Week 10 DVOA Ratings
by Aaron Schatz
Kansas City and the Los Angeles Rams maintain the top two spots in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings this week, setting up Monday night's DVOA Bowl XVIII. We'll get to that in a moment. First, let's talk about a lot of big movement underneath the Chiefs and Rams, thanks to some big results.
The biggest result was Pittsburgh's Thursday night 52-21 curbstomping of the Carolina Panthers, which earned a single-game DVOA rating of 117.2%. That's the best single game of the year so far. The rest of this year's top individual games:
- 105.3% DVOA: Kansas City over Cleveland 37-21, Week 9
- 91.5% DVOA: Baltimore over Tennessee 21-0, Week 6
- 90.3% DVOA: Chicago over Tampa Bay 48-10, Week 4
- 86.0% DVOA: Denver over Arizona 45-10, Week 7
- 80.7% DVOA: Los Angeles Rams over Minnesota 38-31, Week 4
The huge win moves Pittsburgh all the way up from 11th to fifth in total DVOA; the Steelers are even better, now third, in weighted DVOA, which lowers the strength of their 0-1-1 start. On the other hand, the Panthers divebomb from third overall last week to 12th this week. Their actual DVOA rating went from 23.8% to 9.4%, a drop of more than 14 percentage points.
After the Pittsburgh win, there were four other games with DVOA over or near 60% this week, and they generally resulted in some big moves up and down the DVOA ranks:
- 63.5% DVOA: Buffalo over New York Jets 41-10.
- 61.9% DVOA: Green Bay over Miami 31-12
- 61.5% DVOA: Tennessee over New England 34-10
- 56.8% DVOA: New Orleans over Cincinnati 51-14
With the first game on this list, the Jets dropped from 23rd to 27th while the Buffalo Bills climbed out of the bottom spot in DVOA for the first time all season. In a bigger story, the Bills jumped out of last place in the "worst offense we've ever tracked through this point in the season" sweepstakes. I'm afraid that Matt Barkley kind of ruined my fun with his big game against the Jets -- who somehow still have an above-average defense, falling from seventh to 13th in defensive DVOA this week. Buffalo had its first positive offensive day of the year, 50 percentage points of DVOA better than any game they had previously. But one game can't make those first nine go away! The Bills are still on the list, though they are now fifth. And three spots below them, you'll find the Arizona Cardinals. So that's two historically bad offenses once we adjust for the overall scoring environment of the 2018 season.
| WORST OFFENSIVE DVOA THROUGH 10 GAMES, 1986-2018 |
||
| Year | Team | DVOA |
| 2010 | CAR | -47.4% |
| 1992 | SEA | -46.7% |
| 2005 | SF | -46.2% |
| 2007 | SF | -43.8% |
| 2018 | BUF | -43.4% |
| 2002 | HOU | -43.0% |
| 2013 | JAX | -41.5% |
| 2018 | ARI | -38.2%* |
| 1992 | IND | -37.8% |
| 2004 | MIA | -36.9% |
| 2009 | OAK | -36.8% |
| 1997 | NO | -36.6% |
| *Arizona is only at 9 games. | ||
With the second game on this list, Green Bay climbed from 13th to 10th while Miami fell from 14th to 20th. Miami has now fallen from sixth in DVOA to 20th in four weeks.
With the third game on this list, Tennessee climbed from 22nd to 16th while New England fell from sixth to 11th. This is the first time the Patriots have ranked outside the DVOA top ten during the second half of the season since the 2008 Matt Cassel team. It's the first time that a Tom Brady Patriots team has ranked outside the top ten in the second half of the season since the 2005 Patriots finished the year 12th overall.
With the fourth game on this list, Cincinnati fell from 17th to 21st while the New Orleans Saints... only went up from seventh to sixth. The actual rating increase was more impressive, going from 13.8% to 18.4%. But I will fully admit to being a little confused myself as to why the DVOA ratings this year disagree with many other advanced metrics around the Web as far as how good the Saints are. The problem is on offense, where the Saints are sort of the opposite of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs have one of the best offenses we've ever tracked, because DVOA loves the Chiefs offense more than any other metric out there. But it seems to rate the New Orleans offense lower than any other metric out there. The Saints are on pace to score on a record 61 percent of their offensive drives. Yet in DVOA, the Saints offense is behind not only the Chiefs but also the Rams and Chargers.
I'm going to jump into the weeds a little bit to try to figure out why. This is kind of tough. DVOA is not a simple math formula like passer rating, where A + B + C + D = Rating and it's easy to look and figure out which of the four variables is abnormally high or low. DVOA is breaking down every single play, and I can't go through and say "this 31-yard play is too high and this 16-yard play is too low" for hundreds of plays for each team. But let's look at some possible reasons why DVOA likes the Chiefs so much but not the Saints. Some of these are strengths of DVOA. Some are weaknesses. Maybe I shouldn't be admitting the weaknesses, but we've always been pretty honest about talking through our methods around here.
First, what I think is one of the strengths of DVOA: team DVOA adjusts for playing in domes vs. outdoors. Some of what's going on here is that adjustment. Here's a look at the top six teams in offensive DVOA with what DVOA would look like without the dome adjustment:
| Team | w/o Adjustment | with Adjustment |
| KC | 38.0% | 40.8% |
| LAR | 30.8% | 32.3% |
| NO | 27.2% | 22.6% |
| LAC | 22.8% | 25.1% |
| PIT | 18.3% | 20.8% |
| ATL | 15.0% | 14.2% |
Notice that without the dome adjustment, the Saints would at least move up to No. 3. No, I don't know why the adjustment hits the Saints so much harder than the Falcons. That's one of those things that's in the weeds, because the dome adjustment is different for different down-and-distance categories and different for rushing than it is for passing. New Orleans has also played six dome games, Atlanta only five.
(To try to answer questions you might have, in the interest of full disclosure: Right now, there's no adjustment for warm weather vs. cold weather, because last time I worked on DVOA I found that DVOA was basically the same outdoors in both warm-weather and cold-weather cities. That did not take into account specific weather in specific games, though. One of those things that I always plan on working on some more in the future. Also, I've never had the time to add a dome adjustment into our individual stats, which helps explain why Drew Brees is closer to Patrick Mahomes in passing DVOA than the Saints are to the Chiefs in pass offense DVOA.)
