by Aaron Schatz

Minnesota stays at No. 1 in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings after a week off, with Seattle moving up to No. 2 after its win over Atlanta combined with Philadelphia's loss to Washington. There's a gap of a few percentage points between Minnesota and Seattle, and then another gap between Seattle and the rest of the league. However, the team sitting at No. 3, the top team in the AFC, is probably quite a surprise to most readers. Say hello to the suddenly playoff-likely Buffalo Bills.

Yes, with their big win over San Francisco, Buffalo has climbed all the way up to No. 3 in DVOA. The Bills are winning, and they're doing it with a great amount of balance. Right now, Buffalo is the only team in the league to rank in the DVOA top 10 for all three phases of the game: offense (6), defense (10), and special teams (8). The offense is primarily led by the running game, which ranks second in DVOA behind Dallas. The pass offense is only 15th. The defense is well-balanced, ranked 12th against both the run and the pass.

Does Buffalo's easy schedule have something to do with their high DVOA rating? Perhaps. Of course, DVOA does adjust for opponents, but those adjustments are only at 60 percent strength right now. That's also part of the problem with judging Buffalo based on its schedule: just who are these teams, anyway? We can be pretty sure that the 49ers and Jets are horrible, but we really still don't know how good the Ravens will be all year, or how good the Cardinals will be all year. Buffalo fans can also take satisfaction in the fact that Buffalo's schedule doesn't get any harder the rest of the season. What looked like a very difficult midseason run looks a bit easier now. Cincinnati doesn't seem like the tough opponent we thought it was before the season, and Oakland may not be the tough opponent we thought it was just a couple weeks ago. (The Raiders drop from 10th to 18th in DVOA after losing to Kansas City.) The Bills also still have two games against Miami on the docket, plus the rematch with the Jets and home games against Cleveland and Jacksonville. Based on average DVOA of opponent, only Tennessee and San Diego have easier schedules the rest of the way.

There's a bit of an asterisk on this whole performance, which is Buffalo's 16-0 win over New England in Week 4. As the season goes along, that game is going to stand out more and more because the adjustment for stopping the New England offense will get stronger and stronger. However, as we all know when we apply a little common sense, that wasn't really the New England offense in Week 4. That offense was led by an injured third-string quarterback. If we remove that game from Buffalo's defensive DVOA, it drops all the way from -7.2% (10th) to 0.4% (18th). However, Buffalo's overall DVOA would still be sixth in the NFL at that point -- or seventh, if we also remove the game from New England's offensive DVOA. That would still make New England and Buffalo the top two teams in the AFC, in either order.

(An aside: Every year we end up with a situation like this, where there are a couple of games against backup quarterbacks which seem a bit out of whack because our opponent adjustments are based on how well that opponent has played for the entire season. As I note every year, trying to do separate opponent adjustments based on which players were healthy or out in each week is just way too complicated. Do you adjust based only on quarterbacks, or on other players as well? How do you handle major injuries on defense? What if quarterbacks play, but aren't 100 percent healthy? How do you handle the fact that the sample size for the backup quarterback may be only one game, and based on one game we would have surmised that in 2015 a Saints team led by Luke McCown was a much tougher opponent than a Saints team led by Drew Brees? This is where you have to use your common sense and not just quote our statistics as if they were the tablets Moses brought down from Sinai. Ironically, the Patriots' defensive DVOA is probably going to have this exact same problem after this week, because its performance against Landry Jones will be adjusted based on a Pittsburgh offense that will be quarterbacked for most of the season by the much better Ben Roethlisberger.)

Buffalo's strong run and easy remaining schedule set the Bills up nicely to finally break their NFL-long postseason drought of 16 seasons. This week's playoff odds simulation gives Buffalo a 75.7 percent chance to reach the playoffs, second in the AFC behind only New England at 90.6 percent. The Patriots are looking really good right now; since Tom Brady's return they have climbed from 17th to seventh in total DVOA and from 13th to fourth in offensive DVOA. Both AFC East teams got a lot of help this weekend when the other three 4-1 teams in the AFC -- Denver, Oakland, and Pittsburgh -- all lost. Either New England or Buffalo wins a wild card in 68 percent of this week's simulations.

Those three losses by the top AFC teams also emphasize another surprising turn of events for the NFL in 2016: the NFC is dominant over the AFC so far. Although the NFC had three of the top four teams in 2015, the AFC had the next five teams in a row, giving them six of the top 10. However, this week the AFC has only three teams in the top 10: Buffalo, New England, and No. 9 Denver. The AFC also has the three lowest teams in DVOA and four of the bottom five: Indianapolis at 28, Houston at 30, Cleveland at 31, and the New York Jets moving back behind the Browns and into last place. Believe it or not, the Houston Texans are not the worst 4-2 team in DVOA history. I wrote last week about two 3-2 teams that had a lower DVOA than Houston, and one of those teams, the 2007 Lions, actually then went out and won the next week as well. So the 2007 Lions had a 4-2 record and -27.1% DVOA. However, the Texans are the lowest-ranked 4-2 team in DVOA history, as the Lions were 27th that year, and the Vikings were actually 28th at 4-2 a year ago before improving significantly over their final 10 games.

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Once again this season, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 17 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, beginning at 11am Eastern on Friday. We will also tweet out images of these players from the @fboutsiders Twitter account on most Fridays. The best player of each week, the Football Outsiders Hero, will require you to collect a set of the other four Football Outsiders players that week, plus a certain number of Football Outsiders collectibles available in Madden Ultimate Team packs.

