by Aaron Schatz

The Seattle Seahawks finished up the regular season with one more strong win over division rival St. Louis, cementing their spot on top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. You may remember that the Seahawks, despite failing to win their division, ended up 2012 as the No. 1 team in DVOA as well. That makes Seattle the first team since the 1996-1997 Green Bay Packers to finish first in DVOA two years in a row. Even more remarkably, Seattle and Denver finished 1-2 in DVOA for the second straight season. This is the first time since 1999 (St. Louis and Jacksonville) that the top two teams in DVOA are also the No. 1 seeds in each conference, and it is the first time in the history of DVOA (going back to 1989) that the same two teams have finished the season 1-2 in two straight years.

Continuing the theme of year-to-year consistency, last year's teams that finished third and fourth, New England and San Francisco, ended 2013 finishing fifth and sixth. In between them were the climbing teams of the NFC South, Carolina and New Orleans, who benefit in the DVOA ratings from tough schedules. The four NFC South teams end the year ranked first, second, fourth, and sixth in schedule strength.

The team nobody wants to play in the postseason is probably Philadelphia, which ranks eighth in total DVOA but ends the year third in weighted DVOA trailing only the Seahawks and Broncos. The Colts, on the other hand, end up 13th in total DVOA but 21st in weighted DVOA.

This week's win over St. Louis put the Seahawks back over the 40% mark, making them only the sixth team to finish the season with total DVOA over 40%. (Let's assume for the moment that retroactive stat corrections won't drop Seattle below that mark.) The Seahawks also go into the playoffs with 43.7% weighted DVOA, the fourth highest figure since 1989. The 2010 Patriots and 1991 Redskins are the only teams to ever enter the postseason with a weighted DVOA over 50%. The third team that entered the playoffs with a higher weighted DVOA than this year's Seahawks was... last year's Seahawks, at 47.1%. So such a high weighted DVOA is certainly not a guarantee that the Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl, especially given the way that lower-rated teams have gotten hot and gone on surprising Super Bowl runs in recent years.

(Of course, it could be that there is nothing special about this recent history, just a case of being fooled by randomness; I wrote about this last year after Baltimore won the Super Bowl.)

Seattle is the first team since 2000 to lead the league in defensive DVOA and win a No. 1 playoff seed. (Thanks for reader Kenneth Arthur for pointing this out on Twitter.) The other teams that did so: 1994 Pittsburgh, 1996 Green Bay, 1997 San Francisco, and 2000 Tennessee. On Twitter, I also listed the 2002 Buccanneers, but that team actually lost the tiebreaker to Philadelphia and was a No. 2 seed. It is much more common for the team that leads the league in offensive DVOA to win a No. 1 playoff seed. Teams that have done this in just the last few years include the 2011 Packers, the 2010 Patriots, the 2007 Patriots, and the 2005 Seahawks.

The Seahawks defense surged a bit in the final three games of the season, and the Broncos offense did the same in its final two games, so both units end up among the DVOA all-time top ten.

BEST TOTAL DVOA, 1989-2013 x BEST OFFENSIVE DVOA, 1989-2013 x BEST DEFENSIVE DVOA, 1989-2013 Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA 1991 WAS 56.9% x 2007 NE 43.5% x 1991 PHI -42.4% 2007 NE 52.9% x 2010 NE 42.2% x 2002 TB -31.8% 2010 NE 44.6% x 2002 KC 35.4% x 2008 PIT -29.0% 1996 GB 42.0% x 1998 DEN 34.5% x 2004 BUF -28.5% 2013 SEA 40.1% x 2011 GB 33.8% x 2008 BAL -27.8% 1995 SF 40.0% x 2013 DEN 33.7% x 2012 CHI -26.7% 2012 SEA 38.7% x 2003 KC 33.4% x 2013 SEA -25.8% 2004 PIT 37.6% x 1992 SF 33.1% x 2009 NYJ -25.5% 2012 DEN 36.5% x 2011 NO 33.0% x 2000 TEN -25.0% 1989 SF 36.0% x 2011 NE 31.9% x 2003 BAL -25.0% 2010 PIT 35.4% x 2004 IND 31.8% x 1991 NO -24.5% 1992 DAL 35.1% x 2004 KC 31.6% x 2000 BAL -23.8%

Most top offenses and defenses are based on passing and stopping the pass, so Denver and Seattle's rankings among the all-time best pass offenses and pass defenses, respectively, are about the same as their rankings in best total offense and total defense.

