by Aaron Schatz

With a dominant win over the Los Angeles Rams, the New England Patriots jumped four spots and now top the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings for the first time this season. The Patriots inched barely ahead of the Dallas Cowboys, who remain at No. 2 this week. However, the bigger story is not which teams are on top but how low their ratings are. The Year of No Great Teams has reached another pinnacle... or is it more appropriate to say nadir? New England has 19.9% DVOA and Dallas has 19.7% DVOA, making this the first time in the history of the DVOA ratings that the No. 1 team has been below 20%.

Four of last week's top five teams dropped in DVOA this week. No. 1 Atlanta lost a close game to Kansas City. Dallas dropped because their game with the Vikings was effectively a tie for DVOA purposes. The Philadelphia Eagles fade to No. 5 (No. 6 in the weighted rating) as DVOA's one-time favorite has put up its three worst games in the last three weeks. Even Seattle dropped a little bit this week; the Seahawks got a nice 45.4% rating for their big win over Carolina, but schedule adjustments drop them as a number of their past opponents (Rams, Dolphins, 49ers, Jets) got creamed this week.

Meanwhile, Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City all saw their DVOA ratings rise with good wins, and the Ravens jumped back into the top ten after destroying the Miami Dolphins. As a result, the top of our ratings are packed together extremely tight. The top five teams are separated by just 3.3% DVOA, and the top nine teams are separated by just 9.0% DVOA.

New England and Dallas do manage to clear the 20% DVOA bar in the weighted DVOA rating that drops the strength of earlier games, but the gap between the Patriots/Cowboys and previous No. 1 teams in DVOA is gigantic. Again: it's not just that there's never been a No. 1 team rated this low after Week 13. There's never been a No. 1 team rated this low, ever. Going all the way back to 1989, only one team ever was No. 1 with a DVOA rating under 25%, the 2011 Green Bay Packers with 24.7% DVOA after Week 15. If you want to revisit a similar past, you can find that article here, although the Packers were listed with a slightly higher rating at the time because we've changed the method a little bit since then. The 2011 Packers were actually sort of similar to the Dallas Cowboys of 2016. They went 15-1 but really weren't as good as that record. They won a lot of close games because their great offense overcame a poor defense.

(Another reason that conventional wisdom and DVOA differ on the strength of the New England Patriots: they've played the easiest schedule in the league so far based on average DVOA of opponent, although Tennessee or Indianapolis will probably still end up with the easiest schedule for the full season.)

How unique is The Year of No Great Teams? Not only has there never been a No. 1 team below 20%, but only twice before was the No. 1 team after Week 13 rated below 30%: the 2000 Titans (29.5%) and the 2011 Texans (29.9%). The Patriots are higher in weighted DVOA, at 25.0%, but that's also the lowest ever for the No. 1 team though Week 13. The previous low belonged to the 2006 Dallas Cowboys, who were No. 1 in weighted DVOA at 29.1% after Week 13. That was Tony Romo's first season as the starter, by the way, but the team peaked at midseason, finishing ninth in DVOA and backing into the playoffs with a wild card after a 1-3 record in the last four weeks.

But wait, there are even more tidbits that show how unique 2016 is as the Year of No Great Teams. Only twice since 1989 has the No. 3 team in DVOA after Week 13 rated below this year's No. 1 Patriots: the 1991 Saints at 17.1% and the 2003 Titans at 18.6%. In fact, in 16 of the 27 seasons since 1989, there were at least five teams with higher DVOA than any team has in 2016. In 2009, there were eight ddifferent teams with higher DVOA after Week 13 than any team has right now in 2016.

One big explanation for The Year of No Great Teams is that this is The Year of No Well-Balanced Teams. Right now, the top seven teams in offensive DVOA all have defenses ranked between 19th and 28th. Meanwhile, the top seven teams in defensive DVOA all have offenses ranked between 19th and 28th except for Seattle, which is now No. 13 on offense. Patriots fans, are you worried about your defense? Great, so are Cowboys fans, Falcons fans, and Raiders fans. Broncos fans, worried about your offense? So are Ravens fans and Vikings fans. The only teams that look at all balanced right now are Seattle, where the offense will likely rebound a bit from that horrible game against Tampa Bay, and -- surprisingly -- Pittsburgh, which now ranks No. 8 in both offense and defense.

