by Aaron Schatz

Is it time to take the Kansas City Chiefs seriously? It sounds crazy, since they just barely beat the only winless team in the league, but the Chiefs actually move up after that win and stand first in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. When we predicted before the season that Kansas City would win the AFC West, that prediction was based on the idea of an average team with an easy schedule taking advantage of the declining Chargers. That prediction seemed pretty spot on after a couple weeks, but as more time goes on, it seems pretty clear that the Chiefs are not an average team.

Right now, shocking as it is to say, the Kansas City Chiefs may be the most balanced team in the league. The Chiefs rank sixth on offense, fifth on defense, and 12th on special teams. With all the success they are having on the ground, you probably expect their offensive DVOA to be tipped in favor of the run. That's not the case. The Chiefs rank fourth in rushing DVOA, but only one spot lower -- fifth -- in passing DVOA. Yes, they rank fifth with Matt Cassel at quarterback and with Chris Chambers and his horrid 41 percent catch rate in the starting lineup (well, until they got wise and pulled him out after Week 5). Actually, because of Chambers' struggles, Dwayne Bowe is the only Chiefs wide receiver with enough targets to be listed in our main wide receiver stats. The Chiefs are 31st in the NFL with 187 net pass attempts, but when they do pass, they've been effective.

Actually the unit behind the success of the offense is probably the offensive line. Cassel has taken only eight sacks and the Chiefs are fifth in Adjusted Sack Rate after ranking 25th a year ago. They are third in Adjusted Line Yards and lead the league with runners only getting stuffed at the line on 11 percent of carries.

The defense is as balanced as the offense; the Chiefs rank ninth against the pass and seventh against the run. A year ago, the Chiefs ranked dead last on defense in Adjusted Line Yards and Adjusted Sack Rate. This year, they are 13th in ALY and 21st in ASR. Cornerback Brandon "I've never visited Tulsa with Rufus Wainwright so don't look at me like that" Flowers has taken what Bill Simmons always calls "the leap," a big reason why the Chiefs rank fourth in DVOA against number-one receivers. Some people think outside linebacker Tamba Hali has also taken "the leap," but those people are wrong. As Bill Barnwell pointed out in FOA 2010, Hali actually took the leap last year, and this year is just a continuation of that fine performance.

Early on, we wrote off the Chiefs' win over San Diego as a bit of a fluke. Then they beat the Browns and 49ers, so wasn't their 3-0 start just the easy schedule? Turns out that schedule isn't quite as easy as we thought it would be. Kansas City's schedule ranks 23rd through eight weeks. That's still below average, but not the easiest in the league. Their two losses, to Indianapolis and Houston, were fairly close. The Houston game is the only one this season where the Chiefs have a below-average DVOA. As for those first three weeks, the Chiefs truly outplayed the Chargers, with 51.3% DVOA in Week 1 compared to -19.5% DVOA for San Diego. And Cleveland isn't a joke; the Browns actually moved up to 16th in this week's ratings and are playing reasonably well against one of the league's hardest schedules.

How did the Chiefs go up when they barely beat Buffalo? Actually, the Chiefs end up with a 28.1% DVOA for this week's game. The Chiefs demonstrated they could move the ball significantly better than the Bills, a fact that was obscured when Todd Haley made fourth-down decisions that either didn't work out (Cassel getting sacked on fourth-and-2 from the Buffalo 19) or were certifiably insane (punting on fourth-and-8 from the Buffalo 33 instead of either going for it or trying a long field goal). In addition, the Bills fumbled three times but recovered all three themselves.

Now, I don't think that the Chiefs are truly the best team in the league, even if they have the best numbers so far. However, the Chiefs need to be taken seriously as a Super Bowl contender. The Chiefs are certainly much more real than the Raiders, the team they visit this week in a game that we are contractually required to refer to as "unexpectedly important." Kansas City isn't a shoo-in, especially since the game is in Oakland, but the Raiders are one of many teams who, unlike Kansas City, do seem to be the product of massive league-wide schedule imbalance. Seven different teams have a .500 record or better despite a DVOA below average. St. Louis, Seattle, and Tampa Bay have had the three easiest schedules in the league.

By the way, Kansas City's next five games include Oakland, Seattle, Arizona, and Denver twice. Average DVOA of those opponents: -21.6%. Maybe the schedule hasn't been as easy as you think so far, but that's okay, it's about to get easier.

Below Kansas City, this week saw a lot of movement in the DVOA rankings, although that's not necessarily because of heavy movement in the ratings themselves. Teams are so close that small changes in opponent adjustments will move teams up and down the table, and this week actually saw some surprisingly large changes in opponent adjustments. Perhaps the most interesting change is in the NFC East, with the Giants and Eagles. Even though both teams were on bye, the Giants dropped from first to sixth and the Eagles rose from sixth to second. How do two division rivals end up with opponent adjustments going strongly in opposite directions? Although the Giants and Eagles will end up playing 12 games against common opponents this year, they've actually played only two games against common opponents so far. Now look at what happened to those five opponents this week:

Previous Giants Opponents in Week 8 Previous Eagles Opponents in Week 8 CAR Lost to #28 St. Louis ATL Bye CHI Bye GB Beat #9 Jets DAL Crushed by #25 Jacksonville JAC Dominated #27 Dallas HOU Cancelled out by IND SF Beat #29 Broncos IND Cancelled out by HOU WAS Narrow loss to #19 Detroit

So Giants opponents had two bad losses, thus making the Giants' schedule look worse. Eagles opponents had two strong wins, one okay win, and one narrow loss, thus making the Eagles' schedule look better. And thus, the two teams basically switch places in the DVOA rankings. Of course, don't overlook the forest for the trees here. In reality, the top six teams in DVOA are really in one single tier, all basically equal in performance this season. In addition, DVOA can't change wins and losses on the scoreboard, and the Giants still have the advantage there. Combine that with the fact that it should be much easier to get out of the NFC playoffs than the AFC playoffs, and Big Blue is still the leading Super Bowl contender in our playoff odds at 16.0 percent.

