by Aaron Schatz

A huge win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers moves the Houston Texans into the top spot in DVOA for the first time ever this week, just in time for the team to lose their starting quarterback for the season. This would be a good time to remind everyone that the DVOA ratings and the playoff odds report do not account for future injuries. The Texans with Matt Schaub are number one. The Texans with Matt Leinart, well, we're not sure yet.

The Texans have swept into the top spot thanks to a strong four-game winning streak that has seen them outscore opponents by 132-42. Even with strong opponent adjustments for playing poor teams like Jacksonville and Cleveland, the Texans have an average DVOA of 77.9% in that four-game stretch. Their Week 7 win over Tennessee (41-7) has the highest single-game DVOA of any game this year. It's even more remarkable that the Texans did this without their top two players, Andre Johnson and Mario Williams. Johnson, at least, should be back soon to help the offense overcome the loss of Schaub.

Green Bay is close behind at number two this week but sees its overall DVOA rise with a dominating win over Minnesota last night. The Packers are a very good team, probably the best in the league (math be damned!) and the clear favorite to win this year's Super Bowl. However, the media continues to overrate them, and that's only getting worse as they get closer to a possible (but unlikely) 16-0 record. The Packers don't really have any dominating victories over good teams; 25-14 over Atlanta would probably qualify as the closest thing. They spanked the likes of St. Louis and Minnesota, but hey, Houston and New England can win games like that too. What really makes Green Bay look impressive is the consistency. The Packers rank second in VARIANCE, behind the Bengals. They may not have the huge wins over other good teams, but they haven't played a bad game or even an average game so far. Nonetheless, it is still very likely that they'll run into an opponent at some point which can take advantage of Green Bay's mediocre defense to win a shootout against the nigh-unstoppable Aaron Rodgers. It may only be by three points, and it may only happen once all season, but it is going to happen at some point. We give them only a 5.0 percent chance of going undefeated during the regular season, and that doesn't even account for the possibility that they'll get 18-1'ed come January.

Apropos of nothing, I wrote in an ESPN Insider column a couple weeks ago that I think the most likely loss that ends Green Bay's perfect season is their road game against the New York Giants in Week 13. This has nothing to do with anything statistically significant, it's just kind of fun history, but do you realize how many perfect seasons have been ended by New York teams? The 2007 Patriots, of course. The 1998 Broncos lost to the 6-8 Giants in Week 15. The 2009 Colts lay down to the Jets in Week 16. The 2008 Titans were 10-0 when they lost to the Jets in Week 12. And go all the way back to the 1934 Bears, and you find a team that went 13-0 and then lost in the NFL Championship to the Giants. (I mistakenly thought that the other Bears team that went undefeated but lost in the NFL Championship game also lost to the Giants, but it turns out that team lost to Washington.)

Speaking of New York... Gang Green is still at number three, but they drop a lot after their big loss to New England. To be honest, I'm tired of writing about how our system is overrating the Jets; we've addressed that plenty in previous columns. I've got some ideas for how we might address the "quirks" where certain things the Jets have done well seem to be over-weighted in the ratings, but I simply don't have time to do a complete overhaul of DVOA in the middle of the season, so any Jets-related changes will have to wait. After all, we don't make changes just because we want the Jets' rating to drop (or because we want Green Bay's rating to go up). We make changes when they will improve the overall quality of the ratings for all teams. That takes a lot of work.

Besides, the Jets' odds of making the postseason are still pretty good, for two reasons.

First, their schedule gets easier over the last seven weeks. Actually, a lot of the top teams in the league have schedules that get easier over the last seven weeks. The Jets go from eighth in schedule to 25th. The Patriots go from fourth to 32nd. The 49ers go from 14th to 31st. The Ravens go from seventh to 28th. And the Bears go from sixth to 26th.

Second, because the Buffalo Bills have completely fallen through the floor over the last two weeks. The Bills ranked second in DVOA two weeks ago. This week they rank 17th. The Bills single-game DVOA ratings for the last two weeks are -59.2% and -78.2%. In addition, their opponent adjustments for earlier games have caused their overall rating to fall because so many of the teams they have played this season have been worse in the last two weeks, including Kansas City, Washington, and Philadelphia.