Schedule strength is part of what's going on here. The Chiefs have faced the No. 3 toughest schedule of opposing defenses according to DVOA, while the Saints have faced the No. 26 schedule. Of course, other advanced metrics that have the Saints offense ahead of the Chiefs offense also account for schedule strength too.
There's a small amount of discounting what happens in blowouts. DVOA discounts any play in the fourth quarter with the offense winning by over 21 points. The Saints have more of these plays than the Chiefs, and perform better on these plays. Those plays are accounted for in some other metrics more than in DVOA. However, we're talking about less than 50 plays for each team.
Next, an element that is not a good explanation for the offensive DVOA difference between these teams: fumbles. DVOA is not correcting for the Saints having good fumble luck because it's actually the opposite. The Saints have had bad fumble luck, recovering only 3 of 10 fumbles on offense. And the Chiefs have had good fumble luck, recovering 7 of 8 fumbles on offense, though that's mostly aborted snaps which are the fumble type least likely to be recovered by the defense.
Some of what's going on with these teams has to do with a play-by-play metric versus a drive-based metric. I noted earlier the stat about the Saints scoring on such a high percentage of drives. The Saints also lead the league with a 54 percent success rate, with the Rams at 52 percent and the Chiefs third at 49 percent. But the Saints are not at the top of the league in yards per play. Not counting spikes and kneels, the Rams (7.08), Chiefs (7.07), and Chargers (7.06) are basically tied for first place in yards per play. The Saints are more than a half-yard behind at 6.46.
That's connected to a big difference between the teams in average yards to go. Kansas City averages 8.8 yards to go, higher than the NFL average of 8.6. New Orleans averages just 7.9 yards to go, the lowest figure in the league. Remember, DVOA is about comparing success on plays to a league-average baseline. The fewer yards to go, the easier it is to achieve success, and thus the higher the baseline that you are trying to surpass.
This is really a big issue on third downs. The Chiefs have 53.9% DVOA on third and fourth down. They average 7.4 yards compared to 7.4 average yards to go. The Saints have 12.8% DVOA, averaging just 4.7 yards compared to an average of just 5.3 yards to go.
So, how do the Saints get those lower average yards to go numbers? They average more yards on first down, 7.3 compared to 7.0 for the Chiefs. But a bigger issue is an element that's mostly missing from DVOA, and this may be one of DVOA's weaknesses. The issue is penalties. Only certain penalties are included in DVOA because I never figured out a good way to include repeat-the-down penalties such as offensive holding and other illegal blocks. And the biggest difference between the Chiefs and Saints is in offensive penalties. The Chiefs lead the league with 84 accepted penalties on offense. The Saints are 30th with just 48 accepted penalties on offense.
Normally, this isn't a big issue in DVOA. Penalties don't predict the future as well as yardage does, and usually you see the effect of penalties in DVOA because teams mostly get stuck in (and fail to succeed in) third-and-long. The Chiefs are sort of breaking the system with this because they keep overcoming all their offensive penalties with enough yardage to move the sticks. Last week's super-high DVOA against Cleveland is a good example of this. Because of penalties, the Chiefs average yards to go were at 10.1 for the game. It didn't matter, because they just kept converting and moving the chains. There was a 95-yard touchdown drive with 20 yards of penalties and a 90-yard touchdown drive with 15 yards of penalties. In effect, DVOA kept seeing them moving the ball on first-and-20, third-and-19, and so on, and compared that to the average performance in those types of situations and said "this is awesome." For the most part, it wasn't penalizing the Chiefs for getting into those first-and-20 situations in the first place. Something for me to work on and test in the future.
Of course, that's still more of an explanation for the Chiefs' rating than for the Saints' rating. We'll have to keep exploring how these teams play in the future. But hopefully all this going behind the curtain of DVOA helps explain why the Kansas City Chiefs are now the No. 2 offense in DVOA history through ten games...
| BEST OFFENSIVE DVOA THROUGH 10 GAMES, 1986-2018 |
||
| Year | Team | DVOA |
| 2007 | NE | 51.5% |
| 2018 | KC | 40.8% |
| 1993 | SF | 40.7% |
| 1998 | DEN | 40.4% |
| 1999 | WAS | 39.8% |
| 2004 | IND | 38.6% |
| 2010 | NE | 36.3% |
| 2005 | SD | 35.4% |
| 2013 | DEN | 35.1% |
| 2012 | NE | 34.0% |
| 2011 | GB | 33.6% |
| 2002 | KC | 33.5% |
... and are also on the list of the best overall DVOA teams through ten games. Watch out, here come the 1987 San Francisco 49ers! They won games 10-12 (which were technically Weeks 14-16) by a combined score of 124-7.
| BEST TOTAL DVOA THROUGH 10 GAMES, 1986-2018 |
||
| Year | Team | DVOA |
| 2007 | NE | 74.5% |
| 1991 | WAS | 61.8% |
| 1998 | DEN | 44.9% |
| 2003 | KC | 43.9% |
| 1987 | SF | 43.4%* |
| 2018 | KC | 43.1% |
| 1990 | CHI | 42.3% |
| 1990 | NYG | 42.0% |
| 2001 | PHI | 41.9% |
| 2012 | SF | 41.7% |
| 2004 | PIT | 41.2% |
| 1996 | GB | 41.1% |
| 2002 | TB | 41.0% |
| *No strike games included. | ||
Quickly getting back to this week's DVOA Bowl, this is the fourth year in a row where we've had a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup late in the season. Interestingly, the No. 2 team has won the last five DVOA Bowls. Here's a look at all of the times we had a DVOA Bowl during the regular season, going back to 1989. Lucky me, I got to just recycle this table from last year's Week 13 commentary! Note that this is total DVOA instead of weighted DVOA, and it does not include 1986-1988.
