by Aaron Schatz

Cincinnati remains on top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings after taking Week 4 off. In fact, the three teams on top of our ratings all had last week off, but Seattle and Denver closed the gap on the Bengals thanks to the introduction this week of opponent adjustments. Those adjustments are currently at 40 percent strength and will increase in strength each week until they are full strength after Week 10. If the Bengals can ward off last year's two Super Bowl teams, perhaps they'll do it with their remarkable consistency. Cincinnati's total DVOA for each of its three games so far: 38.6%, 45.3%, and 41.2%.

Obviously, a lot of talk today has been about New England because they were the most recent team to get clobbered on national television. However, the Patriots are actually one of five teams that ranked in the top eight of the 2013 DVOA ratings but currently rank in the bottom half of the 2014 DVOA ratings. Those teams are:

Kansas City, 2.3% DVOA, 18th, 2-2 record / No. 6 in 2013

San Francisco: 0.9% DVOA, 19th, 2-2 record / No. 7 in 2013

New Orleans: -4.9% DVOA, 21st, 1-3 record / No. 4 in 2013

New England: -5.8% DVOA, 23rd, 2-2 record / No. 5 in 2013

Carolina: -18.3% DVOA, 27th, 2-2 record / No. 3 in 2013

Yes, the Chiefs are here even though they clobbered the Patriots last night. That Week 1 loss to Tennessee sure does look strange now, doesn't it?

How much hope do these teams have of righting the ship and playing at a playoff level for the rest of the year? Obviously, the answer to that question depends on the specifics of each team's situation, but let's take a general look to see what happens to teams stuck in this same situation.

There were, of course, 192 teams ranked in the top eight of DVOA between 1989 and 2012. Yay for simple math! Four games into the next season, 52 of those teams had a DVOA below 0.0%. That's 27 percent of teams, which actually seems like a lot to me, even with the fact that NFL teams are a lot less consistent from year to year than college football teams or teams in the other major professional sports. Another ten teams had a DVOA between 0.0% and 3.0%, making them comparable to this year's 49ers and Chiefs.

Here's a look at the record of those teams:

9 started 0-4

19 started 1-3 (21 if we include the teams between 0.0% and 3.0%)

18 started 2-2 (23 if we include the teams between 0.0% and 3.0%)

6 started 3-1 (9 if we include the teams between 0.0% and 3.0%)

Here were the worst of those teams; I'm listing 11 of them because the two Tennessee teams are close together and over five DVOA percentage points away from the team ranked 12th (the 1994 Broncos).

Worst Four-Game Starts by Teams Ranked Top 8 in DVOA Previous Season, 1990-2014 Previous Year First Four Games Final Stats Year Team W-L DVOA Rk W-L DVOA Rk W-L DVOA Rk 2013 NYG 9-7 13.4% 7 0-4 -48.7% 31 7-9 -15.7% 27 1996 ATL 9-7 13.9% 6 0-4 -47.0% 28 3-13 -28.7% 28 2009 CAR 12-4 18.0% 6 1-3 -42.6% 29 8-8 7.1% 15 1994 HOIL 12-4 16.3% 5 1-3 -41.8% 27 2-14 -32.3% 28 1999 ATL 14-2 18.8% 7 0-4 -40.9% 29 5-11 -19.2% 26 2005 NYJ 10-6 27.0% 4 1-3 -32.1% 28 4-12 -20.9% 26 1999 DEN 14-2 32.6% 1 0-4 -31.4% 26 6-10 8.6% 12 2007 CHI 13-3 23.9% 5 1-3 -31.3% 27 7-9 -4.8% 20 1995 PHI 7-9 10.9% 7 1-3 -29.7% 26 10-6 -5.3% 18 2009 TEN 13-3 23.8% 5 0-4 -27.0% 26 8-8 -6.6% 21 2004 TEN 12-4 22.9% 2 1-3 -26.6% 30 5-11 -17.6% 26

Only one of these teams recovered to make the playoffs: the 1995 Eagles. The good news for fans of the five teams in question is that none of them have been quite this bad so far in 2014.

Looking at the total group of teams that started with DVOA below 0.0%, 18 of those 52 teams (35 percent) recovered to make the playoffs. Of course, not all those teams are comparable to our five mediocre teams from 2014. We can toss out the 0-4 teams and the 3-1 teams. In fact, one win means so much in a 16-game NFL season, even this early, that comparisons for New Orleans should really be different than those for the other four teams. So here's a more accurate portrayal of history:

As noted above, there are 23 teams in our study group that started 2-2. Thirteen of those teams -- over 50 percent! -- recovered to make the playoffs that same season. Twelve of these teams were within five DVOA percentage points of the 2014 Patriots, and eight of those teams made it to the playoffs including the Patriots themselves twice, in 2003 (-6.6% DVOA through Week 4) and 2005 (-2.3% DVOA through Week 4). There are also 17 teams within five DVOA percentage points of the 2014 49ers or Chiefs -- this includes a few teams that are above 3.0% DVOA, of course -- and 11 of those 17 teams (65 percent) eventually made the playoffs including last year's 49ers, who started out 2-2 with -1.2% DVOA.

