by Aaron Schatz

After a dominating victory over their division rivals in Seattle, the Los Angeles Rams have now opened up a wide lead in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. The Rams are up to 38.0% DVOA, which ranks them among the top dozen teams we've ever tracked through Week 15. (You'll find that table in this week's Any Given Sunday column.) The Rams actually dropped one spot in offensive DVOA, so they no longer qualify as ranking in the top five for all three phases of the game, but their defense and special teams ratings both improved and more than make up for that small drop.

The Rams rate even better in weighted DVOA than they do in full-season DVOA, since seven of their last nine games (going back to Week 6) had a single-game rating over 50%. Since Week 6, there have only been 24 other games where a team recorded a single-game DVOA of 50% or more, or less than one per team. The Rams have seven. The only other teams with more than two of these games during the same period? The Philadelphia Eagles have three, and the Baltimore Ravens -- who narrowly climbed ahead of Pittsburgh this week to rank as the top AFC team in DVOA -- have a surprising five similarly dominant games since Week 6.

As has been covered in numerous other places, the Rams are currently undergoing one of the greatest turnaround seasons in NFL history. Barring some sort of unexpected collapse in the final two weeks, the Rams will set a new record for the biggest year-to-year improvement in total DVOA. That record is currently held by the 2013 Kansas City Chiefs, who added Andy Reid and Alex Smith and went from -40.1% DVOA (dead last) and a 2-14 record to 17.5% DVOA (sixth) and a playoff spot. Not bad for a team that didn't even get much help from their No. 1 pick, since they got to lead off one of the worst first rounds in NFL draft history.

Biggest Year-to-Year Improvement in Total DVOA, 1986-2017 Year Team TOT

DVOA Rk W-L OFF

DVOA Rk DEF

DVOA Rk ST

DVOA Rk TOT

DVOA

Y-1 Rk W-L

Y-1 OFF

DVOA

Y-1 Rk DEF

DVOA

Y-1 Rk ST

DVOA

Y-1 Rk Imp. 2017 LARM 38.0% 1 10-4 14.3% 6 -14.4% 3 9.3% 2 -28.6% 30 4-12 -37.8% 32 -2.0% 15 7.1% 3 66.6% 2013 KC 17.5% 6 11-5 3.0% 15 -6.7% 9 7.8% 1 -40.1% 32 2-14 -25.1% 31 13.0% 30 -2.0% 22 57.6% 2010 DET -1.1% 18 6-10 -0.8% 19 2.9% 22 2.6% 11 -51.6% 32 2-14 -28.4% 31 17.9% 32 -5.3% 31 50.5% 2012 DEN 36.5% 2 13-3 22.1% 2 -13.8% 5 0.6% 13 -11.8% 24 8-8 -9.9% 23 1.6% 18 -0.2% 18 48.3% 1999 STL 34.0% 1 13-3 17.7% 4 -13.5% 3 2.8% 9 -9.9% 20 4-12 -13.4% 26 -4.3% 14 -0.8% 18 43.8% 2012 SEA 38.7% 1 11-5 18.5% 4 -14.5% 2 5.7% 3 -1.5% 19 7-9 -8.7% 22 -7.1% 10 0.2% 16 40.2% 1987 IND 9.5% 6 7-5 -4.1% 14 -8.5% 9 5.0% 4 -30.5% 27 3-13 -23.6% 28 7.3% 23 0.4% 12 39.9% 1999 OAK 21.2% 3 8-8 20.5% 2 -5.6% 11 -4.9% 27 -18.3% 27 8-8 -24.2% 29 -15.2% 3 -9.3% 30 39.5% 2000 NO -0.9% 19 10-6 -1.3% 19 -4.6% 13 -4.2% 23 -40.3% 31 3-13 -24.3% 31 8.8% 25 -7.1% 30 39.4% 2004 PIT 37.6% 1 15-1 16.3% 8 -18.9% 3 2.4% 10 -1.6% 19 6-10 -6.3% 19 -0.8% 15 3.8% 3 39.1% 2004 BUF 31.3% 3 9-7 -5.9% 21 -28.5% 1 8.7% 1 -7.3% 23 6-10 -16.1% 29 -11.0% 7 -2.2% 25 38.7% 2008 CAR 18.0% 6 12-4 12.9% 6 -2.4% 13 2.7% 10 -20.6% 26 7-9 -14.7% 26 0.0% 18 -5.8% 30 38.6%

