by Aaron Schatz

The regular season is now over for The Year of No Great Teams, and it ends with one team climbing up close to deserving the adjective of "great." The New England Patriots finished off the season by stomping the Miami Dolphins 35-14. They end the season with a comfortable lead over the rest of the league with 25.3% DVOA and 34.0% weighted DVOA. Defensive improvement over the second half of the season means the Patriots finished the year above-average in all three phases of the game, one of three teams to do so.

Believe it or not, this is only the third time the Patriots have finished No. 1 in DVOA during their 16-year streak of winning seasons. They were also No. 1 in 2007 and 2010. The Patriots have ranked 12th or higher in overall DVOA for every one of those 16 years, and this is their eighth straight year ranking sixth or higher. The Patriots have ranked in the offensive top 10 every season since 2004. But it may be even more impressive that the Patriots have had top-ten special teams every season since 2010 and above-average special teams every season since 1996. That's a mind-blowing 21 straight seasons of above-average special teams, going back not just before Bill Belichick but even before Pete Carroll.

New England's surge in the final game also means they will not be the lowest-rated team to ever finish No. 1 in DVOA. That title still belongs to the 1993 Dallas Cowboys, who finished the season at 24.9% DVOA. Of course, there's a good reason why both of these teams didn't finish higher. The Patriots were missing their Hall of Fame quarterback for the first four games, and the Cowboys had their Hall of Fame running back holding out for the first two games. The 1993 Cowboys had 32.8% DVOA if we started their season with Emmitt Smith's return in Week 3. And the 2016 Patriots would have 35.4% DVOA if we started their season with Tom Brady's return in Week 5.

This year, the Cowboys had their best team since those Triplets Super Bowl teams of the mid-'90s. Their DVOA rating dips a bit after they sat starters in a meaningless Week 17 game, but they still finish the year at No. 2. The Cowboys are right behind the Patriots in all three phrases of the game. Their defense has also improved over the course of the season, although not as much as New England's.

For those asking the question we get every year after Week 17: no, we don't adjust either full-season DVOA or weighted DVOA for teams sitting starters in Week 17. However, I did take this into consideration when putting together this week's playoff odds simulation, using the Week 16 weighted DVOA for both Dallas and Pittsburgh. Week 17 was easily the Cowboys' worst DVOA game of the year, and it was the worst DVOA game for Pittsburgh since the Week 3 Philadelphia debacle. The narrow win over a bad Cleveland team dropped Pittsburgh down two spots in DVOA, with Atlanta and Philadelphia moving up.

Yes, that means that the Eagles finished the season fourth overall, although that ranking looks a lot less strange at 7-9 than it did at 5-9. Although the Eagles don't come close to having the best DVOA rating ever for a team that missed the playoffs, they do finish with the best DVOA rating ever for a team with a losing record. That record was previously held by the 2004 Kansas City Chiefs at 15.1%. The Chiefs improved to 10-6 the following season.

Although the Houston Texans ended the season with a lower total DVOA than the 2-14 San Francisco 49ers, they did not win the ignominious title of "worst playoff team DVOA ever." Houston finishes at -21.4%, which keeps them ahead of the 2004 St. Louis Rams (-27.2%) and the 2010 Seattle Seahawks (-22.9%). The Texans also miss out on the lowest DVOA ever put up by a team with a winning record, which still belongs to the 1992 Indianapolis Colts at -27.2%. The Detroit Lions drop to -17.4% with their final loss to Green Bay, meaning they also rank among the five worst DVOA ratings ever in both categories. Below the Texans and Lions, the 1-15 Cleveland Browns did not finish last in DVOA. That honor belongs to the New York Jets, who finished No. 1 in the entire league in run defense but made up for that by ranking 31st in offense, pass defense, and special teams.

As we've noted in past weeks, what stands out most about 2016 is not just the lack of great teams but the lack of good, balanced teams. Pittsburgh's loss to Cleveland dropped them from ninth to 11th in defensive DVOA, which means that no team in 2016 finished in the top ten on both offense and defense. Pittsburgh is the only team to finish in the top dozen on both sides of the ball. As noted earlier, only three teams were above-average on both offense and defense: Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and New England (barely).