On the other hand... 22 of these 23 teams had higher DVOA ratings than Carolina has right now. The exception: the 2001 Colts, who were playing poorly even before Edgerrin James tore his ACL in Week 7, and finished the year 6-10. The only teams to follow a top-eight DVOA season with a similar DVOA start to the 2014 Panthers and still make the playoffs are the 1995 Eagles, as noted above; the 2002 Steelers, who started 1-3 with -21.0% DVOA before winning the AFC North at 10-5-1; and the 2007 Chargers, who started 1-3 with -14.5% DVOA before winning the AFC West at 11-5.

New Orleans has it a bit harder than these other teams because it is now 1-3 instead of 2-2. Only five of the 21 teams in our study group which started the season 1-3 eventually recovered to make the playoffs (24 percent). I just mentioned three of them above. The other two were the 1993 Oilers, who started 1-3 with a -7.9% DVOA but finished the year 12-4 and fifth in the league in DVOA, and the 2004 Packers, who started the year 1-3 with -2.2% DVOA. They didn't really get much better, finishing the year 12th with 2.8% DVOA, but managed to end the year 10-6 to win the NFC North.

I also wanted to take a look at the collapse of the Patriots offense, which is 28th in the league through four games. Here are the teams that rank lower on offense: Jets, Buccaneers, Raiders, and Jaguars. That's a scary list to be on, isn't it? Has there ever been another team to see its offense collapse this massively early in the season after such a run of success? It can be hard to find one because it's so hard to find another team with a similar run of success in the first place. The Patriots have ranked in the top five of offensive DVOA for five straight seasons. The only other teams to accomplish that feat: San Francisco (1989-1995), Dallas (1991-1995), Kansas City (2001-2005), and Indianapolis (2003-2008).

So instead, I went looking for teams that ranked in the top five for just three straight years. There are 27 such spans since 1989, including the current Patriots. Only four of these teams began the following season with offensive DVOA that ranked 20th or worse:

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The 1999 Broncos had -23.0% offensive DVOA after four games, which ranked 28th. Of course, John Elway had retired, and Terrell Davis tore his ACL. The Broncos eventually improved their offense as the young players, especially Brian Griese, got more experience. They had 9.5% offensive DVOA the rest of the way, which ranked 11th for the period between Week 5 and Week 17 of 1999. For the full season, the Broncos finished with 3.4% offensive DVOA, ranked 14th, but they missed the playoffs at 6-10.

The 2002 Rams had -16.8% offensive DVOA after four games, which ranked 28th. Kurt Warner got hurt in that fourth game and Marc Bulger started for half the season. Torry Holt missed five games. Marshall Faulk and Orlando Pace each missed six games. The Rams finished the year with -10.2% offensive DVOA, which ranked 26th, and a 7-9 record.

The 2003 49ers had -12.7% offensive DVOA after four games, which ranked 27th. Like this year's Patriots, they were embarassed in Week 4, falling 35-7 in Minnesota. The 49ers offense had all the same players as the year before, and I remember their offensive collapse being a bit of a mystery. (This was the first season of Football Outsiders.) And the 49ers were the one team on this list to give the Patriots some hope, because their offense recovered (in circumstances much more similar to the Patriots than the 1999 Broncos were). In Weeks 5-17, the 49ers had 14.2% offensive DVOA, which was the seventh-highest rating in the NFL during that 13-week stretch and much closer to the 19.3% offensive DVOA the 49ers had in 2002. The 49ers finished the year with 7.8% DVOA for all 16 games, which ranked 11th. However, they missed the playoffs at 7-9 because of a mediocre defense and poor special teams.

The 2012 Chargers had the infamous "what the hell went wrong with Philip Rivers" year. Marcus McNeill was hurt and Vincent Jackson was gone to Tampa Bay. They had -11.0% DVOA after four games, which ranked 20th. The Chargers finished with -10.0% offensive DVOA, which ranked 24th, and a 7-9 record.

