by Aaron Schatz

It takes some getting used to seeing the Arizona Cardinals on the top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings, but there they are again this week after stomping San Francisco by a final score of 47-7. In the entire history of DVOA ratings, going all the way back to 1989, Arizona had never sat at No. 1 after a single week until last week. Now they have two weeks at No. 1, and they may be there for a while.

(Note: Sorry I didn't notice this last week, being No. 1 for the first time is a pretty big deal. The only teams that still have never been No. 1 in DVOA, not even for a single week, going back to 1989: Carolina, Detroit, Minnesota, and expansion Cleveland, though the original Browns were No. 1 a few times.)

Arizona is dominating in every way you can imagine, and certainly making our negative preseason forecast look pretty silly. The Cardinals rank third in offense, third in defense, and fifth in special teams. The Cardinals have put up a single-game rating over 60% in all three of their games so far. The Cardinals are one of only five teams to ever have a DVOA rating over 75% after three games. The others were the 1996 Packers, the 2007 Patriots, the 1991 Redskins, and the 2007 Steelers. That's three of the best teams in NFL history, and a team that faded down the stretch and then lost at home in the wild-card round. Fun ironies: the offensive coordinator of that Steelers team was Bruce Arians, and the opponent that handed the 2007 Steelers their first loss in Week 4 was... the Arizona Cardinals.

Of course, a lot of people have been asking if the Cardinals are truly "for real" given the quality of the teams they've played so far this year. On one hand, we know that big wins are a much better indicator of a great team than a string of close wins. On the other hand, opponent quality does matter. It's impressive to destroy a terrible team, but even more impressive to destroy an average team or, better yet, a quality rival. The three teams Arizona has beaten this year are a combined 1-5 in their other games. Those teams currently rank 29th, 31st, and 32nd in DVOA, and not just because of losing to the Cardinals.

Next week, we'll start slowly filtering in our opponent adjustments, which will gradually drop Arizona's rating unless their first three opponents turn out to be better than it seems right now. But there's a way to see the effect of Arizona's easy schedule before we put in the standard opponent adjustments after Week 4.

As you know, we have not only our DVOA ratings this early in the season but also our DAVE ratings, which combine our preseason projection with current DVOA to get a more accurate picture of how good we think teams truly are. Right now, the preseason projection makes up 60 percent of DAVE. What happens if we adjust the first three games of the season based not on the actual ratings for each team so far, but instead based on the DAVE ratings? That hopefully will give us the most accurate measurement of how well teams have played in the first three weeks, since we're considering their opponents based on both play so far and what we knew going into the season. (Since we don't do opponent adjustments in special teams, right now, the special teams ratings with this method will be the same as the regular special teams DVOA through three weeks.)

With these new "DAVE-adjusted" ratings, Arizona is still the No. 1 team in the league so far. However, the Cardinals have dropped from 76.4% to 59.1%. That's a rating that fits the best team in the league through three weeks, but doesn't rank them as one of the greatest teams in NFL history through three weeks. With this drop, the gap between the Cardinals and New England/Green Bay is much smaller. (Also, Green Bay is No. 2 in standard DVOA, but New England becomes No. 2 with this method because of how well Buffalo has played in its other two games.)

Arizona has the biggest gap between their actual "no schedule adjustments yet DVOA" and their "DAVE-adjusted DVOA," but not the only big gap. Tennessee falls through the floor because their first three opponents have also gone 1-5 in their other games. The Titans have played Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. They drop from 11th so far in actual DVOA to 20th in these "DAVE-adjusted" ratings. Carolina also falls: it's only a three-spot drop from No. 8 to No. 11, but a much bigger gap in the actual rating which drops from 20.3% to 6.3%.

Which teams improve the most if we adjust their early performance for DAVE ratings of their first three opponents? Well, Chicago essentially is the opposite of Arizona; as bad as the Bears have been, they've played Green Bay, Arizona, and Seattle. They go from the worst team in the NFL by far to the worst team in the NFL by a much smaller amount. Other teams that have played a particularly tough schedule so far according to DAVE ratings include Kansas City, Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Baltimore.