The good news for the Rams is that a lot of the teams on this list went on to have several strong years of playoff contention: the recent Seahawks and Chiefs, the Peyton Manning Broncos, the Jon Gruden Raiders. The 1999 Rams won the Super Bowl, and the 2004 Steelers won the Super Bowl a year later. That Gruden team needs a little extra explanation, by the way. The 1999 Raiders went from 27th in DVOA to third in DVOA in Gruden's second year as head coach and managed to improve their record from 8-8 all the way to... 8-8. The 1998 Raiders were 5-1 in games decided by a field goal or less. The 1999 Raiders were 1-4 in games decided by a field goal or less, and didn't lose a game by more than a touchdown. The Raiders finally put luck and strong play together in 2000 and improved to 12-4.

The Rams are one of three teams this year that look ready to improve DVOA by over 30 percentage points from last year. The Saints were 21st at -1.9% last season, and are now over 30%, second behind the Rams. The Jaguars were 26th at -10.4% last season, and move up to seventh this week at 20.8%. In fact, the Jaguars move past the Patriots despite New England's victory over Pittsburgh, although the Patriots are still ahead in the weighted DVOA ratings. This is the first week where an early game completely falls out of the weighted DVOA formula, eliminating that big Week 1 Chiefs win over the Patriots.

On average, only 1.6 teams will improve by 30 percentage points in DVOA, so this has been a good year for turnarounds. But so was last year, which also had three teams that improved by 30 percentage points: Dallas, Atlanta, and at exactly 30.0% improvement, Tennessee.

Things are less extreme down at the bottom of the DVOA ratings. The Cleveland Browns now finish 0-16 in 51.4 percent of our simulations, but they are far from the worst team in DVOA history. They are essentially tied with the 3-11 Indianapolis Colts at the bottom of the ratings, and only two teams have been in last place after Week 15 with higher DVOA ratings than the 2017 Browns: Arizona in 1995 (-27.6%) and Minnesota in 2001 (-26.8%). This lack of an extremely bad team is also apparent in the offensive ratings. Despite all the gnashing of teeth about the bad quarterbacks around the NFL this season, only two teams have ranked in last place in offense after Week 15 with higher offensive DVOA than the 2017 Browns: San Francisco in 2015 (-18.0%) and Dallas in 1989 (-21.6%).

Defense shows the same trend, where no team is terrible. In fact, this is even stronger on defense than offense or overall DVOA. The Oakland Raiders are in last place in defensive DVOA, but they are the first last-place team ever after Week 15 to have a defensive DVOA better than 13.0%.

* * * * *

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 15 are:

DE Cameron Jordan, NO (HERO): 4 passes batted at the line plus 4 hurries.

4 passes batted at the line plus 4 hurries. DT DeForest Buckner, SF: Led 49ers with 9 combined tackles, plus PD and 0.5 sack.

Led 49ers with 9 combined tackles, plus PD and 0.5 sack. OT Rob Haverstein, LARM: Helped lead Rams RB to 31 carries for 197 yards, with no sacks allowed.

Helped lead Rams RB to 31 carries for 197 yards, with no sacks allowed. K Josh Lambo, JAC: 6-for-8 touchbacks. Other kickoffs forced returns that ended at the 18 and 20 yard lines for Houston. Also hit 38-yard FG, 6-for-6 XP.

6-for-8 touchbacks. Other kickoffs forced returns that ended at the 18 and 20 yard lines for Houston. Also hit 38-yard FG, 6-for-6 XP. P Andy Lee, ARI: 50.2 gross yards per punt, with punts downed at the 6 and 12 yard lines plus a 61-yard punt returned for only 9 yards.

* * * * *

All stats pages should now be updated through Week 15, including snap counts, playoff odds, and the FO Premium DVOA database.