| DVOA Bowl: No. 1 vs. No. 2 in Regular Season, 1989-2018 | |||||||||
| Year | Week | No.1 | DVOA | W-L | No.2 | DVOA | W-L | Home | Winner |
| 1989 | 7 | CHI | 30.6% | 4-2 | CLE1 | 27.0% | 3-3 | CLE1 | Cleveland, 27-7 |
| 1991 | 5 | WAS | 71.8% | 4-0 | PHI | 35.4% | 3-1 | WAS | Washington, 23-0 |
| 1994 | 7 | DAL | 47.6% | 4-1 | PHI | 32.8% | 4-1 | DAL | Dallas, 24-13 |
| 1996 | 7 | GB | 59.5% | 5-1 | SF | 32.4% | 4-1 | GB | Green Bay, 23-20 (OT) |
| 1996 | 12 | GB | 41.1% | 8-2 | DAL | 31.6% | 6-4 | DAL | Dallas, 21-6 |
| 1996 | 15 | GB | 34.8% | 10-3 | DEN | 33.0% | 12-1 | GB | Green Bay, 41-6 |
| 1998 | 16 | DEN | 37.1% | 13-1 | MIA | 29.3% | 9-5 | MIA | Miami, 31-21 |
| 2000 | 9 | TEN | 31.2% | 6-1 | WAS | 30.7% | 6-2 | WAS | Tennessee, 27-21 |
| 2004 | 9 | PHI | 38.3% | 7-0 | PIT | 31.6% | 6-1 | PIT | Pittsburgh, 27-3 |
| 2006 | 4 | SD | 66.9% | 2-0 | BAL | 56.4% | 3-0 | BAL | Baltimore, 16-13 |
| 2007 | 9 | NE | 73.6% | 8-0 | IND | 48.7% | 7-0 | IND | New England, 24-20 |
| 2008 | 10 | NYG | 36.3% | 7-1 | PHI | 35.5% | 5-3 | PHI | New York Giants, 36-31 |
| 2008 | 14 | NYG | 33.3% | 11-1 | PHI | 31.4% | 6-5-1 | NYG | Philadelphia, 20-14 |
| 2009 | 2 | PHI | 98.0% | 1-0 | NO | 75.0% | 1-0 | PHI | New Orleans, 48-22 |
| 2015 | 17 | ARI | 34.0% | 13-2 | SEA | 33.4% | 9-6 | ARI | Seattle, 36-6 |
| 2016 | 11 | PHI | 30.2% | 5-4 | SEA | 23.6% | 6-2-1 | SEA | Seattle, 25-16 |
| 2017 | 14 | LAR | 32.4% | 9-3 | PHI | 32.4% | 10-2 | LAR | Philadelphia, 43-35 |
| 2018 | 11 | KC | 43.1% | 9-1 | LAR | 32.1% | 9-1 | LAR | -- |
* * * * *
Stats pages should now be updated through Week 10, including playoff odds, the FO Premium DVOA database and snap counts. Note that the playoff odds simulation was done before this Monday's Chiefs-Rams game was moved back to Los Angeles, so it doesn't reflect that the Rams will have home-field advantage in that game.
* * * * *
These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through ten weeks of 2018, 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 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. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.
WEIGHTED DVOA represents an attempt to figure out how a team is playing right now, as opposed to over the season as a whole, by making recent games more important than earlier 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>
| RK | TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
WEI. DVOA |
RANK | W-L | OFFENSE DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEFENSE DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
S.T. DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KC | 43.1% | 1 | 41.7% | 1 | 9-1 | 40.8% | 1 | 6.5% | 25 | 8.7% | 1 |
| 2 | LAR | 32.1% | 2 | 31.8% | 2 | 9-1 | 32.3% | 2 | 1.4% | 20 | 1.1% | 12 |
| 3 | LAC | 23.4% | 5 | 23.2% | 4 | 7-2 | 25.1% | 3 | -5.7% | 11 | -7.3% | 32 |
| 4 | CHI | 22.9% | 4 | 22.6% | 5 | 6-3 | 7.9% | 10 | -20.1% | 1 | -5.1% | 31 |
| 5 | PIT | 21.1% | 11 | 23.5% | 3 | 6-2-1 | 20.8% | 5 | -1.1% | 15 | -0.8% | 20 |
| 6 | NO | 18.4% | 7 | 20.8% | 6 | 8-1 | 22.6% | 4 | 6.7% | 27 | 2.5% | 8 |
| 7 | BAL | 14.5% | 10 | 13.9% | 7 | 4-5 | 4.6% | 12 | -9.5% | 5 | 0.4% | 15 |
| 8 | SEA | 11.8% | 9 | 12.9% | 8 | 4-5 | 4.7% | 11 | -5.9% | 10 | 1.3% | 11 |
| 9 | DEN | 11.6% | 8 | 12.6% | 9 | 3-6 | 4.2% | 13 | -10.6% | 4 | -3.2% | 27 |
| 10 | GB | 11.0% | 13 | 11.4% | 10 | 4-4-1 | 12.1% | 8 | -1.3% | 14 | -2.5% | 24 |
| 11 | NE | 10.2% | 6 | 10.9% | 11 | 7-3 | 9.6% | 9 | -0.6% | 16 | 0.0% | 18 |
| 12 | CAR | 9.4% | 3 | 10.3% | 12 | 6-3 | 12.7% | 7 | 5.8% | 24 | 2.4% | 9 |
| 13 | HOU | 6.4% | 12 | 6.3% | 13 | 6-3 | -8.1% | 25 | -11.3% | 3 | 3.3% | 5 |
| 14 | MIN | 3.1% | 16 | 2.5% | 14 | 5-3-1 | -2.8% | 17 | -8.4% | 7 | -2.5% | 25 |
| 15 | IND | 0.9% | 15 | 2.4% | 15 | 4-5 | 3.4% | 14 | 3.8% | 22 | 1.3% | 10 |
| 16 | TEN | -1.2% | 22 | 1.3% | 16 | 5-4 | -8.0% | 24 | -4.2% | 12 | 2.6% | 7 |
| 17 | JAX | -5.3% | 18 | -6.8% | 19 | 3-6 | -15.3% | 28 | -7.1% | 9 | 2.9% | 6 |
| 18 | PHI | -5.4% | 20 | -5.4% | 17 | 4-5 | -4.1% | 18 | 0.2% | 17 | -1.1% | 21 |
| 19 | WAS | -5.7% | 21 | -5.6% | 18 | 6-3 | -6.2% | 20 | 2.9% | 21 | 3.3% | 4 |