The Football Outsiders stars for Week 6 are:

L G Richie Incognito, BUF (FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS HERO) : Buffalo RB had 19 carries for 172 yards (79% success rate) up the middle; no sacks allowed.

: Buffalo RB had 19 carries for 172 yards (79% success rate) up the middle; no sacks allowed. WR Cole Beasley, DAL : No. 4 wide receiver with 61 DYAR this week (6-for-6, 58 yards, 2 TD); No. 1 wide receiver in DYAR for the season.

: No. 4 wide receiver with 61 DYAR this week (6-for-6, 58 yards, 2 TD); No. 1 wide receiver in DYAR for the season. DT Johnathan Hankins, NYG : sack, 2 run TFL

: sack, 2 run TFL RG Jermon Bushrod, MIA : Miami RB had 9 carries for 109 yards to the right and 15 carries for 59 yards up the middle; no sacks allowed.

: Miami RB had 9 carries for 109 yards to the right and 15 carries for 59 yards up the middle; no sacks allowed. CB Jason McCourty, TEN: 3 PDs, including 2 on third down, and 5 tackles after receptions which all prevented first downs.

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All stats pages are now updated through Week 6 of 2016. Snap counts and playoff odds are also fully updated.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through six weeks of 2016, 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. Because it is early in the season, opponent adjustments are only at 60 percent strength; they will increase 10 percent every week through Week 10. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

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 19 percent of DAVE for teams with six games played, and 27 percent of DAVE for teams with five games played.

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 MIN 35.6% 1 25.7% 2 5-0 4.5% 11 -25.9% 2 5.3% 5 2 SEA 29.3% 3 28.2% 1 4-1 -0.8% 17 -27.6% 1 2.5% 10 3 BUF 22.6% 8 18.6% 3 4-2 12.1% 6 -7.2% 10 3.3% 8 4 PHI 21.8% 2 13.5% 7 3-2 0.0% 16 -16.5% 5 5.3% 4 5 DAL 19.8% 9 15.9% 4 5-1 23.5% 1 2.5% 19 -1.1% 20 6 ATL 18.8% 5 14.4% 6 4-2 22.9% 2 10.2% 26 6.1% 3 7 NE 13.5% 13 15.4% 5 5-1 14.9% 4 3.5% 21 2.1% 11 8 GB 12.2% 6 11.3% 9 3-2 0.7% 14 -9.4% 7 2.1% 13 9 DEN 12.0% 7 10.0% 10 4-2 -6.0% 23 -17.5% 4 0.5% 17 10 ARI 10.2% 14 11.5% 8 3-3 -7.5% 24 -20.9% 3 -3.2% 24 11 WAS 8.5% 12 5.4% 14 4-2 6.4% 9 1.5% 18 3.6% 7 12 PIT 8.3% 4 9.7% 11 4-2 12.4% 5 6.9% 24 2.7% 9 13 SD 7.8% 11 5.9% 13 2-4 7.0% 8 -5.1% 12 -4.3% 26 14 KC 6.7% 17 8.8% 12 3-2 -3.8% 20 -8.5% 8 2.1% 12 15 BAL 4.2% 15 4.6% 15 3-3 -11.8% 27 -16.4% 6 -0.4% 18 16 TEN 3.0% 16 0.8% 16 3-3 5.4% 10 -8.0% 9 -10.5% 32 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 NYG 0.0% 18 -0.5% 17 3-3 -1.2% 18 -1.6% 16 -0.4% 19 18 OAK -0.2% 10 -0.7% 18 4-2 15.6% 3 17.6% 29 1.9% 15 19 CHI -2.8% 20 -3.8% 19 1-5 -1.3% 19 -2.2% 15 -3.7% 25 20 MIA -4.0% 28 -5.8% 21 2-4 -5.9% 22 0.0% 17 1.9% 14 21 NO -6.0% 21 -4.8% 20 2-3 10.8% 7 14.5% 28 -2.2% 22 22 LARM -7.8% 25 -6.0% 22 3-3 -15.5% 29 -2.7% 14 5.0% 6 23 JAC -9.6% 22 -9.1% 25 2-3 -15.8% 31 -4.7% 13 1.5% 16 24 CAR -10.6% 23 -7.7% 23 1-5 0.0% 15 3.6% 22 -7.0% 30 25 CIN -11.3% 19 -8.5% 24 2-4 1.3% 13 7.7% 25 -4.9% 28 26 DET -15.0% 24 -12.5% 26 3-3 3.4% 12 26.1% 32 7.7% 2 27 SF -17.2% 26 -17.7% 29 1-5 -10.1% 26 2.6% 20 -4.6% 27 28 IND -18.1% 27 -15.0% 27 2-4 -4.4% 21 21.9% 31 8.2% 1 29 TB -21.2% 29 -16.7% 28 2-3 -14.3% 28 3.8% 23 -3.0% 23 30 HOU -23.2% 31 -20.4% 30 4-2 -20.5% 32 -5.1% 11 -7.8% 31 31 CLE -27.9% 32 -26.9% 31 0-6 -8.7% 25 12.6% 27 -6.6% 29 32 NYJ -36.1% 30 -30.2% 32 1-5 -15.8% 30 18.5% 30 -1.8% 21

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).