An important note: For some reason, our data parser skipped over the fourth quarter of the Tennessee-San Francisco game, and I didn't realize it until this afternoon. Therefore, the DVOA numbers on the website (both team and individual) are not complete for those two teams. We'll get that all fixed over the course of the next few days, as we're also assimilating a series of league stat changes.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 15 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 38.0% 1 43.4% 1 10-4 14.3% 6 -14.4% 3 9.3% 2 2 NO 30.6% 2 32.7% 2 10-4 23.6% 2 -8.0% 9 -1.0% 19 3 PHI 27.3% 3 31.0% 3 12-2 15.9% 4 -9.7% 6 1.6% 13 4 BAL 24.2% 5 30.7% 4 8-6 -5.1% 20 -19.4% 2 9.8% 1 5 PIT 23.8% 4 20.0% 9 11-3 17.8% 3 -4.5% 12 1.4% 14 6 MIN 23.6% 6 23.6% 6 11-3 11.6% 7 -11.8% 4 0.1% 16 7 JAC 20.8% 8 21.0% 7 10-4 2.4% 16 -20.1% 1 -1.6% 21 8 NE 18.8% 7 25.1% 5 11-3 25.4% 1 12.4% 30 5.8% 4 9 CAR 17.0% 9 20.7% 8 10-4 3.6% 14 -9.6% 7 3.8% 7 10 KC 13.6% 10 2.5% 14 8-6 15.1% 5 7.3% 22 5.7% 5 11 DAL 7.2% 12 10.0% 11 8-6 8.0% 10 7.3% 23 6.5% 3 12 LACH 5.4% 13 12.1% 10 7-7 8.3% 9 -5.0% 11 -7.9% 31 13 DET 4.5% 15 -0.7% 16 8-6 3.2% 15 3.9% 17 5.2% 6 14 GB 2.6% 14 2.6% 13 7-7 5.1% 12 4.2% 19 1.7% 12 15 SEA 2.4% 11 4.6% 12 8-6 1.6% 17 -3.6% 13 -2.9% 23 16 ATL 0.5% 16 -0.6% 15 9-5 10.0% 8 8.1% 25 -1.4% 20 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 WAS -0.4% 17 -8.8% 19 6-8 -1.5% 18 -5.2% 10 -4.1% 27 18 OAK -5.5% 18 -5.0% 17 6-8 7.8% 11 12.9% 32 -0.3% 17 19 BUF -8.3% 23 -15.2% 24 8-6 -14.0% 26 -2.0% 15 3.7% 8 20 TEN -8.7% 19 -15.1% 23 8-6 -2.1% 19 7.3% 24 0.7% 15 21 TB -12.3% 25 -14.2% 22 4-10 3.7% 13 12.6% 31 -3.5% 24 22 ARI -13.5% 22 -6.8% 18 6-8 -19.1% 29 -11.5% 5 -5.9% 29 23 HOU -15.8% 21 -23.7% 31 4-10 -7.5% 22 4.3% 20 -3.9% 26 24 NYJ -16.4% 26 -11.7% 20 5-9 -8.5% 23 5.0% 21 -2.8% 22 25 CHI -16.9% 24 -14.0% 21 4-10 -15.9% 27 -2.8% 14 -3.8% 25 26 CIN -17.0% 20 -15.4% 25 5-9 -12.3% 25 4.2% 18 -0.5% 18 27 MIA -21.2% 28 -19.9% 27 6-8 -16.2% 28 8.4% 26 3.3% 9 28 SF -21.3% 27 -19.0% 26 4-10 -12.2% 24 11.2% 29 2.0% 11 29 DEN -21.6% 29 -29.1% 32 5-9 -20.8% 30 -8.2% 8 -8.9% 32 30 NYG -23.9% 30 -23.4% 29 2-12 -7.1% 21 9.7% 28 -7.1% 30 31 IND -28.4% 31 -22.0% 28 3-11 -21.6% 31 9.7% 27 2.8% 10 32 CLE -28.5% 32 -23.6% 30 0-14 -21.7% 32 2.2% 16 -4.6% 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).