| 20 | MIA | -6.7% | 14 | -9.0% | 21 | 5-5 | -7.4% | 22 | 3.9% | 23 | 4.7% | 3 |
| 21 | CIN | -7.1% | 17 | -10.2% | 22 | 5-4 | -0.7% | 16 | 6.5% | 26 | 0.1% | 16 |
| 22 | ATL | -8.7% | 19 | -7.9% | 20 | 4-5 | 14.2% | 6 | 23.3% | 32 | 0.5% | 13 |
| 23 | DAL | -12.2% | 24 | -12.9% | 24 | 4-5 | -9.0% | 26 | 1.4% | 19 | -1.9% | 22 |
| 24 | NYG | -13.0% | 25 | -11.6% | 23 | 2-7 | -6.8% | 21 | 6.7% | 28 | 0.5% | 14 |
| 25 | CLE | -15.2% | 28 | -14.8% | 25 | 3-6-1 | -18.1% | 29 | -8.0% | 8 | -5.1% | 30 |
| 26 | SF | -16.8% | 26 | -16.2% | 26 | 2-8 | -13.3% | 27 | 0.6% | 18 | -3.0% | 26 |
| 27 | NYJ | -19.8% | 23 | -22.0% | 27 | 3-7 | -28.7% | 30 | -3.3% | 13 | 5.6% | 2 |
| 28 | TB | -23.2% | 27 | -25.7% | 30 | 3-6 | -0.4% | 15 | 18.9% | 31 | -4.0% | 29 |
| 29 | DET | -26.8% | 29 | -22.8% | 28 | 3-6 | -5.9% | 19 | 18.7% | 30 | -2.1% | 23 |
| 30 | BUF | -27.9% | 32 | -25.0% | 29 | 3-7 | -43.4% | 32 | -15.5% | 2 | 0.0% | 17 |
| 31 | OAK | -28.9% | 30 | -31.3% | 32 | 1-8 | -7.6% | 23 | 17.3% | 29 | -3.9% | 28 |
| 32 | ARI | -29.5% | 31 | -27.8% | 31 | 2-7 | -38.2% | 31 | -9.3% | 6 | -0.6% | 19 |
- 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).
| RK | TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
W-L | NON-ADJ TOT VOA |
ESTIM. WINS |
RANK | PAST SCHED |
RANK | FUTURE SCHED |
RANK | VAR. | RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KC | 43.1% | 9-1 | 42.4% | 9.7 | 1 | 0.4% | 14 | 4.0% | 6 | 11.0% | 17 |
| 2 | LAR | 32.1% | 9-1 | 34.7% | 8.6 | 2 | 1.6% | 11 | -2.1% | 20 | 7.3% | 6 |
| 3 | LAC | 23.4% | 7-2 | 31.8% | 6.8 | 5 | -3.5% | 23 | 9.3% | 3 | 4.0% | 1 |
| 4 | CHI | 22.9% | 6-3 | 30.3% | 7.1 | 3 | -11.2% | 32 | -1.1% | 15 | 13.4% | 18 |
| 5 | PIT | 21.1% | 6-2-1 | 22.5% | 6.4 | 7 | 1.4% | 12 | 3.2% | 7 | 18.0% | 25 |
| 6 | NO | 18.4% | 8-1 | 19.5% | 7.0 | 4 | -2.6% | 21 | -1.4% | 17 | 7.0% | 4 |
| 7 | BAL | 14.5% | 4-5 | 8.1% | 6.3 | 8 | 3.4% | 7 | -2.4% | 21 | 21.0% | 27 |
| 8 | SEA | 11.8% | 4-5 | 12.6% | 5.7 | 11 | 2.7% | 9 | 0.5% | 13 | 7.9% | 7 |
| 9 | DEN | 11.6% | 3-6 | 11.3% | 5.9 | 9 | 8.1% | 2 | 0.0% | 14 | 16.3% | 23 |
| 10 | GB | 11.0% | 4-4-1 | 10.4% | 6.4 | 6 | -1.7% | 18 | -6.7% | 28 | 15.4% | 21 |
| 11 | NE | 10.2% | 7-3 | 9.9% | 5.7 | 12 | 1.6% | 10 | -8.3% | 31 | 14.7% | 20 |
| 12 | CAR | 9.4% | 6-3 | 15.8% | 5.9 | 10 | -4.4% | 24 | -3.6% | 23 | 22.3% | 28 |
| 13 | HOU | 6.4% | 6-3 | 13.1% | 5.7 | 13 | -4.8% | 25 | -7.4% | 29 | 7.2% | 5 |
| 14 | MIN | 3.1% | 5-3-1 | 3.5% | 5.6 | 14 | -7.2% | 30 | 6.5% | 4 | 6.7% | 3 |
| 15 | IND | 0.9% | 4-5 | 8.2% | 5.4 | 15 | -9.3% | 31 | -4.7% | 24 | 9.5% | 11 |
| 16 | TEN | -1.2% | 5-4 | -2.7% | 5.0 | 16 | -0.3% | 16 | -5.1% | 25 | 16.0% | 22 |
| 17 | JAX | -5.3% | 3-6 | -5.3% | 4.2 | 20 | 1.0% | 13 | -1.9% | 19 | 9.5% | 12 |
| 18 | PHI | -5.4% | 4-5 | 1.0% | 4.4 | 19 | -5.6% | 29 | 2.9% | 9 | 8.1% | 8 |
| 19 | WAS | -5.7% | 6-3 | 0.3% | 5.0 | 17 | -5.2% | 27 | -5.1% | 26 | 9.0% | 10 |
| 20 | MIA | -6.7% | 5-5 | -5.8% | 3.9 | 22 | -5.3% | 28 | -7.8% | 30 | 17.2% | 24 |
| 21 | CIN | -7.1% | 5-4 | -8.4% | 4.6 | 18 | 7.7% | 3 | 1.6% | 11 | 23.7% | 29 |
| 22 | ATL | -8.7% | 4-5 | -3.4% | 4.1 | 21 | -2.3% | 20 | -1.7% | 18 | 8.4% | 9 |
| 23 | DAL | -12.2% | 4-5 | -5.0% | 3.2 | 27 | -3.3% | 22 | -5.2% | 27 | 5.6% | 2 |
| 24 | NYG | -13.0% | 2-7 | -10.9% | 3.6 | 23 | -2.2% | 19 | -3.4% | 22 | 9.8% | 13 |
| 25 | CLE | -15.2% | 3-6-1 | -9.5% | 3.4 | 24 | 6.1% | 6 | 4.6% | 5 | 10.1% | 14 |
| 26 | SF | -16.8% | 2-8 | -19.7% | 3.3 | 25 | -1.5% | 17 | 11.2% | 2 | 10.8% | 16 |
| 27 | NYJ | -19.8% | 3-7 | -18.5% | 2.4 | 30 | -5.0% | 26 | 1.5% | 12 | 24.5% | 30 |
| 28 | TB | -23.2% | 3-6 | -28.2% | 2.6 | 29 | 3.3% | 8 | -1.2% | 16 | 10.3% | 15 |
| 29 | DET | -26.8% | 3-6 | -24.1% | 3.1 | 28 | 0.4% | 15 | 3.0% | 8 | 25.8% | 31 |
| 30 | BUF | -27.9% | 3-7 | -37.9% | 3.2 | 26 | 7.1% | 5 | -9.2% | 32 | 32.3% | 32 |
| 31 | OAK | -28.9% | 1-8 | -33.1% | 2.2 | 32 | 7.2% | 4 | 13.8% | 1 | 19.1% | 26 |
| 32 | ARI | -29.5% | 2-7 | -36.5% | 2.2 | 31 | 9.5% | 1 | 2.0% | 10 | 14.3% | 19 |
Comments
58 comments, Last at 16 Nov 2018, 12:34am