The stories of those four teams don't exactly give great hope to Patriots fans. Perhaps they could put things back together the way the 2003 49ers did. Historically, Tom Brady has been better than Jeff Garcia, and I hear Terrell Owens is still around somewhere if the Patriots want to sign him. The Patriots also won't have the field position problems that 49ers team had. While the offense has collapsed, the Patriots special teams are once again in the NFL top ten, so at least some things stay consistent in Foxborough. The Patriots have had above-average special teams every season since 1996. That's the silver lining for Patriots fans. The cloud? Well, scroll down and notice the first schedule strength numbers of the season. The Patriots' schedule ranks 30th through four games. It ranks third the rest of the way. Uh-oh.

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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 4 are:

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All stats pages are now updated with Week 4 information -- or will be in the next few minutes -- including FO Premium, snap counts and playoff odds. I know a lot of people will ask about the KUBIAK fantasy projections midseason update and when it is coming out. It takes a ton of time to put together. I hope to have it out Thursday night but no promises.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through four 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. Because it is early in the season, opponent adjustments are only at 40 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 45 percent of DAVE for teams with four games played, and 55 percent of DAVE for teams with three 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>

TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK TOTAL

DAVE RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 CIN 41.7% 1 21.2% 3 3-0 19.2% 5 -21.5% 1 1.0% 13 2 SEA 32.7% 4 23.8% 2 2-1 25.4% 2 -8.9% 8 -1.6% 21 3 DEN 30.3% 3 26.8% 1 2-1 19.7% 4 -11.2% 4 -0.7% 18 4 ATL 26.2% 2 12.6% 5 2-2 26.6% 1 10.9% 27 10.6% 2 5 BAL 21.1% 14 9.0% 7 3-1 16.1% 6 -4.7% 13 0.3% 15 6 GB 20.8% 17 18.3% 4 2-2 14.8% 8 -1.1% 18 4.9% 5 7 DET 16.2% 11 5.8% 10 3-1 4.0% 15 -20.6% 2 -8.4% 28 8 ARI 16.1% 12 5.0% 12 3-0 -4.0% 21 -14.4% 3 5.7% 4 9 PHI 10.5% 8 7.9% 8 3-1 -8.3% 22 -7.9% 11 10.9% 1 10 BUF 8.4% 6 3.7% 14 2-2 -10.8% 23 -8.6% 9 10.5% 3 11 NYG 8.3% 28 2.1% 17 2-2 1.0% 18 -11.1% 5 -3.8% 26 12 SD 7.8% 20 9.1% 6 3-1 4.5% 13 -2.5% 15 0.8% 14 13 DAL 7.1% 19 0.5% 19 3-1 12.1% 10 8.3% 23 3.3% 8 14 CHI 6.4% 5 7.6% 9 2-2 4.2% 14 -3.3% 14 -1.2% 20 15 PIT 5.1% 10 4.3% 13 2-2 12.5% 9 10.1% 26 2.7% 10 16 CLE 4.4% 16 -5.4% 22 1-2 20.8% 3 13.4% 29 -3.0% 25 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK TOTAL

DAVE RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 IND 2.5% 21 0.7% 18 2-2 9.0% 11 9.9% 25 3.5% 7 18 KC 2.3% 27 -2.0% 20 2-2 5.6% 12 3.5% 19 0.2% 16 19 SF 0.9% 18 5.3% 11 2-2 1.1% 17 -9.3% 6 -9.5% 30 20 MIA -4.7% 24 -5.1% 21 2-2 -2.6% 20 -9.2% 7 -11.3% 32 21 NO -4.9% 13 2.9% 16 1-3 15.7% 7 20.2% 32 -0.5% 17 22 WAS -5.5% 9 -7.1% 23 1-3 3.3% 16 -2.3% 16 -11.1% 31 23 NE -5.8% 7 3.2% 15 2-2 -17.0% 28 -8.0% 10 3.2% 9 24 HOU -7.2% 22 -8.1% 24 3-1 -11.1% 25 -6.5% 12 -2.7% 23 25 NYJ -16.3% 23 -10.3% 27 1-3 -19.7% 29 -1.4% 17 1.9% 11 26 MIN -17.6% 30 -10.2% 26 2-2 -10.8% 24 7.9% 22 1.1% 12 27 CAR -18.3% 15 -9.4% 25 2-2 -2.5% 19 13.1% 28 -2.7% 24 28 TEN -27.9% 25 -17.9% 29 1-3 -16.0% 26 5.8% 20 -6.2% 27 29 STL -31.6% 29 -15.6% 28 1-2 -16.7% 27 14.2% 30 -0.7% 19 30 OAK -33.9% 26 -26.8% 30 0-4 -31.1% 31 6.9% 21 4.2% 6 31 TB -48.3% 32 -26.9% 31 1-3 -30.8% 30 8.8% 24 -8.6% 29 32 JAC -50.1% 31 -33.7% 32 0-4 -33.9% 32 14.3% 31 -1.8% 22

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).