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This week we say goodbye to DAVE, our formula which combines preseason projection with in-season performance. The tables now list WEIGHTED DVOA instead, our formula which drops the importance of earlier games, although right now the difference between regular DVOA and weighted DVOA is minimal.

Before we get to the ratings, I want to clear up some misconceptions about DVOA that seem to have come up recently in the comment threads. On our "FO Basics" page, we note that "The total quality of an NFL team is three parts offense, three parts defense, and one part special teams." Some people are wondering: If that is true, why is total DVOA figured by using the full values of offense, defense, and special teams. Shouldn't total DVOA actually be 3/7 times offense, 3/7 times defense, and 1/7 times special teams? The answer is no. Special teams DVOA is figured differently than offense and defense, because teams on standard plays have two goals (get closer to a first down and get closer to the goal line) while on special teams you have only one goal (either get closer to the goal line or, for placekicking, put the ball through the uprights). Special teams DVOA takes a point value based on estimated field position gains and then translates it into DVOA, and the coefficient that translates it to DVOA is based on maximizing the correlation of total DVOA and winning.

Once we do that, however, we discover that in general offenses and defenses will range from about -30% to +30%, while special teams will range from about -10% to +10%. From this comes the idea that special teams are only one-third as important as offense or defense. Having the best offense or defense in the league will usually help a team about three times as much as having the best special teams.

I hope that helps clear things up.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through eight weeks of 2010, 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.

Opponent adjustments are currently at 80 percent strength and will steadily grow stronger until Week 10. 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 KC 29.4% 4 29.2% 1 5-2 17.9% 6 -8.7% 5 2.9% 12 2 PHI 27.3% 6 27.5% 2 4-3 25.3% 3 -4.7% 9 -2.7% 26 3 NE 26.8% 3 26.7% 4 6-1 32.7% 1 11.4% 27 5.5% 5 4 TEN 26.8% 5 27.0% 3 5-3 5.9% 12 -16.4% 3 4.5% 7 5 PIT 25.8% 2 25.9% 5 5-2 3.7% 16 -19.9% 2 2.3% 13 6 NYG 25.3% 1 25.6% 6 5-2 11.8% 9 -20.6% 1 -7.1% 31 7 SD 17.0% 8 17.0% 7 3-5 20.9% 5 -12.4% 4 -16.3% 32 8 IND 15.5% 10 15.5% 8 5-2 22.9% 4 3.1% 19 -4.4% 28 9 NYJ 14.9% 7 14.4% 9 5-2 5.2% 13 -4.0% 10 5.7% 4 10 GB 14.1% 11 13.8% 10 5-3 12.7% 8 -7.0% 6 -5.6% 30 11 MIA 12.8% 13 13.5% 11 4-3 10.7% 10 -2.3% 13 -0.1% 17 12 ATL 12.1% 9 11.9% 12 5-2 15.1% 7 3.4% 21 0.5% 15 13 BAL 8.3% 12 8.2% 13 5-2 7.3% 11 2.5% 17 3.5% 10 14 NO 6.3% 14 6.4% 14 5-3 5.1% 14 -3.1% 12 -2.0% 24 15 HOU 2.6% 15 2.6% 15 4-3 27.4% 2 22.8% 30 -1.9% 23 16 CLE -3.6% 20 -3.5% 17 2-5 -3.8% 21 3.3% 20 3.5% 9 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 SF -4.1% 22 -3.4% 16 2-6 -7.5% 27 -3.7% 11 -0.3% 18 18 MIN -4.6% 18 -4.3% 19 2-5 -7.3% 26 0.7% 15 3.4% 11 19 DET -4.7% 21 -4.3% 18 2-5 -5.7% 24 3.9% 23 4.9% 6 20 CIN -7.1% 19 -7.3% 20 2-5 2.0% 17 7.3% 25 -1.8% 22 21 WAS -8.9% 23 -8.9% 21 4-4 -4.9% 23 3.6% 22 -0.4% 19 22 OAK -10.0% 26 -9.1% 22 4-4 -7.2% 25 1.2% 16 -1.6% 21 23 TB -11.0% 25 -11.2% 23 5-2 -0.4% 19 8.6% 26 -2.0% 25 24 SEA -11.8% 16 -12.4% 24 4-3 -18.1% 29 2.7% 18 9.0% 1 25 JAC -12.8% 28 -12.7% 25 4-4 -1.2% 20 18.9% 29 7.3% 3 26 CHI -14.8% 24 -14.5% 26 4-3 -29.5% 30 -6.9% 7 7.8% 2 27 DAL -15.2% 17 -15.8% 27 1-6 0.8% 18 16.3% 28 0.4% 16 28 STL -16.9% 27 -16.9% 28 4-4 -13.9% 28 -0.5% 14 -3.5% 27 29 DEN -24.0% 29 -24.2% 29 2-6 4.3% 15 23.6% 31 -4.7% 29 30 BUF -28.5% 30 -28.3% 30 0-7 -4.5% 22 28.0% 32 4.1% 8 31 CAR -37.2% 31 -37.2% 31 1-6 -42.4% 32 -6.0% 8 -0.8% 20 32 ARI -38.0% 32 -37.9% 32 3-4 -34.2% 31 5.3% 24 1.6% 14

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).