#1 by milo // Nov 13, 2018 - 7:44pm
Your going to have to go deeper than that Aaron. How does an Off Pass DVOA of 103.6% and Off Rush Dvoa of 18.6% compute to an Offense DVOA of 44.3% while an Off Pass DVOA of 47.8% and Off Rush Dvoa of 14.4% compute to an Offense DVOA of 70.8%? The first is NO against CIN. The second is KC against CIN. 21 days apart. (From premium stats)
#5 by Aaron Schatz // Nov 13, 2018 - 8:41pm
Don't forget there are some penalties in offensive DVOA and those penalties will not show up as either pass DVOA or run DVOA. So if you have a 60/40 pass/run ratio, even 60% of pass DVOA plus 40% of run DVOA will sometimes be higher than total offensive DVOA.
Premium should list KC against CIN in Week 7 as 81.9% passing, 14.4% rushing for a total offensive DVOA of 47.8%. If it doesn't please let me know, that means there's a problem with how the premium data is displaying. You appear to have the proper numbers for the Saints in Week 10.
#12 by milo // Nov 13, 2018 - 10:17pm
Premium does have those numbers now. The numbers I posted were what was posted this afternoon after the premium page said the number had been updated on 11/13. That's in addition to the WTD DVOA being farked up earlier today and of course the Pyth wins never working, even now. Did I mention I paid for this service?
#10 by dank067 // Nov 13, 2018 - 9:29pm
Even for a Trubisky skeptic, it's starting to look like the Bears have crafted a reasonably solid offense this year. Like, significantly better than any of the offenses they fielded in their contending seasons under Dick Jauron or Lovie Smith, with a defense that's just as good (so far).
#7 by Will Allen // Nov 13, 2018 - 8:50pm
Don't think the Vikings can score points in Soldier Field Sunday, unless the Vikings defense forces turnovers. The only reason for optimism is the chance that the Vikings defense has played it's worst games already, and with Griffen back and other guys healthier, they play like a top 5 defense for the balance of the year. Then again, an overmatched Vikings oline resulting in 3 turnovers wouldn't surprise me at all.
If the Bears jump out to a.two score lead, or even 7 points, it's probably over.
#30 by Thomas_beardown // Nov 14, 2018 - 12:50pm
I don't trust the defense because it always seems like the secondary can't tackle to me. They sure can cover though and the front 7 is obviously just beastly, especially when healthy.
It's been one fun team to watch so far.
#38 by Steve in WI // Nov 14, 2018 - 2:31pm
I’ve realized that I need to spend the rest of this season recalibrating my entire Bears fan experience. I’ve learned to be reflexively pessimistic about, well, everything since the Marc Trestman era. And while I still am not sold on Ryan Pace as a whole, he undeniably had a good offseason and, if he turns out to have been right about Trubisky, that would go a long way toward fixing any of the other mistakes.
I was barely alive for the ‘85 Bears and have no memory of them, so I legitimately think that this is the most promising Bears team I’ve been around for. They’ve got the best defense by DVOA, the 10th best offense, and there’s reason to believe the offense will continue to get better. That offense is being led by the head coach, so I don’t have to worry about him leaving in a year or two for a promotion. This is by far the best I’ve seen both sides of the ball play at once; there were Lovie Smith years where the defense was even better but the offense sucked. And the best Bears offense I saw before this was probably the start of 2013, but there was never this level of optimism (and at that time the defense was crumbling).
Long story short, I don’t dread watching the games anymore!
#57 by Chip // Nov 15, 2018 - 8:27pm
Wow, the gang’s all back. Tuluse, Steve in Wisco, TomC... it’s beem awhile since there’s been anything positive for Bears fans to talk about on the forums.
I think the team is legit - the DVOA numbers “feel right” and match what I see on the field. That said, I cradle myself to sleep at night repeating “guts and stomps.... guts and stomps...”. You should try it sometime.
