by Aaron Schatz

The NFL this year is being dominated by four specific NFC teams, one in each division. So when one of those teams beats another one, in convincing fashion, it's going to have a major effect on the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings.

A week ago, the Rams dropped from first to fourth after a loss to the Minnesota Vikings. This week, they're back in first place after a win over the New Orleans Saints that was not as close as the final 26-20 score. Los Angeles gets 83.7% DVOA for this game, narrowly surpassing Week 7's 33-0 shutout of Arizona as the Rams' top DVOA performance of the year.

This game comes out as one of the top five single-game performances of the year by any team. Using current opponent adjustments, the Rams have three of the top ten games, more than any other team. (The Week 1 win over Indianapolis is the third.) The top two games of the year both came back in Week 3: Jacksonville's 44-7 dismantling of Baltimore (102.7%) and New Orleans going on the road to clobber Carolina 34-13 (94.5%). By the way, those NFC South rivals will play the rematch this Sunday, and your humble commentator will be reporting from the Superdome in person thanks to a fortuitous bit of midseason vacation planning.

The fourth of the dominant NFC teams is Philadelphia, of course, which currently owns the league's best record at 10-1. The Rams may be back in the top spot this week but it's just barely over the Eagles, by one-tenth of a percentage point, and the Eagles are still No. 1 in Weighted DVOA which drops the strength of September games. The Eagles have not yet clinched a postseason berth but they only miss the playoffs in ONE of our 50,000 playoff odds simulations this week.

The Rams will complete a run of playing the other three big NFC teams when they host the Eagles next week. Unless there's a major change in the DVOA ratings next week, the Week 14 Eagles at Rams contest will give us a DVOA Bowl for the third straight season, a midseason matchup of No. 1 and No. 2. Last year, the Week 12 DVOA Bowl between Seattle and Philadelphia was the start of the Eagles' late-season collapse. The year before, the Seahawks and Cardinals faced off in Week 17 but the DVOA Bowl became pointless when the Cardinals, their playoff seeding assured, sat starters at halftime.

The top AFC teams are not as good as the top NFC teams this year, but they present much more interesting imbalance. The most shocking move in the DVOA ratings this week has Baltimore moving up two spots to No. 6, passing both Jacksonville and New England. Although their win over Houston was close, the Ravens improve their DVOA in all three phases of the game this week, and they were already No. 1 in both defense and special teams last week.

(I've written plenty about the Patriots and why our system seems to underrate them, most recently last week, so we'll go without that whole explanation today. The Patriots do climb to 29th in defense this week, but the Saints pass them to take over the No. 1 spot on offense.)

Baltimore and Jacksonville are No. 1 and No. 2 in defensive DVOA, and both teams are powered by historically great pass defense. Vincent Verhei wrote a couple weeks ago in Quick Reads about the wide spread between this year's best and worst pass defenses, and the strong effect that's having on opponent adjustments for quarterbacks. Unfortunately, I don't have an easily accessible "DVOA as of Week X" document that lists pass and run splits, the way I have a document with total offense and defense that I often quote. But with only five games remaining, it's safer now to compare these teams to the best pass defenses ever measured by DVOA. Right now, Jacksonville would finish the year with the second-best pass defense since 2000, trailing only the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Jaguars have improved on run defense since trading for Marcell Dareus, so they are now 24th against the run, but that's enough to drop them behind Baltimore in overall defense because the Ravens are tenth against the run.

The Ravens would also rank among the dozen best pass defenses in DVOA history if the season ended today. Yes, there is an asterisk on that, because the Ravens have been lucky enough to face backup quarterbacks in a number of games. They've faced both Tom Savage and Brett Hundley, giving them a boost when the opponent adjustments for those teams are partially based on games with Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson. The Ravens also faced EJ Manuel instead of Derek Carr when they played Oakland. This is going to be an issue with a number of teams this year. It's reasonable to think that the effect of backup quarterbacks on the opponent adjustments might be entirely responsible for putting the Ravens ahead of the Patriots in DVOA right now; you might remember that Watson played one of his best games of the season against the Patriots in Week 3. It's not going to be an issue with comparing Baltimore to Pittsburgh, at least by the end of the season. Pittsburgh also faced Green Bay with Hundley, and they will face Houston with Savage in Week 16. On the other hand, both Cincinnati and Seattle had to play both Green Bay with Rodgers and Houston with Watson... but Seattle gets the benefit of facing Arizona twice without Carson Palmer. You can see where this starts to get complicated, as I explained a week ago.