One last remarkable Seattle fact: The Seahawks are the first team since the 2004-2005 Pittsburgh Steelers to rank in the top ten for all three units in consecutive seasons. Only two other teams have accomplished this feat: the 1990-1991 Kansas City Chiefs and the 1996-1997 Green Bay Packers.

Now let's turn things around and look at the worst DVOA ratings ever. As I've noted in recent weeks, Jacksonville's late-season improvement kept the Jaguars from ranking among the all-time worst teams by total DVOA or offensive DVOA. San Diego, this year's worst defense, doesn't end up in the all-time worst ten either, although there's a little bit of an asterisk because the DVOA opponent adjustments don't know the Chargers were playing the Kansas City backups yesterday.

As for the Washington special teams, they ended the season with a couple of mediocre special teams games, and thus ended up nowhere close to breaking the 2000 Buffalo Bills' record for the worst special teams DVOA ever. Given the gap between the Bills and every other special teams since 1989, their record seems nigh-insurmountable. Still, Washington did end up as the second worst special teams unit we've ever tracked. This is going to be a really easy way for the new head coach, whoever it is, to quickly improve Washington's overall performance next season.

WORST SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA, 1989-2013 Year Team DVOA 2000 BUF -15.4% 2013 WAS -12.0% 1997 SEA -11.1% 2010 SD -10.2% 2002 CIN -9.4% 1998 OAK -9.3% 1997 CHI -9.2% 1992 TB -9.2% 2004 STL -9.0% 1993 MIN -8.4% 1989 CIN -7.9% 1995 PHI -7.9%

The other place where we saw historic impotence in 2013 was in the ground game. Although they can't quite reach the depths of the 1991 Indianapolis Colts, the Jaguars and Ravens both rank among the five worst running games since 1989 according to DVOA. The Ravens gained just 3.1 yards per carry, while the Jaguars matched the 1991 Colts at 3.3 yards per carry, but the Jaguars and Ravens come out a little bit higher because they were better situationally and played slightly harder schedules. By the way, the Jaguars and Ravens are really, really tied here, separated in run offense by 0.065% DVOA.

WORST RUN OFFENSE DVOA, 1989-2013 Year Team DVOA 1991 IND -30.2% 2005 ARI -29.1% 2002 HOU -27.4% 2013 JAC -27.2% 2013 BAL -27.2% 1995 ARI -25.1% 1991 PHI -23.0% 1998 NO -22.9% 2006 DET -22.9% 2000 ATL -22.8% 2000 SD -22.5% 2000 CAR -22.2%

The Ravens also finish with 3.01 Adjusted Line Yards per carry, the second-lowest figure since our line stats begin in 1995. Only the 2012 Cardinals were lower (2.93 ALY). The Jaguars, at 3.13 ALY, are fourth worst all-time.

There's one team that's suspiciously missing from an accounting of the worst DVOA ratings in history, and that's the Chicago Bears. The Bears allowed 5.35 yards per carry this season, the worst figure since the AFL-NFL merger. In reality, things were actually worse; if you take out kneeldowns and aborted snaps, the Bears allowed 5.51 yards per carry. So assuredly they must be one of the worst run defenses in history according to DVOA, right? Actually, the Bears are nowhere close. Although Chicago scores as the worst run defense of 2013, they wouldn't even rank in the bottom 40 of all-time in run defense DVOA. Here are some of the reasons why:

Long Runs: Although the Chicago defensive line was a problem against the run, the linebackers and secondary were an even bigger problem. Chicago finished dead last in both Second-Level Yards allowed per carry and Open-Field Yards allowed per carry, but ranked a reasonable 14th when it came to stuffing opposing running backs at the line for a loss or no gain.