The full "DAVE-adjusted DVOA" ratings appear in a second table at the bottom of the page, after the standard DVOA ratings table.

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Last week, we made a change in our playoff odds simulation to account for the injury that will keep Tony Romo out for roughly half the season. This week, we've further changed the simulation to account similarly for the injury to Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. As with Dallas, Pittsburgh was run through the playoff odds simulation with two different DAVE ratings. A rating that accounts for Michael Vick as the Pittsburgh quarterback is used in Weeks 4-7, and then in half of the simulations for Weeks 8-9. Roethlisberger is back with the full higher Pittsburgh rating as of Week 10.

We're sort of playing it by ear in the way we're accouting for these injuries in the simulation, as it wasn't originally written to do this and we haven't tested this method with similar injuries of the past. As each week goes by, the Dallas and Pittsburgh DVOA ratings will reflect what those teams are like with Brandon Weeden and Vick at quarterback rather than how good they are with Romo and Roethlisberger. This week's simulation may be slightly overrating the Cowboys and Steelers, because the Romo/Roethlisberger DAVE ratings work off the Weeden/Vick DAVE ratings rather than the other way around, and the Weeden/Vick DAVE ratings are partly based on how well the Cowboys and Steelers played in Weeks 1-2 with their original starting quarterbacks. We'll play with the method in future weeks to try to get the simulation as accurate as possible.

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Once again in 2015, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 16 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 3 are:

TE Greg Olsen, CAR (24-HOUR HERO): Led all tight ends with 60 DYAR in Week 3 (8-for-11, 134 yards, 2 TD).

Led all tight ends with 60 DYAR in Week 3 (8-for-11, 134 yards, 2 TD). RE Mike Daniels, GB: 1.5 sacks, 2 hurries, and run tackle for a loss.

1.5 sacks, 2 hurries, and run tackle for a loss. LG Gabe Jackson, OAK: No sacks, hurries, or QB hits allowed; Oakland RB had 15 carries for 123 yards running left with 53 percent success rate.

No sacks, hurries, or QB hits allowed; Oakland RB had 15 carries for 123 yards running left with 53 percent success rate. RB Karlos Williams, BUF: 50 rushing DYAR, fourth among running backs in Week 3 (12 carries, 110 yards, TD). No. 1 RB in rushing DYAR through three weeks despite only 24 carries.

50 rushing DYAR, fourth among running backs in Week 3 (12 carries, 110 yards, TD). No. 1 RB in rushing DYAR through three weeks despite only 24 carries. ROLB K.J. Wright, SEA: 10 total tackles including 4 that prevented third-down conversions.

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All stats pages are now updated through Week 3 of 2015 or will be in the next few minutes.

Some notes on the schedule for the next couple weeks. This is the week for the midseason update of our KUBIAK fantasy football projections. It's a project that takes a ton of man-hours to put together, and the fact that my computer seems to slowed to a crawl in the last few days isn't going to help things. It should be released on Friday afternoon. I'll be working hard to get it out as soon as possible. I know that means you can't use it for trades and waiver pick-ups this week, but we've never been able to do the necessary work that would automate this further.

Next week's update of the FO stats pages and posting of DVOA commentary is going to be even later than usual because of unavoidable scheduling conflicts. For all you Madden fans, we'll see if I can get a posting up earlier that will announce the Football Outsiders stars for Ultimate Team, but no promises. After next week, though, I'll be back to trying to get this all up by 6pm Eastern each week. Clearly not often succeeding, but at least trying.

I also will likely be taking next Tuesday off from my weekly appearances on the ESPN Fantasy Football Weekly Podcast, but I'll be back after Week 5 and for the rest of the season after that. I hope everyone is listening and enjoying the new podcasts this season. Remember you can get links to all the FO-related podcasts in our new podcasts section, which you can find at this link.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through three weeks of 2015, 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. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

Please note that there are no opponent adjustments in DVOA until after Week 4. (It's still listed as DVOA instead of VOA because I don't feel like going through and changing all the tables manually.) In addition, our second weekly table which includes schedule strength, variation, and Estimated Wins will appear beginning after Week 4.

