by Aaron Schatz

Well, that was certainly an interesting week of games, wasn't it? Road teams went 11-3 in Week 10, while underdogs were somewhere between 9-3 and 11-3 depending on whether your gambling arena of choice listed a "pick 'em" line for the Dallas-Tampa Bay and Washington-New Orleans games. Seven of the top dozen teams in last week's DVOA ratings lost this week at home, and six of those losses were to teams that ranked lower in DVOA. As noted in the Any Given Sunday column earlier today, Andrew Healy's "Surprise Score" would rank Week 10 of 2015 as the second-most surprising group of upsets since 1979, trailing only Week 6 of 2001.

Despite all the upsets, the top four teams in DVOA remain the same and in the same order this week: Patriots, Cardinals, Bengals, and Panthers. However, three of the four teams saw their actual DVOA ratings drop even though they rank in the same places. Yes, I said three of the four. The Patriots at No. 1 fall from 40.0% DVOA to just 34.5% DVOA. The Bengals at No. 3 fall from 30.0% DVOA to 26.5% DVOA.

But here's the surprising one... Arizona at No. 2 plummets from 36.2% DVOA to 30.2% DVOA even though the Cardinals beat the Seahawks this week. Arizona's drop helps explain why Seattle shoots up from ninth (14.0%) to fifth (20.0%) despite losing. The DVOA ratings for this game were very, very different from the final score.

By DVOA, this actually came out as the best game Seattle has played all year, at 79.0%. And it came out as the worst game Arizona has played all year, with a single-game DVOA of -9.0% despite the boost that comes from opponent adjustments for playing Seattle. These numbers are even more surprising given that Arizona won despite Seattle recovering all three of the game's fumbles.

DVOA (Opponent adjustments included) Team OFF DEF ST TOTAL ARI 2.3% 20.0% 8.7% -9.0% SEA 53.2% -23.6% 2.2% 79.0% VOA (No opponent adjustments) Team OFF DEF ST TOTAL ARI -4.0% 27.8% 8.7% -23.1% SEA 32.8% -4.4% 2.2% 39.4%

(Note that numbers in the premium database might be slightly higher for Seattle right now because after I had run the premium numbers, I discovered an error that wasn't penalizing Seattle for lost yardage on an intentional grounding call.)

Looking at yards per play averages for Sunday night's game, these DVOA results aren't actually that crazy. Seattle was actually the much more efficient offense in general, gaining 6.6 yards per play compared to 5.4 yards per play for Arizona. But these numbers expose two possible weaknesses in the DVOA system as it is currently built.

1) What happens when one team is more efficient per play, but the other team gets a lot more plays? If we remove plays cancelled by penalty and look at just runs and passes, Seattle ran 52 plays on Sunday night. Arizona, on the other hand, ran 84 plays. Arizona had three drives of 10 or more plays, while Seattle had none. Meanwhile, Seattle ended up with three drives that were quicker than three-and-out: the safety on first down, a third-quarter interception on second down, and then a 3-yard touchdown on the first play after Cliff Avril's sack-fumble-dance-completely-ignore-loose-ball-like-a-moron at the start of the fourth quarter.

2) DVOA measures passes and runs, but only a handful of penalties are currently included: intentional grounding, defensive pass interference, false start, and delay of game. In past years, when I tried to incorporate other penalties into DVOA, I couldn't find a way to incorporate them that improved the system's predictive accuracy. But every couple years, I take another go at the problem, and it might be time to look again, particularly at offensive holding. We know that offensive penalties tend to be more predictive than defensive penalties, and we know that offensive holding has been a particular problem for the Seattle Seahawks in recent years. Vincent Verhei brought this up in Audibles this week; Seattle gained 6.4 yards per carry on rushing plays against Arizona but that number doesn't account for three different offensive holding calls on runs that put Seattle into first-and-20 situations, plus a face mask called on Garry Gilliam on another running play that put Seattle into first-and-25.

Those first-down setbacks get into a further issue with DVOA and penalties. DVOA analyzes every play and compares it to a baseline determined by down and distance among other things. So the Seattle offense ends up looking better in part because it was efficient getting itself out of bad down-and-distance situations, but much of the time we're not penalizing it for getting itself into those bad down-and-distance situations. Seattle's average offensive play came with 11.4 yards to go; Cleveland was second this week at 9.6 and the NFL average was 8.7. (If you are curious, New England was last this week at 7.6 yards to go.)