Goal Line: Chicago improved to 17th in run defense DVOA within five yards of the end zone.

Fumbles: Chicago forced ten fumbles on running plays. Only Philadelphia (11) forced more.

Context: The league averaged 4.16 yards per carry in 2013. Although that's down from the past five seasons, it's still higher than most of NFL history, when the leaguewide rushing average generally hovered around 4.00 yards per carry.

Schedule: The Bears played an average schedule of opposing runners, not a hard one, but many of the teams with the worst run offense DVOA ratings in history played easy schedules and have strong opponent adjustments.

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The Football Outsiders playoff odds report is updated with Super Bowl odds for all 12 playoff teams. Two notes about the odds for the 2013 postseason:

When we ran the simulation, we accounted for the return of Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay's DVOA rating. Instead of using weighted offensive DVOA, we used offensive DVOA only for the games where Aaron Rodgers played the majority of snaps. (We're not sure if it fully accounts for the aftereffects of Rodgers' injury, but that includes Week 17, when the Packers only had -6.6% offensive DVOA.) Adding 24.2% offensive DVOA to Green Bay's weighted defense and special teams moves the overall rating we used in the simulation from -13.6% to 10.0%. Rodgers is really important, although that still makes Green Bay the lowest-rated team of the six NFC contenders. The odds don't account for other injuries, such as Von Miller or Rob Gronkowski; quarterback is the easiest position to quantify, and Rodgers is clearly one of the two or three most valuable players in the game.

Up until last week, the playoff odds gave home teams an additional 15 percent chance of winning in the Divisional Round because of the historical importance of the bye week. As you may know, home teams have not been as successful since we first created the equations for the playoff odds simulation. For now, we've lowered this "bye week bonus" to 10 percent, and in the offseason we'll research whether it should be lower or perhaps disappear entirely.

I'll save the discussion of which players had the best and worst seasons -- including where Peyton Manning's record-setting season sits among all quarterback seasons in both DVOA and DYAR -- for Vince Verhei in tomorrow's Quick Reads Year in Review.

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During the 2013 season, we'll be partnering with EA Sports to bring special Football Outsiders-branded items to Madden 25 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 standard stats. Others will be under-the-radar players who only stood out with advanced stats, including DYAR, Defeats, and our game charting coverage stats for cornerbacks. 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 Friday night.

The Football Outsiders stars for Week 17 are:

Sheldon Richardson, FB, NYJ (Limited Edition): That's right, a special fullback edition of Sheldon Richardson! He's the new Fridge!

That's right, a special fullback edition of Sheldon Richardson! He's the new Fridge! Montee Ball, RB, DEN: Third among Week 17 RB with 47 DYAR (10 carries, 72 yards; three receptions, 22 receiving yards)

Third among Week 17 RB with 47 DYAR (10 carries, 72 yards; three receptions, 22 receiving yards) Adrian Clayborn, DE, TB: Sack, QB hit, and 4 run TFL

Sack, QB hit, and 4 run TFL Jerrel Jernigan, WR, NYG: Top Week 17 WR with 82 DYAR (6-of-7 receptions, 90 yards and a touchdown; two carries for 57 yards and a touchdown)

Top Week 17 WR with 82 DYAR (6-of-7 receptions, 90 yards and a touchdown; two carries for 57 yards and a touchdown) Sealver Siliga, DT, NE: 9 tackles or assists, all Stops

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All 2013 individual and team stat pages are now updated or will be updated in the next few minutes, including the FO Premium database. The exception are drive stats and snap counts, which should be updated by tomorrow.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through the entire 2013 regular season, 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.)

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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. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE. LAST WEEK represents rank after Week 16, while LAST YEAR represents rank in 2012.

