Week 5 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

(Note: The odds for teams going undefeated listed below were artificially high and have been retroactively changed. More details on that can be found here.)

What a difference a year makes.

That's not necessarily true when it comes to which teams are on top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. The New England Patriots are the defending Super Bowl champions, and they are once again No. 1 in DVOA this week after their big win over Dallas. Same old, same old. Sure, the Patriots started last season off slowly, but by Week 5 they had demolished the Cincinnati Bengals and climbed back into the DVOA top ten. Overall, seven of the top ten teams after Week 5 of 2015 also ranked among the top ten teams after Week 5 of 2014. Another team currently in our top ten, Pittsburgh, was No. 11 at this point last year.

No, the difference is in just how well the best teams are playing this year compared to last year. This is what I wrote a year ago after Week 5:

Even with the sizeable gap between Seattle/Denver and the rest of the league, neither of last year's Super Bowl teams is playing at a historic pace. In fact, one of the hallmarks of this season has been the total absence of superlative teams or even units. That's in part reflected in the fact that no team even made it to 4-0 this year, but DVOA gives us an even better look at the situation. In most years, we're usually running tables at this point that talk about where some current team stands among the best or worst teams in DVOA history through X number of weeks. That's not going to happen in 2014. No team this year ranks among the top 20 or bottom 20 teams through Week 5 in total DVOA, offensive DVOA, defensive DVOA, or special teams DVOA.

That's where the difference is. This season absolutely is bringing us some superlative teams, plus a couple of extra good teams that have managed to start undefeated thanks to close wins and/or easy schedules.

As it says above, no team in 2014 started the season at least 4-0. One year later, there are six different teams still undefeated after five weeks: four at 5-0 and two at 4-0. As far as I can tell, this is an NFL record for undefeated teams after Week 5. Looking just at the years we have DVOA for, back to 1989, there are only two other seasons where there were at least four teams undefeated after Week 5. There were five undefeated teams at this point in 2009 (Denver, Indianapolis, Minnesota, and the Giants at 5-0, plus New Orleans at 4-0) and four teams in 2003 (Kansas City, Indianapolis, Minnesota at 5-0, plus Carolina at 4-0). Before 1989, you had no bye weeks and fewer teams, which meant lower odds of multiple undefeated teams this late in the season.

Of course, to the list of superlative teams in 2015 you have to add a one-loss team, the Arizona Cardinals. With their huge win over Detroit this week, the Cardinals rose from 49.8% DVOA to 51.5% DVOA. This is only the second time going back to 1989 that two teams have been over 50% DVOA after Week 5. The other year was 2009, and like this year, those two teams included one undefeated team (New Orleans) and a team that had a single loss but three huge blowout victories (Philadelphia). If you want to go back in time, here's the DVOA ratings commentary from Week 5 of 2009, though the ratings are slightly different from those listed below because of methodology changes in the past six years.

New England and Arizona have been so good this year that they both have climbed onto the list of the ten best teams in DVOA history through Week 5. These numbers are retroactively figured as if we were doing DVOA by our current methodology in those years, so like the ratings now, the opponent adjustments are only 50 percent strength and based solely on games played through Week 5 of that season. New England has a bit of a sample-size advantage over Arizona because they've only played four games, but they would also make a list of the top ten teams ever through four games.

What's interesting is that New England and Arizona have been dominant overall without being historically great in any one area of the game. The Patriots come closest; their current offensive DVOA of 38.1% ranks 11th all-time through Week 5. But both teams are well-rounded. Both teams currently rank in the top ten in offense, defense, and special teams. Yes, New England really has climbed into the top ten on defense. You might fault our opponent adjustments for this, because we use a single opponent adjustment for the entire season. The Patriots get a little bit of a boost because we're comparing their performance against Brandon Weeden to how the Cowboys offense played both with Weeden and Romo. But that's actually countered by the fact that the Patriots played the Steelers with Ben Roethlisberger, but are being compared to how defenses have fared against both Roethlisberger and Michael Vick.

There are actually four teams far ahead of the rest of the league in DVOA. Green Bay and Cincinnati are also above 30%, with no other team above 20%. And Green Bay and Cincinnati have also been strong teams in all three phases of the game so far this season. They don't rank in the top ten in all three phases, but they are each above average in all three phases.

I should also note that there is no equivalent to New England and Arizona on the other side of the league, now that Chicago has won a couple games after playing so badly in its first three. The last-place team in DVOA right now is San Francisco at -40.8%, but the 49ers don't even make a list of the 40 worst teams in DVOA through Week 5. The worst offense (Denver), defense (New Orleans), and special teams (Houston) are nowhere close to being historically awful.

Last week, I talked about how strong the chances are for teams to finish the 2015 regular season with a 16-0 record, and those chances have just gotten stronger with five of the six undefeated teams adding another win in Week 5. Last week's playoff odds simulation gave a 9.4 percent chance of at least one team finishing 16-0. This week, that's up to a 16.2 percent chance of at least one team finishing 16-0. (That includes overlap where multiple teams finish 16-0; add up each team's individual odds and you get 17.0 percent.) The playoff odds simulation is based on DAVE, our metric which combines performance so far with preseason projections. For New England, Green Bay, and especially Cincinnati, performance so far is far exceeding our preseason projection. Each week those teams continue to play well, they not only turn another possible loss into a definite win, they also see their DAVE increase because this year's performance becomes a larger part of the equation. The same is true for Atlanta and Carolina, though those teams are not playing as well as the other three. Denver is the only one of the six undefeated teams not currently outplaying its preseason projection, but the Broncos are still putting wins into the win column and increasing their chances of going 16-0.