#14 by Bobman // Nov 14, 2018 - 2:53am
Oh waiter, I'd like a Viking sandwich served on toasted AFCS.
How strange to see the four AFCS teams in a 5-team span (with the Vikes squeezed uncomfortably in there--(hey guys, if you'd prefer, we can change seats....) . Looks like the Texans have too big a lead, but the other teams are all in hot (and close) pursuit. Like an old fashioned NFCE slugfest.
I stood by and stand by Reich's decision to go for it in the OT loss to the Texans, but how interesting it would have been if the Colts and Texans had tied: 5-3-1, 4-4-1, 5-4, and 3-6 all roughly equally qualified. Colts one game back and Titans a half game back, with the ever-dangerous Bortles fading in last.
#58 by MC2 // Nov 16, 2018 - 12:34am
Well, I would argue that "ironic" is one of those words that has developed a second meaning. Just as "beg the question" has an original meaning ("assume the conclusion") and also a modern meaning ("raise the question"), so too has "irony" developed a modern meaning ("highly unlikely coincidence") in addition to its old, traditional meaning.
(Note the "highly unlikely" part, which makes it different from a mere coincidence. So, rain on your wedding day still doesn't count as "ironic" -- unless your wedding takes place in the middle of the desert, or in the middle of a long drought.)
#16 by Yu Narukami // Nov 14, 2018 - 5:24am
These are the average game scripts (adjusted for opponent), after week 10.
In the last two years the SB opponents came from the Top4 at week 10.
Parenthesis is the rank difference vs. DVOA
1.KC 7,36 (=)
2.CHI 5,67 (+2)
3.LARM 4,08 (-1)
4.PIT 3,94 (+1)
5.NO 3,69 (+1)
6.LACH 3,17 (-3)
7.NWE 3,08 (+4)
8.SEA 2,98 (=)
9.BAL 2,69 (-2)
10.DAL 0,88 (+13)
11.ATL 0,52 (+11)
12.WAS 0,46 (+7)
13.DEN 0,38 (-4)
14.TEN -0,22 (+2)
15.CAR -0,30 (+3)
16.HOU -0,33 (-3)
17.IND -0,35 (-2)
18.GB -0,44 (-8)
19.PHI -0,55 (-1)
20.MIN -1,00 (-6)
21.DET -1,63 (+8)
22.CLE -1,76 (+3)
23.CIN -1,79 (-2)
24.JAX -2,11 (-7)
25.SF -2,12 (+1)
26.MIA -3,17 (-6)
27.BUF -3,47 (+3)
28.TB -3,60 (=)
29.NYJ -3,81 (-2)
30.NYG -3,91 (-6)
31.OAK -3,98 (=)
32.ARI -4,37 (=)
#17 by Jerry // Nov 14, 2018 - 6:16am
Aaron,
Some are weaknesses. Maybe I shouldn't be admitting the weaknesses, but we've always been pretty honest about talking through our methods around here.
Anyone bright enough to appreciate DVOA is bright enough to understand that the system will have its weaknesses. And, from time to time, readers are bright enough to suggest applicable solutions.
Kansas City averages 8.8 yards to go, higher than the NFL average of 9.6.
One of those numbers is wrong.
And it would make sense that crediting a team for converting 3rd-and-19 without debiting them for their mistake that made it 3rd-and-19 could be problematic. Even so, the Chiefs look like a real outlier in that regard.
#31 by ammek // Nov 14, 2018 - 1:24pm
Well, the Rams game would be the exception there. But I can't say I'm optimistic about the trips to Seattle, Chicago or Minneapolis. And I'm worried the Jets might choose their final home game to give themselves the New Head Coach Bounce.
What is the explanation for why the Packers field position is so consistently bad on both sides of the ball? Their drive success rate is a fraction above average on both offense and defense; they have more takeaways than giveaways; and if their punt and kick returning has been woeful it's mostly been offset by a good performance on their own punts and kickoffs. Perhaps an unusual proportion of their takeaways have occurred close to their own goalline. In any case, the persistence of long fields for the offense is hurting. I keep thinking that the offense looks tired, when perhaps it's just bored with being stuck inside its own 30.
As a footnote, it's worth pointing out that, in this age of fewer and fewer turnovers, the Buccaneers are on course to have the highest proportion of drives end in a TO since the 2006 Andrew Walter / Aaron Brooks Raiders. The only other worse teams in the Drive Stats database (which goes back to 1993) are the 2002 Warnerfumble Rams, the 1997 Heath Shuler / Danny Wuerfel Saints, and the 1993 Warren Moon having an off year Oilers.
#20 by milo // Nov 14, 2018 - 9:21am
And the Chiefs have had good fumble luck, recovering 7 of 8 fumbles on offense, though that's mostly aborted snaps which are the fumble type least likely to be recovered by the defense.
It's even better luck that you show Mahomes with 2 fumbles all year, but PFR shows him with 5.
Is anything correct on this site?
#51 by Aaron Schatz // Nov 15, 2018 - 11:12am
Because of the way we do our spreadsheets, those early-play fumbles don't end up getting counted as fumbles when the sheet counts up quarterback fumbles, as long as the quarterback got a play off afterwards. It's something I'm hoping to fix eventually.
Those fumbles are counted when I say "team X has recovered Y out of Z fumbles," though.
#24 by Will Allen // Nov 14, 2018 - 11:13am
Well, I've now seen indisputable evidence that Trubisky is destined for the HOF.....
https://www.news-herald.com/sports/mitchell-trubisky/former-browns-gm-lombardi-rips-mitchell-trubisky-bears-defend-their/article_3616d342-e38e-11e8-8cb5-c751a1d01b4b.html
......'cuz if Mike Lombardi thinks you aren't any good at quarterbacking, the you're definitely Tarkenton, Montana, Marino, P. Manning, Brady, and Brees, rolled into one! Hell, maybe Sammy Baugh, too; look for Mitch to nail two 60 yard punts on the Bears drives that don't score, and watch him intercept Cousins three times as well!