Note that I introduced these two issues as possible weaknesses in the DVOA system, not definite weaknesses. These are both issues I've played around with in the past when I've worked on improvements to the system. The system we have right now is the one that is the most accurate when it comes to balancing two competing goals: correlation with wins and losses (without adjusting for schedule) and correlation with future performance (after adjusting for schedule). It's definitely possible that a system purely based on per-play efficiency is simply more predictive than one that accounts for Arizona getting to run so many more plays than Seattle. It's also possible that accounting for how offenses recover from bad penalties is more important than accounting for those penalties in the offensive ratings. Figuring this out requires more testing and adjustments to the system. The time for doing that is the offseason, if I even can find time among the 1,000 other things I want to do every offseason. So for now, the system stays as it is. It's the best system we have around here, at least right now, and it's definitely telling us that the Seattle Seahawks are by far the best 4-5 team in the NFC and still a serious playoff contender despite those five blown fourth-quarter leads.

(By the way, read this post by Trey Causey about what it means to write for public consumption. It's possible that I'm being a complete idiot by acknowledging that there are possible flaws in the stats we use around here. But hey, we've always tried to be honest in the dialogue we have with our readers. As I often say, Football Outsiders wants to lead the league in couching our opinions in caveats. But I digress.)

Is there any other team whose ranking right now looks more shocking than Seattle still sitting at No. 5 despite a 4-5 record? Why yes, there is. I've written about the Minnesota Vikings already this season but as they continue to win, their DVOA rating continues to look weird. The Vikings climbed seven spots with their big win over Oakland, but that still has them at No. 19 despite a 7-2 record. The new playoff odds report still has Green Bay as the favorite to win the NFC North even though the Vikings now have a one-game lead. Why does DVOA seem so wrong about the Vikings?

There are some general reasons why the Vikings rank so low in DVOA. First, they've had phenomenal luck recovering fumbles. The Vikings have recovered 7 of 10 fumbles on offense, and 4 of 5 fumbles on defense. (They've had no fumbles on special teams. They had a muff, but those are almost always recovered by the return team.) Minnesota's 73 percent fumble recovery rate is second in the league this year. Only San Francisco has had better luck, recovering 75 percent of fumbles. (That's one of the reasons the 49ers are so far behind the rest of the league in the DVOA cellar despite winning three games.)

Second, the Vikings have had a very easy schedule so far. Based on average DVOA of opponent, the Vikings' past schedule ranks 31st -- only Atlanta has had it easier -- while their upcoming schedule is the toughest in the league. Their schedule has been particularly easy when it comes to opposing offenses, which is part of why the Vikings still rank just 20th in defensive DVOA even though they are second in the league in fewer points allowed. Five of Minnesota's nine games have come against the five worst offenses by DVOA: No. 28 Detroit (twice), No. 30 San Francisco, No. 31 St. Louis, and No. 32 Denver. The best offense they've faced this year is Oakland, which again helps explain why this week they had their highest single-game DVOA of the year at 44.7%.

But it's single games that create the biggest difference between Minnesota's DVOA and conventional wisdom, as you'll see when you look at the week-to-week graph for the Vikings' season so far.

Minnesota has four games with a single-game DVOA rating below zero. One is the loss to Denver, as expected. Another is a close win over Detroit, where the negative rating is not a huge surprise given the heavy downward adjustments that come from playing Detroit this season. The other two games are the real issue here: a Week 6 victory over Kansas City and that 20-3 faceplant against San Francisco way back on the first Monday night of the season.

I wrote about the Week 6 Kansas City game back after Week 6, calling it the kookiest, craziest result in a week filled with kooky DVOA results. The Vikings won 16-10 even though Kansas City gained 5.8 yards per play with a 47 percent success rate while Minnesota gained only 4.7 yards per play with a 33 percent success rate. Those stats certainly back the idea that Kansas City was the better team that day. And while the ratings for that game are part of why we've been so wrong about Minnesota since midseason, they are also part of why we've been so right about Kansas City in the same time period. After that game, Kansas City ranked 18th in DVOA despite being 1-5. Since then, the Chiefs have won three straight and moved into the DVOA top ten. We really can't ignore what DVOA tells us about Week 6.