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 LAST

YEAR W-L WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 SEA 40.1% 1 1 13-3 43.7% 1 9.4% 7 -25.8% 1 4.8% 5 2 DEN 32.8% 2 2 13-3 27.3% 2 33.7% 1 -0.2% 15 -1.1% 21 3 CAR 24.9% 3 13 12-4 24.9% 4 8.1% 10 -15.7% 3 1.0% 13 4 NO 19.3% 7 19 11-5 19.8% 7 15.9% 5 -5.9% 10 -2.5% 24 5 NE 19.0% 4 3 12-4 24.6% 5 16.4% 4 4.1% 21 6.7% 2 6 SF 17.4% 5 4 12-4 21.4% 6 9.1% 8 -4.6% 13 3.7% 7 7 KC 17.4% 6 32 11-5 17.4% 9 2.8% 15 -6.7% 9 7.8% 1 8 PHI 15.1% 8 28 10-6 25.5% 3 22.9% 2 5.0% 23 -2.8% 25 9 CIN 14.5% 9 12 11-5 18.0% 8 0.5% 17 -12.7% 5 1.3% 12 10 ARI 9.8% 10 26 10-6 14.7% 11 -2.6% 20 -16.4% 2 -4.0% 27 11 CHI 7.2% 12 6 8-8 0.5% 14 13.8% 6 8.6% 25 2.1% 11 12 SD 5.8% 13 22 9-7 13.8% 12 22.5% 3 17.5% 32 0.8% 15 13 IND 3.4% 11 25 11-5 -6.0% 21 4.2% 13 0.8% 16 -0.1% 17 14 STL 1.9% 14 15 7-9 14.8% 10 -9.6% 22 -5.2% 12 6.3% 4 15 PIT 0.9% 15 18 8-8 6.7% 13 4.4% 12 4.0% 20 0.6% 16 16 DET -1.8% 16 16 7-9 -2.0% 15 -1.9% 19 -0.5% 14 -0.5% 20 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK LAST

YEAR W-L WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 DAL -2.8% 18 17 8-8 -12.4% 25 7.5% 11 13.8% 30 3.5% 8 18 BUF -3.2% 20 23 6-10 -4.2% 17 -11.4% 25 -13.9% 4 -5.6% 30 19 TB -4.9% 17 20 4-12 -5.7% 20 -10.5% 24 -7.0% 8 -1.5% 22 20 TEN -5.9% 22 30 7-9 -3.8% 16 1.3% 16 4.0% 19 -3.2% 26 21 GB -6.2% 21 5 8-7-1 -13.6% 26 8.6% 9 14.4% 31 -0.4% 19 22 BAL -6.3% 23 8 8-8 -4.2% 18 -21.3% 30 -8.7% 7 6.4% 3 23 MIA -6.4% 19 21 8-8 -4.7% 19 -1.8% 18 2.3% 17 -2.3% 23 24 NYJ -7.4% 24 27 8-8 -8.8% 23 -15.2% 27 -5.7% 11 2.1% 10 25 ATL -10.4% 25 10 4-12 -15.1% 27 3.2% 14 13.5% 29 -0.1% 18 26 MIN -11.2% 26 14 5-10-1 -9.5% 24 -4.7% 21 10.4% 27 3.9% 6 27 NYG -15.8% 27 7 7-9 -7.4% 22 -22.2% 31 -11.5% 6 -5.0% 28 28 CLE -21.6% 28 24 4-12 -25.1% 29 -14.4% 26 8.2% 24 1.0% 14 29 WAS -26.3% 29 9 3-13 -26.3% 30 -10.0% 23 4.3% 22 -12.0% 32 30 HOU -26.9% 30 11 2-14 -32.2% 31 -18.9% 29 2.9% 18 -5.1% 29 31 OAK -34.2% 31 29 4-12 -36.9% 32 -16.8% 28 10.3% 26 -7.1% 31 32 JAC -38.2% 32 31 4-12 -22.5% 28 -29.8% 32 11.0% 28 2.6% 9

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.

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. 2013 SCHEDULE lists average DVOA of opponents played this season, ranked from hardest schedule (#1, most positive) to easiest schedule (#32, most negative).

lists average DVOA of opponents played this season, ranked from hardest schedule (#1, most positive) to easiest schedule (#32, most negative). PYTHAGOREAN WINS represent a projection of the team's expected wins based solely on points scored and allowed.

represent a projection of the team's expected wins based solely on points scored and allowed. 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).