#25 by dmstorm22 // Nov 14, 2018 - 11:16am
Love the interstitial in the opening sentence Mike Lombardi - who no NFL team seems to want -
Honestly, he's always been a joke, ever since his brilliant 'blue chip' way of analyzing teams way back when. Glad everyone has caught on to him now.
#28 by dmstorm22 // Nov 14, 2018 - 12:18pm
I honestly think he was trying to do him a solid by bringing him in.
I can't imagine he had any real input on Patriots' decisions.
More strangely, what the hell Bill Simmons thinks he currently still offers is more of a mystery.
I can easily believe Lombardi has some photos hidden in a folder that he hangs over Simmons' head.
#36 by BJR // Nov 14, 2018 - 2:07pm
He can be entertaining in a bombastic sort of way. But yeah, you listen to some of his stuff and question how on Earth he forged a lucrative career in NFL front offices. After the Rams lost to the Saints a couple weeks back I heard him citing the Rams W-L rate when Gurley has <20 carries, the most basic fallacy imaginable. .
#37 by big10freak // Nov 14, 2018 - 2:15pm
He employs Simmons pop culture analogy approach in describing different parts of the game or a team. And he has snappy one liners that sound good like "bad offensive lines don't travel well" My guess is that Lombardi keeps getting employed because he adopts his superior's approach to talking about things so he doesn't sound like a generic 'yes' man but still agreeing with his boss pretty much all the time.
#32 by rich006 // Nov 14, 2018 - 1:26pm
I'd bet the Saints have a lower standard deviation of yards per play than the Chiefs even if their average YPP is also lower. The Saints are absurdly consistent, in the sense that they just keep moving the ball, getting first downs, and almost never have a negative play or penalty. That consistency leads to long drives that usually end in at least a field goal.
If you can guarantee 2.6 yards per play you can win every game.
#55 by rich006 // Nov 15, 2018 - 4:22pm
True, but it gets interesting when you look at some actual numbers. I spent too much of my afternoon building a simulation of hypothetical drives for teams with a given average yards per play (2, 2.5, 3, up to 6.5) and a given standard deviation (8, 7, 6, down to 0) on a normal distribution. I assumed always going for it on 4th down. For each combination of average and standard deviation I ran 100,000 drives and counted the fraction of "scoring" drives (those that gain 50+ yards).
The table shows my results. Column headers are yards per play, and row headers are standard deviation. The table numbers are the fraction of scoring drives.
--- 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00 5.50 6.00 6.50
8.0 0.10 0.13 0.18 0.24 0.30 0.36 0.43 0.50 0.58 0.65
7.0 0.08 0.12 0.17 0.24 0.30 0.39 0.48 0.55 0.63 0.69
6.0 0.07 0.11 0.17 0.24 0.32 0.42 0.50 0.62 0.70 0.77
5.0 0.05 0.09 0.16 0.25 0.35 0.47 0.60 0.70 0.78 0.85
4.0 0.03 0.08 0.17 0.29 0.42 0.56 0.70 0.81 0.88 0.93
3.0 0.02 0.07 0.17 0.34 0.53 0.71 0.84 0.92 0.97 0.99
2.0 0.01 0.06 0.24 0.51 0.77 0.92 0.98 1
1.0 0.00 0.06 0.50 0.90 0.99 1
0.0 0.00 1
What I see is that consistency is hugely rewarded. You'll score on about 70% of drives with 6.5 +/- 7 yards per play, or with 5.5 +/- 5, or with 4.5 +/-3. You'll score 90% of the time if you can maintain 3.5 +/- 1, the same success rate as a team that gains 6.5 +/- 4.
#39 by milo // Nov 14, 2018 - 2:44pm
Let's go through this for the Offensive DVOA of KC and NO when both played CIN:
Schedule strength is part of what's going on here. The Chiefs have faced the No. 3 toughest schedule of opposing defenses according to DVOA, while the Saints have faced the No. 26 schedule. Of course, other advanced metrics that have the Saints offense ahead of the Chiefs offense also account for schedule strength too. Does not apply here, both teams played a common opponent.
There's a small amount of discounting what happens in blowouts. DVOA discounts any play in the fourth quarter with the offense winning by over 21 points. The Saints have more of these plays than the Chiefs, and perform better on these plays. Those plays are accounted for in some other metrics more than in DVOA. However, we're talking about less than 50 plays for each team. Both teams were in a blowout, KC ran 8 successful and 10 unsuccesful plays in the fourth quarter. No ran 5 successful and 15 unsuccesful plays in the fourth quarter.
Next, an element that is not a good explanation for the offensive DVOA difference between these teams: fumbles. DVOA is not correcting for the Saints having good fumble luck because it's actually the opposite. The Saints have had bad fumble luck, recovering only 3 of 10 fumbles on offense. And the Chiefs have had good fumble luck, recovering 7 of 8 fumbles on offense, though that's mostly aborted snaps which are the fumble type least likely to be recovered by the defense. KC had two fumbles, NO zero.
Some of what's going on with these teams has to do with a play-by-play metric versus a drive-based metric. I noted earlier the stat about the Saints scoring on such a high percentage of drives. The Saints also lead the league with a 54 percent success rate, with the Rams at 52 percent and the Chiefs third at 49 percent. But the Saints are not at the top of the league in yards per play. Not counting spikes and kneels, the Rams (7.08), Chiefs (7.07), and Chargers (7.06) are basically tied for first place in yards per play. The Saints are more than a half-yard behind at 6.46.I don't know what you're really getting at here, but: KC=39 success, 34 unsuccesful. NO= 43 successful, 37 unsuccesful. That's KC=31,24 NO=38,22 at the end of the 3rd quarter. Even more starkly, at the end of the first half: KC=22,19 NO=29,13.
That's connected to a big difference between the teams in average yards to go. Kansas City averages 8.8 yards to go, higher than the NFL average of 9.6. New Orleans averages just 7.9 yards to go, the lowest figure in the league. Remember, DVOA is about comparing success on plays to a league-average baseline. The fewer yards to go, the easier it is to achieve success, and thus the higher the baseline that you are trying to surpass. This was also true of this game. KC averaged 8.1 yards to go on second down through the first three quarters. NO averaged 5.1. KC had 9 first down conversions on 1st down through 3 quarters, NO had 11. How this favors KC's offense is a mystery.