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On the other hand, it sure does look like we can ignore what DVOA tells us about Week 1, doesn't it? Minnesota's -92.7% DVOA for that loss to San Francisco is the second-lowest game by any team this year, trailing only Tampa Bay's Week 1 loss to Tennessee which now has a horrifying single-game DVOA of -121.3%. San Francisco may have three wins, but that's the only positive DVOA game the 49ers have had all season. There's extra reason to believe it might be a fluke: not only was it the first game of the season, but Minnesota was stuck playing the special late game of opening Monday night despite being a Central Time Zone team. Not that we have much history to look at a sample of Central and Eastern teams playing at 7:00 Pacific time, but it makes logical sense that like Pacific teams playing at 1:00 Eastern, this may have been a problem.

All the research we've done on the last 25 years of football tells us that the long-term view is usually better than the short-term, and we don't throw out games just because they look fluky. That game will count in Minnesota's DVOA all year. It will gradually fade out in the weighted DVOA formula, but it won't disappear entirely until Week 15. Nonetheless, take that game out and the Vikings look a lot different. This table shows how Minnesota's rating moves closer to conventional wisdom has you forget about Week 1, strength of schedule, and then fumble recovery luck.

Minnesota Vikings DVOA, Removing Context Adjustments Metric Off DVOA Rk Def DVOA Rk ST DVOA Rk Total DVOA Rk Full-Season DVOA -7.5% 24 3.4% 20 4.4% 7 -6.5% 19 Weeks 2-10 DVOA -4.2% 22 -2.3% 13 5.7% 4 3.7% 15 Weeks 2-10 VOA (no opponent adjustments) -5.1% 22 -5.2% 11 5.7% 4 5.7% 13 Weeks 2-10 VOAf (no opponent adjustments;

fumbles not all counted equal) -1.3% 20 -6.8% 9 5.7% 4 11.2% 11

By the way, take that Week 1 game away from San Francisco and the 49ers drop from -36.5% DVOA to a frightening -44.4% DVOA on the season. Yikes.

The Vikings/Packers NFC North race is one of the main subjects of todays' commentary on our playoff odds simulation published at ESPN Insider. As we did the last couple years, we'll be writing this commentary each Tuesday afternoon until the end of the regular season. This week's article also discusses how Week 10 dramatically changed the race for the AFC wild cards. I'll be linking to that piece inside the DVOA commentary each week rather than giving it a separate discussion thread on our front page.

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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 10 are:

MLB Lawrence Timmons, PIT (24-HOUR HERO): Led NFL with 6 defeats in Week 10, including 4 different tackles after third-down receptions that prevented conversions, plus a third-down sack and a run TFL. Also had two other tackles on runs for no gain.

Led NFL with 6 defeats in Week 10, including 4 different tackles after third-down receptions that prevented conversions, plus a third-down sack and a run TFL. Also had two other tackles on runs for no gain. RB Andre Ellington, ARI: No. 5 RB of Week 10 with 38 DYAR; 5 carries for 61 yards and a touchdown, plus 3 receptions for 27 yards.

No. 5 RB of Week 10 with 38 DYAR; 5 carries for 61 yards and a touchdown, plus 3 receptions for 27 yards. K Stephen Gostkowski, NE: Game-winning 54-yard field goal, plus Giants didn't get any of his five kickoffs past the 20 (three touchbacks).

Game-winning 54-yard field goal, plus Giants didn't get any of his five kickoffs past the 20 (three touchbacks). RT Morgan Moses, WAS: Washington RB had 64 yards on 13 carries right side with no stuffs, plus no sacks allowed.

Washington RB had 64 yards on 13 carries right side with no stuffs, plus no sacks allowed. CB Jimmy Smith, BAL: Allowed only 2 completions for 5 yards, plus a 27-yard DPI, on 7 targets.

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All stats pages are now updated with Week 10 information (or will be in the next few minutes) including FO Premium, snap counts and playoff odds.

