course, was able to drain some of those Christian McCaffrey points for himself, but he's mostly here because he has the trio of Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Evan McPherson moving on thanks to Cincinnati's win over Buffalo.

That puts both of us in prime position at the moment. A 49ers victory over Philadelphia favors me fairly heavily, as the beast incarnate Brock Purdy continues dealing. Jackson is in a prime position if Cincinnati advances, and even has a solid shot in a Cincinnati-San Francisco matchup if enough of San Francisco's offense goes through McCaffrey. I am sure Jackson would have preferred to lose McCaffrey, keeping Dak Prescott and eliminating two-thirds of my roster, while I would love to have had a little more from Stefon Diggs before he got eliminated. Either way, we're on top.

Jackson even provided some analysis to this point:

Jackson: To this point in the contest, the offensive player providing the most positional value is Dalton Schultz, with 17.7% more points than any other tight end. And he's eliminated. The active offensive player with the biggest leading margin at his position is Christian McCaffrey, with just 3.1% more than other RBs. The top QBs and WRs have already been eliminated too.

Meanwhile, Robbie Gould has 120% more points than any other kicker. #MVP

I am game for McCaffrey versus Gould to decide things in Arizona!

But if Jackson and I are in good position if San Francisco or Cincinnati make it, what of a Philadelphia-Kansas City Super Bowl? It's not third-place Tom, down to just Jet McKinnon and the Bengals defense. I don't think it's Cale, either; Travis Kelce is great, but he is just one man. No, I think Vince is in the best shape if we get the Andy Reid Bowl. Miles Sanders, Isaiah Pacheco, A.J. Brown, Dallas Goedert, Harrison Butker, and the Eagles defense should be more than enough to overcome Kelce and a small Cale lead, and the 35-point lead he currently holds over Aaron should be enough to hold off a Jalen Hurts run. Those two games from Jacksonville put him in a prime position, should both Jackson and I falter.

Best of the Rest Update

We have a new leader in the clubhouse—Tyler S. And unlike last week, our leader actually has players remaining.

Tyler, like many of the other top scorers, based his team around Daniel Jones (38 points) and DK Metcalf (35.6). But he also has a healthy smattering of Bengals on his roster, with Samaje Perine, Tyler Boyd, and especially Hayden Hurst (23.4) still around and kicking. Altogether, he has 150.7 points through two weeks, and live players in the chamber moving forward. You can't ask for much more than that.

In fact, Tyler is in a better position than it looks like at first glance. There are four other teams within 20 points of him, but Tyler has them all covered—barring a historic number of fumbles and other negative points, they cannot catch him. Andrew and Jackson only have Perine, while Dales and Eddo are out of players entirely.

That's not to say Tyler is running away with things. There are nine players left who could possibly win this thing. JCypress may have the best shot. He has Tyler covered with Perine, Boyd, and Hurst on his roster, but he also still has Kenneth Gainwell and Jauan Jennings active; at least one of them is going to the Super Bowl. Tyler has a 24.4-point lead, mostly because Daniel Jones was a better pick than Kirk Cousins, but that's not insurmountable with three games left from players not on Tyler's roster. Tyler will be hoping for a defensive battle in the NFC Championship Game to seal his fate.

There's a tier below of teams around 110 points and a chance—Surebrec, Randy Savage, Jean-Luc Goedert, StMedard, and Drifter75. There's a lot of Kadarius Toney in that group, as well as a bit of Boston Scott. If something noteworthy happens from either of those players, they'd have a real shot, too. And then there's Hitchhiker's Pie and Simon2, both still alive because they have shares of Justin Watson. Well, stranger things have happened.

Your current top 5!

1. Tyler S: 150.7 (Samaje Perine, Tyler Boyd, and Hayden Hurst remaining)
2. Andrew: 141.6 (Samaje Perine remaining)
3. Jackson Roberts: 140.65 (Samaje Perine remaining)
4. Dales: 135.1 (out of players)
5. Eddo: 131.9 (out of players)