This is really a big issue on third downs. The Chiefs have 53.9% DVOA on third and fourth down. They average 7.4 yards compared to 7.4 average yards to go. The Saints have 12.8% DVOA, averaging just 4.7 yards compared to an average of just 5.3 yards to go. Yep. KC averaged 7 yards to go on 3rd down through 3 quarters. NO averaged 2 yards to go on 3rd. Neither team punted.
So, how do the Saints get those lower average yards to go numbers? They average more yards on first down, 7.3 compared to 7.0 for the Chiefs. But a bigger issue is an element that's mostly missing from DVOA, and this may be one of DVOA's weaknesses. The issue is penalties. Only certain penalties are included in DVOA because I never figured out a good way to include repeat-the-down penalties such as offensive holding and other illegal blocks. And the biggest difference between the Chiefs and Saints is in offensive penalties. The Chiefs lead the league with 84 accepted penalties on offense. The Saints are 30th with just 48 accepted penalties on offense.
Normally, this isn't a big issue in DVOA. Penalties don't predict the future as well as yardage does, and usually you see the effect of penalties in DVOA because teams mostly get stuck in (and fail to succeed in) third-and-long. The Chiefs are sort of breaking the system with this because they keep overcoming all their offensive penalties with enough yardage to move the sticks. Last week's super-high DVOA against Cleveland is a good example of this. Because of penalties, the Chiefs average yards to go were at 10.1 for the game. It didn't matter, because they just kept converting and moving the chains. There was a 95-yard touchdown drive with 20 yards of penalties and a 90-yard touchdown drive with 15 yards of penalties. In effect, DVOA kept seeing them moving the ball on first-and-20, third-and-19, and so on, and compared that to the average performance in those types of situations and said "this is awesome." For the most part, it wasn't penalizing the Chiefs for getting into those first-and-20 situations in the first place. Something for me to work on and test in the future. There was 1 false start penalty on both KC and NO.
So, we have a game against a common opponent where both were blowouts. None of the above explanations seem to really apply. The NO offense scored 51 points. The KC offense scored 38. NO NY/A=9.8, KC=9.1.
KC threw an intereption. KC had 6.8Y/A rushing vs. 5.2 for NO, but NO had 46 yards more rushing. KC had 358 yards passing including a 38-0 advantage in the fourth quarter, but NO completed 81% vs. 72% for KC.
Here are your numbers:
NO Offense DVOA: 44.3%, Off Pass DVOA: 103.6%, Off Rush DVOA: 18.6%
KC Offense DVOA: 47.8%, Off Pass DVOA: 81.9%, Off Rush DVOA: 14.4%
I fail to see how this can be. 44.3 vs 47.8. Same D.
#40 by Eddo // Nov 14, 2018 - 3:37pm
For the last bit, it's likely Simpson's Paradox at work. Remember that overall offensive DVOA is measured across all plays, it's not simply the average of rushing and passing.
In their respective games vs. Cincinnati:
The Saints had 47 rushes at 18.6% DVOA and 27 passes at 103.6% DVOA. Doing the math (47 * 18.6 + 27 * 103.6] / [47 + 27]), you get 49.6% DVOA across 74 plays.
The Chiefs had 29 rushes at 14.4% DVOA and 41 passes (including sacks) at 81.9% DVOA. Doing the math ([29 * 14.4 + 41 * 81.9] / [29 + 41]), you get 53.9% DVOA across 70 plays.
So even before penalties, the Chiefs' overall offensive DVOA would be higher for their Bengals game, due to Simpson's Paradox. Basically, the Saints ran the ball more, and even for them, running the ball is far less effective than passing, in DVOA terms.
(And this isn't unique to DVOA for the Cincinnati games; the Chiefs had 551 yards on 70 plays, the Saints 509 on 74, so by yards per play, KC is higher.)
#44 by MC2 // Nov 14, 2018 - 8:00pm
Well, not necessarily. Passing isn't always more effective in every situation (like short yardage). There's also the "keep them honest" factor that would make passing less effective if the defense knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were never planning to run.
Having said all that, with today's rules, teams almost certainly should be passing much more often than they are. Exactly how much depends on the quality of the particular team's passing game (and especially its QB), but I'd say a team with an average QB should be passing at least 60% of the time, and a team lucky enough to have an excellent QB could probably get away with passing as much as 80% of the time. (Such high passing frequencies would also make the few running plays you did use more effective, because they would have the element of surprise).
#46 by milo // Nov 14, 2018 - 8:29pm
And here's a golden oldie, from 2011:
After the Saints stomped the Colts 62-7, I thought they were going to have one of the best single-game DVOA ratings of all-time. I thought they might even challenge the all-time best game, Pittsburgh's 145.6% DVOA in their 43-0 Week 1 win over expansion Cleveland in 1999. However, it turns out the Saints don't even come close to making the all-time top ten. In fact, they don't even have the best game of the week. Instead, Houston puts up the best single-game DVOA of the year at 122.7%, while New Orleans is "only" at 71.1%.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
#47 by jh_eldred // Nov 14, 2018 - 9:38pm
Green Bay's defense is so weird. On the whole, it's a pretty talented group, and I think Pettine is a good coordinator, but their talent is extremely uneven among position groups. The defensive line and cornerbacks are excellent, but their linebackers (except for Martinez, who is very good) have been bad. They put up good sack numbers, but that's due to them blitzing a lot as they don't generate pressure playing straight-up. Some of their issues are starting to work themselves out, as their underperformers are either getting hurt (Brice) or losing playing time to better-performing backups (Perry and Matthews ceding snaps to Gilbert and Fackrell). Still, their defense seems to string a few good drives together bookmarked by drives where they look stunningly incompetent.
All told, I'm surprised to see them ranked 14th by DVOA, especially since they didn't look that great against a bad Miami offense, but if the team is going to do anything in the second half they need to defense to even out their performance.