DVOA Ratings

The Patriots have one of their best Super Bowl performances by DVOA, and one of the top defensive Super Bowls we've tracked. As you can imagine, all that defense also means the Quick Reads totals are pretty negative, unless you happened to win Super Bowl MVP.

Big games for the No. 2 seeds mean our weighted DVOA ratings are now grouped very close together going into the conference championships.

Indianapolis moves up to No. 2 in weighted DVOA, setting up a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in Saturday's divisional game against Kansas City. Plus, updated DVOA ratings for the other six remaining teams.

The Kansas City Chiefs finish the year on top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings, and rank among the best offenses we've ever tracked. On the flip side are the Arizona Cardinals, in distant last place as one of the worst offenses we've ever tracked. But there are also plenty of interesting stories in between.

Kansas City and New Orleans are now neck-and-neck in weighted DVOA, with the Saints as the hottest team in football over the last six weeks. A look at DVOA just since Week 11 shows which other teams are red hot right now, including Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Cleveland.

What happened to our historic season of offense? Defenses have been winning the day since the start of December, especially in New Orleans where the offense is struggling and the defense is surging. The Saints move up to No. 3 in DVOA and take over as the Super Bowl favorites in our playoff odds report.

Chicago's big win over the Rams moves the Bears into position as a historically dominant defense while also moving the Chargers up in DVOA to set up DVOA Bowl XIX this Thursday night. Plus, in-depth on the Rams' record-setting offensive line season, and why DVOA isn't as high as conventional wisdom on the Dallas Cowboys.

The Chargers and Broncos rise to give us three AFC West teams in our top five. Plus, a further look at Baltimore's three-game winning streak and playoff odds in the NFC East with a huge game between Philadelphia and Dallas this coming Sunday.

This week, we look at offenses and defenses that have improved over the last few weeks, including Minnesota and the No. 1 defense in the league since Week 6. Plus, what would our Super Bowl odds look like if DVOA didn't have Kansas City rated so much better than other advanced metrics?

Close loss or not, DVOA is ready to ride or die with the Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, Chiefs-Rams was one of a number of games this week where the losing team ended up with a higher rating than the winning team.