by Aaron Schatz

Seattle is the hottest team in the NFL right now, and that's almost-but-not-quite reflected in this week's Football Outsiders DVOA ratings.

The Seahawks have put up single-game DVOA over 50% in four of their last five games. The other game had a single-game DVOA of 39.0%, also pretty damn good. The Seahawks climbed this week into second place in both total DVOA and weighted DVOA. But they haven't quite made it into first place in either rating.

Those dominating early-season victories by the Denver Broncos are still being felt in our total DVOA rating. The Broncos' overall DVOA fell for the fourth straight week, and they had a single-game DVOA below 0% for the third time since Week 9, but the Broncos are still narrowly ahead of Seattle by less than a percentage point.

Going back to 1989-1990, the same two teams never finished 1-2 in DVOA, either in the same order or reversed, until Seattle and Denver did it in 2012-2013. And now, depending on what happens in the final week of the season, we may end up with the same teams finishing 1-2 for three straight years.

It's also interesting to see that over the course of the season, the Broncos and Seahawks are showing the same balance. Denver is currently third in both offense and defense, but 28th in special teams. Seattle is currently fourth in both offense and defense, but 21st in special teams.

The New England Patriots see their total DVOA drop this week after escaping with a victory in a close game against the Jets, and the Patriots dropped from second to third after Seattle's big win. However, New England's weighted DVOA continues to rise as the Week 4 blowout loss in Kansas City moves further and further into the rearview mirror. New England's lead over Seattle in weighted DVOA is much greater than Denver's lead in total DVOA, and the Patriots now win the Super Bowl in over 25 percent of our simulations. The Patriots are perhaps even more balanced than Seattle or Denver, since their balance includes special teams: the Patriots are top ten in all three phases of the game.

The Dallas Cowboys leap up from No. 13 to No. 6 in total DVOA after their huge victory over Indianapolis, but there's a huge gap of almost ten percentage points in between DVOA's top five and the rest of the league (in both total and weighted DVOA). One of the other members of the top five is Green Bay, which with a win this week will likely leave us with the top four teams in DVOA all having first-round byes. The other member of the top five is Baltimore, which may not make the playoffs at all.

That brings me to this question that came in via Twitter this morning:

Eliyahu Fink (@efink): What's the highest weighted DVOA team to miss playoffs ever? BAL / KC / BUF / MIA / STL in Top 10 & they may all miss playoffs.

What's funny about this question is that before writing today's commentary, I went back to look at what I wrote a year ago after Week 16 and guess what -- I wrote about this exact topic. A year ago, people were asking about the best teams to miss the playoffs because of the Arizona Cardinals, 10-5 at the time but stuck behind Seattle and San Francisco. As it turned out, the Cardinals weren't anywhere close to the lists of the best DVOA teams to miss the playoffs because their offense really wasn't very good. One year later, the Cardinals aren't as good but this time they will make the playoffs. And no, they won't end up on the list of the worst DVOA teams to make the playoffs, either.

This year, the main team that brings on this question is Baltimore. This week's terrible faceplant against Houston cost the Ravens three percentage points of DVOA, but they still rank fifth overall for the season. While it's true that a number of teams in our top ten may miss the playoffs, Baltimore is the only one that might appear on a list of the highest DVOA or weighted DVOA to miss the postseason.

Here are the lists of the best teams to miss the playoffs since 1989 by both total and weighted DVOA. I've added Baltimore with its ratings through Week 16 of this season. If you want to read about these teams -- and Buffalo fans, please don't torture yourselves -- you can read last year's Week 16 DVOA commentary.

Best DVOA to Miss Playoffs, 1989-2014 Best Weighted DVOA to Miss Playoffs, 1989-2014 YEAR TEAM W-L TOTAL