I went back and looked, and that 15-place drop is the largest in DVOA history for any time after the first six weeks of the season. There are three other teams that dropped 14 places. The 1999 Carolina Panthers went from eighth in Week 6 to 22nd in Week 8. The 2002 San Diego Chargers went from fifth in Week 8 to 19th in Week 10. And perhaps the most similar team to this year's Bills: The 2010 Kansas City Chiefs went from first in Week 8 to 15th in Week 10. They never recovered and ended up 17th in DVOA even though they managed to win the AFC West at 10-6. 10-6 isn't going to even win a wild card in the AFC. So Bills fans: Uh-oh.

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A note about next week: I'm going on vacation from Tuesday, November 22 through Monday, November 28, visting family in one of the best possible places for family to live: The Turks and Caicos islands. I'll be working on the DVOA ratings and commentary during a Tuesday layover, so everything should go online as usual, but it may be a bit later in the day.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through ten weeks of 2011, 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. 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.

As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

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>

TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 HOU 32.3% 3 33.8% 1 7-3 24.6% 4 -7.5% 6 0.2% 15 2 GB 31.3% 2 30.6% 2 9-0 38.3% 1 9.1% 18 2.1% 9 3 NYJ 29.4% 1 28.3% 3 5-4 6.3% 13 -16.5% 2 6.7% 3 4 NE 23.0% 9 21.5% 4 6-3 33.8% 2 11.6% 23 0.8% 12 5 SF 21.3% 4 20.8% 7 8-1 3.2% 18 -7.5% 7 10.7% 1 6 BAL 19.7% 5 18.8% 8 6-3 2.4% 20 -23.3% 1 -6.0% 30 7 PIT 19.3% 11 20.9% 6 7-3 18.9% 5 0.1% 12 0.6% 13 8 NYG 19.1% 6 21.2% 5 6-3 18.2% 6 -1.4% 11 -0.4% 18 9 CHI 15.9% 13 17.6% 9 6-3 -2.9% 23 -9.0% 5 9.8% 2 10 DAL 14.4% 16 14.4% 10 5-4 12.9% 10 -2.5% 10 -0.9% 19 11 ATL 13.9% 7 14.0% 11 5-4 5.6% 14 -6.9% 8 1.4% 11 12 NO 13.5% 12 12.5% 12 7-3 24.9% 3 10.3% 20 -1.0% 21 13 TEN 9.1% 17 6.7% 15 5-4 11.8% 11 5.4% 16 2.6% 7 14 DET 8.3% 8 7.3% 14 6-3 0.5% 22 -12.8% 4 -5.1% 29 15 PHI 7.5% 14 7.6% 13 3-6 13.7% 9 6.4% 17 0.3% 14 16 CIN 5.3% 15 5.6% 16 6-3 3.7% 17 1.3% 13 2.9% 6 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 BUF 3.3% 10 1.0% 17 5-4 16.3% 7 12.1% 25 -1.0% 20 18 OAK -5.8% 21 -7.2% 18 5-4 7.9% 12 12.1% 26 -1.6% 24 19 MIA -8.2% 23 -7.6% 19 2-7 3.1% 19 10.9% 21 -0.3% 16 20 MIN -9.5% 18 -9.4% 20 2-7 4.8% 15 11.7% 24 -2.7% 28 21 SD -10.5% 20 -9.9% 21 4-5 4.2% 16 12.6% 27 -2.1% 27 22 DEN -11.1% 25 -10.3% 22 4-5 -3.1% 24 10.1% 19 2.1% 8 23 TB -11.9% 19 -13.5% 24 4-5 1.7% 21 17.4% 30 3.8% 5 24 SEA -14.7% 27 -12.7% 23 3-6 -8.3% 25 4.9% 15 -1.4% 22 25 CAR -15.1% 22 -14.2% 25 2-7 15.6% 8 21.0% 31 -9.8% 32 26 WAS -15.4% 24 -17.8% 28 3-6 -16.5% 30 -2.7% 9 -1.6% 25 27 JAC -15.9% 29 -15.0% 27 3-6 -26.9% 32 -12.9% 3 -1.9% 26 28 CLE -16.1% 26 -14.7% 26 3-6 -12.0% 27 3.6% 14 -0.4% 17 29 ARI -21.1% 30 -21.3% 30 3-6 -10.6% 26 14.8% 29 4.3% 4 30 KC -23.0% 28 -19.8% 29 4-5 -13.2% 28 11.2% 22 1.4% 10 31 STL -33.8% 31 -33.4% 31 2-7 -18.2% 31 14.1% 28 -1.5% 23 32 IND -44.6% 32 -46.3% 32 0-10 -15.9% 29 21.6% 32 -7.1% 31

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).