BEST PASS DEFENSE DVOA, 1986-2017 x WORST PASS DEFENSE DVOA, 1986-2017 Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA 2002 TB -51.9% x 2015 NO 48.1% 1991 PHI -48.6% x 1996 BAL 42.0% 1986 CHI -40.8% x 2017 (11 G) OAK 41.9% 1988 MIN -38.8% x 1999 SF 41.7% 2017 (11 G) JAC -36.6% x 1996 ATL 38.0% 2009 NYJ -36.5% x 2017 (11 G) MIA 37.2% 2004 BUF -34.7% x 2009 DET 36.5% 2013 SEA -34.2% x 1989 DAL 36.4% 1991 NO -33.1% x 2016 DET 36.2% 2008 PIT -32.8% x 2009 JAC 35.8% 1999 TB -32.2% x 1991 LARM 35.4% 2017 (11 G) BAL -31.2% x 2000 MIN 35.2%

On the other side of the ledger, we've got some of the worst pass defenses of all-time playing right now as well. Oakland and Miami would both rank among the six worst DVOA pass defenses if the season ended now. These bad ratings are driven more by a lack of interceptions than by historically poor yardage allowed. In fact, neither Oakland (7.1) nor Miami (6.9) is last in the league in net yards per pass allowed. Tampa Bay is last at 7.6 net yards per pass, and their 33.6% pass defense DVOA would also rank among the 20 worst all-time. But the interception thing is kind of amazing. Oakland got its first interception of the year this week against Paxton Lynch. The Dolphins have only four interceptions, even after picking off Tom Brady once. (The Falcons also have four, but an above-average 6.2 net yards per pass allowed.) The all-time record for fewest picks in a 16-game season is four by the winless 2008 Lions. The 2005 Raiders had five. A few teams in recent years have had just six, including the 2015 Ravens and three teams in 2014 (Jets, Chiefs, and Jaguars).

The other issue for the Raiders is that they've put up this horrific pass defense despite playing one of the league's easiest schedules of opposing offenses, featuring the Broncos, Ravens, and the lousy non-Patriots offenses of the AFC East. At least the Dolphins have played a tough schedule: powerful NFC South offenses, and while they're in the AFC East, they haven't played the Bills yet and of course they can't play themselves.

While we're on the subject of the Miami Dolphins, there's one other area where the 2017 NFL season is seeing some mind-blowing, historic failure: ground games. For a while this year, four different offenses found themselves in danger of finishing among the ten worst running games in DVOA history. The Lions and Chargers have improved a bit in recent weeks, but the Dolphins and Cardinals are still down there. If the season ended today, they would rank as two of the three worst run offenses we've ever measured.

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WORST RUN OFFENSE DVOA, 1986-2017 Year Team DVOA 2017 (11 G) ARI -34.1% 1991 IND -30.2% 2017 (11 G) MIA -31.2% 2005 ARI -29.1% 2002 HOU -27.4% 2013 BAL -27.2% 2013 JAC -27.1% 2016 LARM -26.6% 1986 NE -26.5% 1995 ARI -25.1% 2015 WAS -23.5% 2016 MIN -23.3%

Arizona's problem is a league-worst 3.05 yards per carry, including weird plays such as kneeldowns and aborted snaps. (If we count only actual runs, Arizona is at a league-worst 3.24 yards per carry.) An average of 3.05 yards per carry would be one of the ten worst figures since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, and the worst average since the 2000 Chargers averaged 3.03 yards per carry. The lowest average for any team in the 21st century -- remember, 2000 is technically still the 20th century -- belonged to the 2013 Ravens at 3.14 yards per carry.

Miami is averaging 3.6 yards per carry, which is a bit better, but the Dolphins have been horrible at situational running. Their 42 percent success rate running on third and fourth downs ranks 24th in the league, but weirder is the fact that they have only ONE rushing touchdown this season. And weirder than that, it wasn't a short run in the red zone. It was a 66-yard run by Kenyan Drake against Carolina in Week 10, scored when losing 31-13. No team since 1970 has finished a season with only one rushing touchdown. Three teams managed only two: 1972 Eagles, 1995 Jets, and 2005 Cardinals.

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Once again this season, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 18. This year, our content for Madden Ultimate Team on consoles comes monthly, while our content for Madden Mobile comes weekly. Come back to each Tuesday's DVOA commentary article for a list of players who stood out during the previous weekend's games. Those players will get special Madden Mobile items branded as "Powerline, powered by Football Outsiders," beginning at 11am Eastern on Friday. Our stars for Week 12 are:

LB Frank Zombo, KC (HERO): 3 run TFL, two of which were on third downs, plus another tackle on a 2-yard gain to prevent third-down conversion.

3 run TFL, two of which were on third downs, plus another tackle on a 2-yard gain to prevent third-down conversion. DE Eric Lee, NE: 2 run tackles to prevent third-down conversions, sack, plus created a sack for Trey Flowers by bull-rushing Miami RT Sam Young.