DVOA RANK THAT

YEAR x YEAR TEAM W-L WEI

DVOA RANK THAT

YEAR 2004 BUF 9-7 31.3% 3 x 2004 BUF 9-7 41.6% 1 1991 SF 10-6 26.0% 2 x 2005 KC 10-6 33.3% 2 2002 MIA 9-7 24.9% 3 x 1991 SF 10-6 31.2% 2 2002 KC 8-8 24.4% 4 x 2002 KC 8-8 26.0% 4 2005 KC 10-6 24.4% 5 x 2000 PIT 9-7 26.0% 4 2005 SD 9-7 23.3% 6 x 2009 CAR 8-8 25.2% 5 2000 PIT 9-7 22.6% 4 x 1993 SD 8-8 25.2% 4 2006 JAC 8-8 22.5% 6 x 2002 MIA 9-7 24.0% 5 2014 BAL 9-6 22.2% 5 x 1999 OAK 8-8 22.8% 2 1999 OAK 8-8 21.2% 3 x 2001 WAS 8-8 22.3% 3 2004 BAL 9-7 21.1% 8 x 2014 BAL 9-6 22.0% 5 2012 CHI 10-6 20.5% 6 x 2006 JAC 8-8 21.5% 4 1991 PHI 10-6 17.9% 5 x 2008 NE 11-5 21.4% 8

The strangest part of Baltimore possibly missing the playoffs is that usually a harder schedule makes it easier to get into the postseason, right? Yet of the teams in the DVOA top five, Baltimore had by far the easiest schedule this year. Denver's schedule (not including the final game) ranks sixth, New England's tenth, and Seattle's 11th. Green Bay's is a little easier, ranking 20th. Baltimore is 30th. Yet the Ravens may be the ones staying home.

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The Broncos' egg-laying in Cincinnati last night didn't just drop the Broncos into third place in weighted DVOA and blow their opportunity to win the AFC's No. 1 seed. It also seriously scrambled our ratings for quarterbacks in 2014. That scrambling also got a little help from the flu, or whatever the heck was wrong with Aaron Rodgers this week.

For the first half of the season, Peyton Manning led the league in quarterback DYAR and DVOA. After about midseason, Rodgers took over the lead in DVOA, and Manning led the league in DYAR, and that's pretty much the way things looked after every week. But not now.

This year's top quarterbacks are so close that Week 17 will assuredly mix things up further. But after Manning's four interceptions in Cincinnati, the new passing DYAR leader is Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben has never finished in the top five for passing DYAR, and his current total of 1.436 sets a new career high, surpassing the 1,227 passing DYAR he had in 2009. Manning is still second, followed by Rodgers, Drew Brees, and a tight pack around fifth place that consists of Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, and Tony Romo.

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If either Roethlisberger or Rodgers finishes No. 1 in passing DYAR, he will become the first quarterback other than Brady, Brees, or Manning to lead the league in that stat since Rich Gannon in 2002.

When we look at value per play, we have maybe an even more shocking league leader. Hey kids, it's Tony Romo at 29.5%! This actually isn't that out of line with some of Romo's historical numbers, as he put up DVOA ratings close to that in both 2009 (28.0%) and 2011 (26.9%). The real surprise here is that nobody is doing better than Romo. Going back to 1989, there has never been a year where the leader in passing DVOA was lower than 30.0%. The closest was Philip Rivers at 30.3% in 2008. Romo is certainly being helped by the Cowboys' run-heavy offense this year; he has 430 pass plays, while every other quarterback in the top dozen for DYAR has at least 520 pass plays. DVOA controls for the fact that DeMarco Murray puts Romo in easier down-and-distance situations, but it doesn't control for the fact that opponents have to focus on the run at the expense of covering the pass. But that's not meant to disparage the year Romo's having. Great year, Romo!

Rodgers is now second in passing DVOA behind Romo, followed by Roethlisberger, Manning, Derek Anderson (with 102 passes, I really need to change my minimums this offseason), and Brady.

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Once again in 2014, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 15 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 16 are:

ROLB Clay Matthews, GB (24-HOUR HERO): 3 sacks, run TFL, PD

3 sacks, run TFL, PD WR Dontrelle Inman, SD: 36 DYAR (7-for-9 for 79 yards plus a 12-yard DPI, 5 first downs) in his first-ever NFL regular-season game.

36 DYAR (7-for-9 for 79 yards plus a 12-yard DPI, 5 first downs) in his first-ever NFL regular-season game. LOLB Telvin Smith, JAC: 15 combined tackles, 7 Stops, 2 Defeats.

15 combined tackles, 7 Stops, 2 Defeats. DT Vince Wilfork, NE: 9 run tackles for a combined 15 yards plus partially blocked would-be game-winning field goal.