The top teams are even more packed together when you consider that three of the top four teams in DVOA just lost great players to season-ending injuries. New England lost the best tight end in the NFL. Seattle lost the best free safety in the NFL. Desmond Trufant isn't the best cornerback in the NFL, but he was the best defensive player on the Atlanta Falcons. The playoff odds simulation has adjusted the ratings of these three teams based on a rough estimate of what these players might be worth. Remember that the drop with a replacement quarterback is a lot bigger than any other position, and losing a top offensive player tends to have a more predictable impact than losing a top defensive player. Our estimate of the value of Gronk is enough to move Dallas ahead of New England as our current favorite to win Super Bowl LI.

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You may be asking if The Year of No Great Teams is also The Year of No Horrible Teams. The answer is not quite. It's actually The Year of Not Too Many Horrible Teams. The Browns kept things close in some of their earlier losses, but they are scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Their DVOA of -38.1% is middle of the pack historically for the worst teams of each year, and the Browns are now ranked in the bottom five for all three units. The Jets are now No. 31 after the Colts just plain brutalized them this week. A 41-10 blowout loss to an Indianapolis team that still ranks only 25th in DVOA gives the Jets the worst game of the season by DVOA, with a dismal rating of -110.8%. The Jets rank in the bottom six for all three units. Also near the bottom of the league are Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles -- although they are a Johnny Hekker-powered No. 2 on special teams, trailing only Philadelphia -- and Jacksonville.

However, you'll notice there's a pretty big gap between those six teams and everyone else in the league. Usually, there are more teams down below -10% DVOA. Every other season of DVOA going back to 1989 has had at least eight different teams below -10% DVOA after Week 13 except for three. In 1991, 22 of 28 teams were above -10% at this point of the season. In 1993, 21 of 28 teams were above -10% at this point, although that was the year of two bye weeks so teams had only played 11 games apiece. And in 2003, the first year of our website, 26 of 32 teams were above -10% after Week 13.

As strange as The Year of No Great Teams is, at least one general rule has reasserted itself over the course of the 2016 season. You may remember that 2015 was one of the rare years where the best defense was stronger than the best offense, and the worst defense was weaker than the worst offense. Early this season, it looked like that trend would continue in 2016. It hasn't. The top offenses, Dallas and Atlanta, are above 25%, while the best defense right now is Denver at -18.5%. The worst offense is now Los Angeles at -29.3%, and both the Rams and the Houston Texans offense are worse than the Cleveland defense at 17.3% DVOA.

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Once again this season, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 17 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, beginning at 11am Eastern on Friday. We will also tweet out images of these players from the a href="https://twitter.com/fboutsiders" target="_blank">@fboutsiders Twitter account on most Fridays. The best player of each week, the Football Outsiders Hero, will require you to collect a set of the other four Football Outsiders players that week, plus a certain number of Football Outsiders collectibles available in Madden Ultimate Team packs.

The Football Outsiders stars for Week 13 are:

RB Devonta Freeman, ATL (FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS HERO) : No. 2 RB with 56 DYAR in Week 13 (15 carries, 56 yards, 2 TD plus 49 yards and three first downs receiving).

: No. 2 RB with 56 DYAR in Week 13 (15 carries, 56 yards, 2 TD plus 49 yards and three first downs receiving). TE Dwayne Allen, IND : No. 1 TE with 61 DYAR in Week 13 (4 catches, 72 yards, 3 TD).

: No. 1 TE with 61 DYAR in Week 13 (4 catches, 72 yards, 3 TD). WR Tyler Lockett, SEA : No. 4 WR with 51 DYAR in Week 13 (5 catches, 63 yards, plus 75-yard touchdown run and 46-yard kickoff return).

: No. 4 WR with 51 DYAR in Week 13 (5 catches, 63 yards, plus 75-yard touchdown run and 46-yard kickoff return). LT Ronnie Stanley, BAL : No sacks allowed; Baltimore RB had 49 yards on 8 carries to the left.

: No sacks allowed; Baltimore RB had 49 yards on 8 carries to the left. LE Derek Wolfe, DEN: Six run tackles for a combined 14 yards plus 2 QB knockdowns.

Jacksonville is now the only team that hasn't gotten a Football Outsiders player in Madden 17 Ultimate Team. We'll try to take care of that in the final four weeks.

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All player/team DVOA stats pages are now updated through Week 13 of 2016. Playoff odds, snap counts, and the premium DVOA database are also fully updated. Drive stats and pace stats will be updated later this evening.