The Patriots are by far the most likely team to go undefeated this year. The huge win over Dallas increased their DAVE rating so much that our odds of New England going 16-0 again went from 4.1 percent to 9.4 percent this week. It also helps that future opponents such as Indianapolis, Denver, and Miami keep underperforming compared to preseason projections, although games against the Eagles and Giants certainly look harder now than they did a week ago.

Surprisingly, Cincinnati's odds of going 16-0 only increased from 1.3 percent to 1.5 percent despite beating Seattle, one of the toughest opponents on their schedule. The problem for Cincinnati is the schedule going forward. We currently have the Bengals' remaining schedule ranked 15th, but that's strongly split into games against poor teams and good teams. The Bengals only have one game against the other undefeated teams, at Denver in Week 16, but they also have to go to Arizona in Week 11. (Another undefeated team, Green Bay, also has to go to Arizona to play in Week 16.)

In addition, DVOA says the AFC North is a lot better than people seem to think this season. You may be surprised to see Pittsburgh ranking No. 5 in DVOA despite the two games with Michael Vick at quarterback. The Steelers are still fourth in offense despite the Vick games, because they bulldozed the 49ers in Week 2 and made a late comeback attempt against the Patriots in Week 1. Roethlisberger should be back by Week 8, the first of two Bengals-Steelers matchups. The Steelers are also surprisingly average on defense so far this year, a huge improvement from their performance in 2014. The Bengals also still have two games against Cleveland, which climbed up to a surprising 19th in DVOA after beating the Ravens. And the Ravens themselves still rank 16th in DVOA despite their 1-4 start; the good news for Cincinnati is that the rematch isn't until Week 17, it's in Cincinnati, and the Ravens will likely have nothing to play for.

Another team that DVOA suggests is better than its record is Seattle. That's not a surprise, right? Even if we look only at 2015 performance, not using DAVE which incorporates the preseason forecast which had Seattle as the projected No. 1 team in the NFL, the Seahawks are still a top-ten team at 2-3. It certainly seems like the Seahawks should improve on their current ranking of 12th in defense. Their defensive DVOA was 14.4% in Weeks 1-2, but is -12.6% since Kam Chancellor returned in Week 3. Perhaps more of a surprise is that the offense, which looks like it is struggling significantly, comes out as average in DVOA and currently ranks 14th. The Seahawks rank just 22nd passing the ball but are fifth running with the ball (including Russell Wilson runs).

Seattle's best unit so far has actually been special teams, where the Seahawks are No. 1 in the league right now. The Seahawks were fifth in special teams when they won the Super Bowl, but just 18th a year ago. This year, the Tyler Lockett experience has returned this unit to glory. The Seahawks rank third in our ratings for kickoff returns, and fourth for punt returns. Steven Hauschka has also been excellent at kicker, and the Seahawks are No. 3 in both field goals and kickoffs. The only problem has been punt returns, where Seattle is usually strong but has been let down this season. Tavon Austin had a 75-yard return touchdown in Week 1, but the bigger problems were against Cincinnati this week. The Bengals had five different punt returns of 10 or more yards, and the three longest (17 yards by Brandon Tate and 19 and 35 yards by Adam Jones) came in the fourth quarter and overtime, setting up the Bengals drives that made the 17-point comeback win possible.

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Once again in 2015, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 16 Ultimate Team. Each week, we'll be picking out a handful of players who starred in that week's games. Some of them will be well-known players who stood out in DVOA and DYAR. Others will be under-the-radar players who only stood out with advanced stats. We'll announce the players each Tuesday in the DVOA commentary article, and the players will be available in Madden Ultimate Team packs the following weekend. We will also tweet out images of these players from the @fboutsiders Twitter account on most Fridays. One player each week will only be available for 24 hours from the point these players enter packs on Friday.

The Football Outsiders stars for Week 5 are:

• RE Jurrell Casey, TEN (24-HOUR HERO): 6 combined tackles, 1.5 sacks, 3 QB hits.
• WR Julian Edelman, NE: Finished No. 3 among Week 5 wide receivers with 53 DYAR (4-of-5 on passes for 120 yards and a TD).
• C Khaled Holmes, IND: Helped limit J.J. Watt to 2 assists and no sacks; Colts running backs averaged 4.8 yards per carry on runs up the middle.
• CB Quinten Rollins, GB: 2 interceptions including a pick-six, plus a run tackle to prevent conversion on third-and-2.
• RB Shane Vereen, NYG: Finished No. 3 among Week 5 running backs with 53 DYAR (8-of-8 on passes for 86 yards and a TD, plus 5 carries for 24 yards).

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All stats pages are now updated with Week 5 information, including FO Premium, snap counts and playoff odds.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through five weeks of 2015, 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.)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted for strength of schedule and 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 only at 50 percent strength; they will increase 10 percent every week through Week 10. 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 27 percent of DAVE for teams with five games played, and 40 percent of DAVE for teams with four games played.

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>

• NON-ADJUSTED TOTAL DVOA does not include the adjustments for opponent strength or the adjustments for weather and altitude in special teams, and only penalizes offenses for lost fumbles rather than all fumbles.
• ESTIMATED WINS 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 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).