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 60 percent of DAVE. (This is a slight change from previous years, when the preseason projection made up 55 percent of DAVE after Week 3.)

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 ARI 76.4% 1 27.7% 2 3-0 37.8% 3 -32.3% 3 6.3% 5 2 GB 51.0% 5 25.7% 3 3-0 42.8% 1 -3.2% 9 4.9% 6 3 NE 47.2% 6 30.3% 1 3-0 42.0% 2 1.6% 15 6.9% 4 4 CIN 36.0% 4 18.2% 4 3-0 26.5% 5 -11.8% 7 -2.3% 22 5 BUF 28.8% 14 8.2% 8 2-1 26.5% 6 0.1% 12 2.4% 9 6 PIT 24.8% 3 11.6% 7 2-1 32.8% 4 3.7% 19 -4.2% 26 7 DEN 23.0% 7 18.1% 5 3-0 -24.3% 31 -39.6% 1 7.6% 3 8 CAR 20.3% 8 6.1% 11 3-0 10.7% 9 -21.0% 4 -11.3% 30 9 NYJ 18.5% 2 7.5% 10 2-1 -11.9% 22 -34.5% 2 -4.0% 24 10 ATL 14.7% 10 7.7% 9 3-0 23.2% 7 9.8% 25 1.3% 14 11 TEN 11.2% 9 -4.1% 21 1-2 4.3% 11 -16.3% 6 -9.4% 29 12 SEA 8.3% 23 17.3% 6 1-2 -4.1% 16 3.4% 18 15.8% 1 13 NYG 5.5% 18 0.3% 15 1-2 6.9% 10 3.2% 17 1.8% 12 14 OAK 5.1% 25 -4.0% 20 2-1 12.8% 8 11.4% 28 3.7% 7 15 DAL 0.9% 11 -4.3% 22 2-1 4.1% 12 3.8% 21 0.6% 17 16 MIN 0.7% 24 3.1% 13 2-1 3.0% 13 3.8% 20 1.6% 13 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 STL -0.5% 16 4.6% 12 1-2 -11.8% 21 -8.1% 8 3.2% 8 18 PHI -2.5% 26 1.7% 14 1-2 -18.3% 27 -17.4% 5 -1.6% 21 19 WAS -3.8% 13 -13.3% 25 1-2 -4.0% 15 -0.9% 11 -0.7% 18 20 BAL -9.8% 17 -1.0% 16 0-3 -4.8% 17 7.3% 24 2.3% 11 21 KC -13.9% 12 -2.3% 17 1-2 -13.7% 23 2.5% 16 2.4% 10 22 IND -14.8% 29 -2.7% 18 1-2 -8.7% 19 1.5% 14 -4.6% 27 23 DET -18.4% 22 -5.0% 23 0-3 -14.9% 24 4.8% 22 1.3% 15 24 SD -18.5% 19 -3.8% 19 1-2 -3.5% 14 7.2% 23 -7.8% 28 25 CLE -23.1% 21 -15.2% 27 1-2 -22.9% 30 10.8% 26 10.6% 2 26 MIA -27.9% 15 -13.3% 26 1-2 -17.3% 26 11.3% 27 0.7% 16 27 JAC -29.3% 20 -21.4% 29 1-2 -11.2% 20 15.7% 29 -2.4% 23 28 HOU -30.9% 28 -15.5% 28 1-2 -17.0% 25 1.2% 13 -12.6% 32 29 NO -32.4% 31 -12.7% 24 0-3 -4.9% 18 26.4% 31 -1.2% 20 30 TB -37.5% 30 -23.9% 31 1-2 -38.4% 32 -2.1% 10 -1.1% 19 31 SF -51.4% 27 -22.7% 30 1-2 -21.9% 29 25.3% 30 -4.1% 25 32 CHI -70.2% 32 -32.8% 32 0-3 -21.6% 28 36.0% 32 -12.6% 31

A second table below presents each team's total 2015 DVOA with the single-game offensive and defensive DVOA for each game adjusted based on the DAVE rating of the opponent. Special teams ratings are not changed.