If you're looking for more of my thoughts on the Football Outsiders playoff odds and DVOA ratings, my playoff odds commentary at ESPN Insider will be running on Tuesday afternoons instead of Wednesday mornings for the remainder of the regular season.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 13 weeks of 2016, 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. 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>

(Ed. Note: My apologies. I had the second ratings table sorted wrong when I created today's HTML tables, which caused all kinds of errors with both weighted DVOA and non-adjusted VOA. Tables are now fixed below. Most of the questions in the comment thread prior to 1:00 am EST Wednesday morning are now moot. -- Aaron)

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 NE 19.9% 5 25.0% 1 10-2 19.6% 3 1.8% 19 2.1% 10 2 DAL 19.7% 2 21.6% 2 11-1 25.1% 2 8.4% 26 2.9% 9 3 SEA 18.4% 4 17.8% 4 8-3-1 2.5% 13 -14.4% 5 1.5% 11 4 ATL 17.3% 1 18.5% 3 7-5 25.1% 1 10.8% 28 3.0% 8 5 PHI 16.6% 3 15.3% 6 5-7 -6.5% 22 -14.6% 4 8.5% 1 6 OAK 15.6% 7 16.1% 5 10-2 18.4% 4 6.2% 22 3.3% 7 7 PIT 15.4% 6 14.3% 8 7-5 9.9% 8 -5.9% 8 -0.4% 18 8 KC 12.2% 8 14.8% 7 9-3 2.8% 12 -3.0% 11 6.5% 4 9 BAL 10.9% 13 13.3% 9 7-5 -12.3% 27 -18.4% 2 4.8% 6 10 WAS 7.8% 10 9.8% 10 6-5-1 14.3% 6 7.4% 23 1.0% 13 11 DEN 5.4% 15 3.9% 13 8-4 -10.6% 24 -18.5% 1 -2.4% 23 12 GB 5.2% 18 3.4% 15 6-6 8.7% 9 1.5% 18 -2.0% 20 13 NYG 4.6% 14 5.0% 12 8-4 -2.8% 19 -9.6% 7 -2.2% 21 14 MIN 3.8% 16 0.4% 20 6-6 -11.5% 25 -14.2% 6 1.1% 12 15 NO 3.7% 11 5.4% 11 5-7 15.8% 5 8.2% 25 -3.9% 26 16 BUF 3.3% 12 3.1% 16 6-6 8.4% 10 5.1% 21 0.0% 16 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK WEI.

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 SD 3.0% 17 1.1% 18 5-7 -0.3% 15 -5.1% 9 -1.8% 19 18 TEN 0.7% 20 2.3% 17 6-6 11.8% 7 7.9% 24 -3.2% 24 19 MIA -0.4% 9 3.8% 14 7-5 -0.7% 18 0.0% 17 0.3% 15 20 TB -0.6% 19 1.0% 19 7-5 -0.7% 17 -2.4% 12 -2.3% 22 21 CIN -0.8% 21 0.2% 21 4-7-1 4.6% 11 2.0% 20 -3.5% 25 22 ARI -3.6% 23 -5.0% 23 5-6-1 -12.2% 26 -14.8% 3 -6.2% 30 23 CHI -4.4% 24 -3.0% 22 3-9 -4.9% 21 -0.5% 16 0.0% 17 24 CAR -7.2% 22 -7.5% 25 4-8 -4.6% 20 -2.2% 14 -4.8% 29 25 IND -8.4% 28 -6.3% 24 6-6 -0.4% 16 14.9% 30 6.8% 3 26 DET -8.7% 25 -8.3% 26 8-4 1.5% 14 16.1% 31 5.9% 5 27 JAC -16.3% 29 -17.3% 27 2-10 -15.9% 29 -3.5% 10 -3.9% 27 28 LARM -19.3% 26 -17.4% 28 4-8 -29.3% 32 -1.9% 15 8.0% 2 29 SF -22.3% 27 -25.6% 30 1-11 -10.3% 23 12.5% 29 0.5% 14 30 HOU -24.5% 30 -25.3% 29 6-6 -19.8% 31 -2.2% 13 -6.9% 31 31 NYJ -32.5% 31 -33.8% 31 3-9 -15.6% 28 9.3% 27 -7.6% 32 32 CLE -38.1% 32 -38.7% 32 0-12 -16.7% 30 17.3% 32 -4.0% 28

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).