2 run tackles to prevent third-down conversions, sack, plus created a sack for Trey Flowers by bull-rushing Miami RT Sam Young. HB Joe Mixon, CIN: No. 2 in RB DYAR for Week 12; 23 carries, 114 yards, TD vs. NFL's No. 2 run defense, plus 51 receiving yards on 3 catches.

No. 2 in RB DYAR for Week 12; 23 carries, 114 yards, TD vs. NFL's No. 2 run defense, plus 51 receiving yards on 3 catches. LB Alex Ogletree, LARM: 7 combined tackles, 3 of which prevented third-down conversions, plus PD.

7 combined tackles, 3 of which prevented third-down conversions, plus PD. G Wes Schweitzer, ATL: Falcons had no sacks, RB had 7 carries, 42 yards, 86% success rate to the right.

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All stats pages should now be updated through Week 12, including snap counts, playoff odds, and the FO Premium DVOA database.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 12 weeks of 2017, 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.

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 WEI.

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 LARM 35.7% 4 38.2% 2 8-3 14.2% 7 -13.4% 5 8.1% 2 2 PHI 35.6% 1 39.4% 1 10-1 15.8% 3 -16.7% 3 3.1% 10 3 NO 32.3% 2 33.9% 3 8-3 27.5% 1 -6.4% 10 -1.7% 21 4 PIT 29.3% 3 29.0% 4 9-2 15.0% 5 -13.7% 4 0.6% 14 5 MIN 23.8% 5 24.7% 5 9-2 15.6% 4 -8.9% 6 -0.7% 18 6 BAL 19.0% 8 21.1% 6 6-5 -14.7% 26 -24.4% 1 9.3% 1 7 NE 17.4% 6 19.5% 7 9-2 26.0% 2 13.9% 29 5.2% 7 8 JAC 12.5% 7 11.9% 8 7-4 -4.0% 20 -21.6% 2 -5.1% 26 9 CAR 11.3% 9 11.5% 9 8-3 -2.6% 18 -7.8% 7 6.1% 4 10 KC 9.3% 10 3.6% 16 6-5 12.2% 8 8.6% 24 5.7% 6 11 SEA 8.7% 12 10.0% 10 7-4 1.0% 16 -7.7% 8 0.1% 16 12 DET 8.3% 11 6.0% 11 6-5 1.9% 14 0.5% 19 6.9% 3 13 WAS 7.7% 13 5.2% 13 5-6 5.7% 12 -4.2% 13 -2.2% 23 14 GB 4.9% 14 4.6% 14 5-6 5.3% 13 -0.1% 17 -0.5% 17 15 ATL 3.4% 17 3.6% 15 7-4 14.2% 6 9.9% 26 -0.9% 19 16 LACH 3.3% 16 6.0% 12 5-6 8.3% 10 -4.6% 12 -9.7% 32 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 DAL -0.3% 15 -0.2% 17 5-6 7.5% 11 13.6% 28 5.8% 5 18 HOU -2.6% 18 -5.6% 18 4-7 -2.6% 19 -2.1% 15 -2.1% 22 19 OAK -6.7% 21 -6.0% 19 5-6 11.7% 9 19.8% 32 1.4% 13 20 CIN -7.6% 20 -8.3% 20 5-6 -6.9% 21 -0.2% 16 -0.9% 20 21 BUF -8.8% 23 -12.2% 23 6-5 -13.3% 24 0.4% 18 4.9% 8 22 TEN -9.9% 19 -11.7% 22 7-4 -2.0% 17 9.4% 25 1.4% 12 23 ARI -12.7% 26 -10.1% 21 5-6 -13.8% 25 -6.9% 9 -5.8% 27 24 TB -16.4% 25 -18.3% 26 4-7 1.7% 15 14.7% 30 -3.4% 25 25 NYJ -16.4% 27 -15.4% 24 4-7 -9.7% 23 4.5% 21 -2.2% 24 26 CHI -19.1% 22 -17.4% 25 3-8 -15.6% 27 -2.4% 14 -5.9% 28 27 DEN -19.2% 24 -22.4% 27 3-8 -16.8% 29 -5.9% 11 -8.3% 31 28 NYG -23.0% 28 -22.7% 28 2-9 -7.2% 22 8.4% 22 -7.5% 30 29 SF -25.7% 29 -25.7% 30 1-10 -16.0% 28 12.6% 27 3.0% 11 30 IND -28.1% 31 -25.1% 29 3-8 -23.5% 32 8.6% 23 4.0% 9 31 CLE -29.9% 30 -27.1% 31 0-11 -23.0% 31 0.9% 20 -6.0% 29 32 MIA -35.5% 32 -36.2% 32 4-7 -20.9% 30 15.2% 31 0.5% 15

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).