9 run tackles for a combined 15 yards plus partially blocked would-be game-winning field goal. TE Luke Willson, SEA: Led all Week 16 TE with 58 DYAR (3 catches, 139 yards, 2 TD).

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All stats pages are now updated with Week 16 information -- or will be in the next few minutes -- including FO Premium, snap counts, and playoff odds. You can also read the weekly playoff odds report on ESPN Insider to get more commentary on the current playoff odds.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 16 weeks of 2014, 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. 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 DEN 29.2% 1 24.3% 3 11-4 20.0% 3 -13.6% 3 -4.4% 28 2 SEA 28.9% 3 29.1% 2 11-4 17.8% 4 -13.4% 4 -2.3% 21 3 NE 24.9% 2 35.8% 1 12-3 14.4% 6 -4.7% 9 5.8% 6 4 GB 22.5% 5 23.6% 4 11-4 23.0% 1 -2.3% 13 -2.8% 23 5 BAL 22.2% 4 22.0% 5 9-6 8.8% 11 -5.3% 8 8.1% 1 6 DAL 12.5% 13 15.7% 6 11-4 16.4% 5 4.5% 23 0.6% 12 7 PHI 12.1% 7 15.3% 7 9-6 0.0% 14 -4.4% 10 7.7% 2 8 PIT 9.8% 9 13.4% 8 10-5 23.0% 2 12.9% 30 -0.3% 15 9 KC 8.9% 6 9.6% 9 8-7 5.3% 12 2.6% 19 6.3% 4 10 BUF 7.6% 8 8.2% 10 8-7 -13.1% 27 -14.4% 2 6.3% 3 11 MIA 6.8% 11 7.0% 11 8-7 10.1% 9 -1.8% 15 -5.2% 30 12 CIN 6.4% 15 0.9% 15 10-4-1 -1.4% 16 -1.8% 14 6.0% 5 13 DET 5.7% 12 2.5% 14 11-4 -4.9% 19 -15.5% 1 -5.0% 29 14 SF 5.1% 16 5.9% 13 7-8 -3.5% 18 -12.1% 5 -3.5% 25 15 IND 2.9% 10 0.7% 16 10-5 -0.5% 15 0.0% 16 3.4% 7 16 SD 1.9% 14 0.2% 18 9-6 9.7% 10 6.0% 26 -1.8% 19 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 NO 0.2% 17 0.6% 17 6-9 11.5% 7 13.5% 31 2.2% 11 18 ATL 0.1% 20 -1.2% 20 6-9 11.5% 8 14.1% 32 2.7% 10 19 STL -2.6% 19 6.7% 12 6-9 -8.5% 23 -2.8% 12 3.1% 8 20 HOU -4.4% 21 -0.5% 19 8-7 -6.8% 22 -6.4% 7 -3.9% 27 21 NYG -4.9% 23 -4.6% 21 6-9 -1.6% 17 3.5% 22 0.2% 13 22 ARI -5.7% 18 -8.2% 23 11-4 -11.8% 26 -8.4% 6 -2.3% 22 23 CLE -7.7% 22 -11.7% 24 7-8 -11.0% 24 -3.2% 11 0.2% 14 24 MIN -9.0% 24 -5.7% 22 6-9 -6.6% 21 5.1% 24 2.7% 9 25 CHI -12.3% 25 -20.6% 27 5-10 2.4% 13 11.8% 28 -2.9% 24 26 CAR -12.4% 26 -11.7% 25 6-8-1 -5.9% 20 0.8% 17 -5.8% 32 27 NYJ -18.6% 27 -19.5% 26 3-12 -14.0% 29 3.3% 21 -1.3% 17 28 OAK -25.0% 28 -25.6% 29 3-12 -18.8% 30 5.4% 25 -0.8% 16 29 WAS -26.5% 29 -37.4% 32 4-11 -11.6% 25 9.2% 27 -5.7% 31 30 TEN -27.8% 30 -32.4% 31 2-13 -13.9% 28 12.0% 29 -1.9% 20 31 JAC -30.1% 31 -23.0% 28 3-12 -25.0% 31 1.4% 18 -3.6% 26 32 TB -32.5% 32 -29.0% 30 2-13 -27.9% 32 3.1% 20 -1.5% 18

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).