A quick note on the playoff odds simulation: We've made adjustments to some team's weighted DVOA being used in the simulation because of quarterback changes, in particular Pittsburgh and Dallas. We also have built in an estimate of what Andrew Luck's injury will mean for the Colts. However, we decided not to include any changes to adjust for the injuries on the New England offense. We could adjust for the loss of Julian Edelman through the playoffs, but the new preseason projection system would suggest that, based on last year's production, we also would need to adjust the Patriots upwards because they had to play the first few weeks without Brandon LaFell. The Patriots' offensive line makes things even more confusing -- the team got its starting center back, but he's now playing right tackle, but the regular right tackle should be back at some point, but the starting left tackle is done for the year, and on and on. In the end, we decided that the hit the Patriots took from their near-loss to the Giants was enough to suggest what the impact of life without Edelman and Dion Lewis will be like. We'll reconsider that if they struggle significantly on offense again this week.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 10 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 for strength of schedule and 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. 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 of this week, opponent adjustments for all stats are at 100 percent strength and will be for the rest of the season.

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 NE 34.5% 1 33.5% 1 9-0 21.8% 1 -4.1% 9 8.6% 1 2 ARI 30.2% 2 27.0% 2 7-2 16.4% 3 -14.1% 6 -0.3% 14 3 CIN 26.5% 3 25.6% 3 8-1 18.0% 2 -5.6% 8 2.9% 10 4 CAR 23.0% 4 23.9% 4 9-0 7.9% 10 -17.3% 3 -2.3% 22 5 SEA 20.0% 9 22.3% 5 4-5 4.9% 11 -9.1% 7 6.0% 3 6 PIT 16.7% 7 15.8% 7 6-4 15.4% 4 -2.9% 11 -1.6% 20 7 NYJ 16.4% 5 15.4% 8 5-4 3.0% 13 -16.9% 4 -3.4% 27 8 GB 14.9% 6 12.4% 9 6-3 13.2% 5 -3.0% 10 -1.3% 19 9 KC 14.6% 11 15.9% 6 4-5 8.3% 9 -2.5% 12 3.8% 8 10 BUF 12.3% 13 12.2% 10 5-4 10.7% 7 1.3% 16 3.0% 9 11 DEN 10.1% 8 9.7% 12 7-2 -21.9% 32 -27.4% 1 4.6% 5 12 PHI 9.0% 10 11.1% 11 4-5 -7.1% 23 -17.4% 2 -1.3% 18 13 NYG 4.6% 15 5.2% 14 5-5 1.0% 17 2.4% 17 5.9% 4 14 OAK 4.2% 12 6.1% 13 4-5 11.9% 6 6.7% 24 -1.0% 15 15 WAS -0.8% 19 -0.8% 15 4-5 1.9% 15 3.7% 21 1.0% 13 16 BAL -2.5% 16 -2.5% 16 2-7 -1.3% 19 7.3% 26 6.1% 2 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 STL -3.7% 14 -3.9% 18 4-5 -20.2% 31 -14.4% 5 2.1% 11 18 ATL -5.1% 17 -6.0% 19 6-3 1.5% 16 5.0% 22 -1.7% 21 19 MIN -6.5% 26 -3.7% 17 7-2 -7.5% 24 3.4% 20 4.4% 7 20 MIA -7.0% 21 -6.9% 20 4-5 2.7% 14 7.3% 25 -2.4% 23 21 IND -8.7% 18 -8.0% 21 4-5 -4.5% 20 3.0% 19 -1.2% 17 22 DAL -12.5% 23 -13.5% 24 2-7 -5.8% 22 5.5% 23 -1.1% 16 23 JAC -13.1% 20 -13.8% 25 3-6 -5.1% 21 2.5% 18 -5.5% 30 24 TB -13.8% 25 -11.1% 22 4-5 -10.0% 25 0.3% 15 -3.5% 28 25 CHI -15.6% 29 -13.1% 23 4-5 0.3% 18 8.2% 27 -7.7% 32 26 SD -16.3% 27 -17.1% 27 2-7 4.4% 12 14.7% 31 -6.0% 31 27 HOU -16.5% 30 -16.1% 26 4-5 -11.4% 26 0.2% 14 -4.8% 29 28 TEN -16.9% 24 -18.4% 29 2-7 -16.4% 29 -2.0% 13 -2.5% 24 29 NO -18.7% 22 -17.5% 28 4-6 8.6% 8 24.4% 32 -2.9% 25 30 CLE -20.1% 28 -21.0% 30 2-8 -12.3% 27 12.4% 29 4.6% 6 31 DET -22.1% 31 -21.8% 31 2-7 -14.2% 28 9.5% 28 1.5% 12 32 SF -36.5% 32 -37.2% 32 3-6 -18.7% 30 14.5% 30 -3.2% 26

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).