The Falcons finished the year No. 1 on offense, but the more notable number belongs to the team that finished with the worst offense, the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams ended their season with the worst single game of the year by DVOA, putting up -109.7% in a 44-6 loss to Arizona. That was enough to drop the Rams' offensive DVOA to -38.1%. Think about how bad some other offenses were this year, such as the Browns, the Jets, and the Texans. The DVOA difference between the Rams and any of those defenses was bigger than the difference between the No. 1 offense in Atlanta and the No. 10 offense in Buffalo. With their offensive ineptitude in the final couple weeks, the Rams dropped down onto the list of the worst offenses in DVOA history.

WORST OFFENSIVE DVOA, 1989-2016 Year Team W-L DVOA Pass Rk Run Rk 2002 HOU 4-12 -43.3% -37.9% 32 -27.4% 32 1992 SEA 2-14 -41.3% -65.3% 28 -6.6% 23 2005 SF 4-12 -40.4% -56.0% 32 -12.2% 29 2016 LARM 4-12 -38.1% -38.4% 32 -27.0% 32 2006 OAK 2-14 -37.0% -45.4% 32 -12.8% 29 2004 CHI 5-11 -36.5% -50.6% 32 -8.5% 27 2010 CAR 2-14 -35.8% -40.1% 31 -20.7% 32 2010 ARI 5-11 -35.6% -46.1% 32 -8.6% 25 1997 NO 6-10 -35.6% -41.4% 30 -19.1% 30 1991 IND 1-15 -32.8% -29.0% 27 -30.2% 28 2007 SF 5-11 -32.2% -42.1% 32 -3.1% 17 2012 ARI 5-11 -30.9% -30.2% 31 -22.1% 32

On the other side of the ball, the Denver Broncos held on to finish as our No. 1 defense for the second straight season. The Broncos are only the third defense to ever rank No. 1 in DVOA for two straight years, following the 1993-1994 Pittsburgh Steelers and the 2013-2014 Seattle Seahawks. However, we had never had a No. 1 defense that ranked lower than 16th against the run. The Broncos finish the year ranked 21st against the run, but with the seventh-best DVOA ever against the pass. The difference between Denver and the No. 2 pass defense, Philadelphia, was 19.3% DVOA. That's the same as the difference between Philadelphia and the No. 15 pass defense, Cincinnati.

Meanwhile, Baltimore's stalwart run defense from the first half of the season crumbled. The Ravens not only did not challenge for the best run defense in DVOA history, they didn't even end up with the best run defense this year. In fact, the Ravens dropped to fifth in run defense by the end of the year. However, the Jets and Seahawks both rank among the top run defenses in DVOA history. Given the state of the Jets pass defense, I'm not sure why anyone ever ran the ball on the Jets with more than 1 yard to go.

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BEST PASS AND RUN DEFENSE DVOA, 1989-2016 Year Team Pass Defense

DVOA x Year Team Run Defense

DVOA 2002 TB -51.9% x 2000 BAL -36.6% 1991 PHI -48.6% x 1991 PHI -34.9% 2009 NYJ -36.5% x 1998 SD -32.9% 2004 BUF -34.7% x 2014 DET -31.4% 2013 SEA -34.2% x 2006 MIN -30.5% 1991 NO -33.1% x 1995 KC -30.5% 2016 DEN -32.9% x 2010 PIT -29.0% 2008 PIT -32.8% x 2008 BAL -28.6% 1999 TB -32.2% x 2016 NYJ -27.4% 1990 PIT -31.2% x 2000 TEN -27.4% 1992 NO -29.9% x 2007 BAL -27.3% 2000 MIA -29.7% x 2016 SEA -26.8%

Philadelphia finished the year No. 1 in special teams DVOA, with Tyreek Hill and the Kansas City Chiefs right behind. Justin Tucker of Baltimore shattered the previous record for FG/XP value, ending up worth 25.4 points more than the average kicker in similar situations. Johnny Hekker obliterated the net punting record in even more impressive fashion, with the Rams' punting unit worth an estimated 29.5 points of field position over average. We wrote about this more a couple weeks ago, but in the end Tucker broke Neil Rackers' record by more than 5 points and Hekker broke his own record from 2013 by more than 7 points. Houston had the worst special teams in the league for the second straight season.

Other interesting notes on 2016:

Of course the New York Giants would narrowly win a Week 17 game that didn't actually matter to them. Why should the consistency end just because the playoff spot was clinched? The Giants finish with a variance of just 2.5%, making them the most consistent game-to-game team in DVOA history. The previous record was 3.3% for the 1990 Los Angeles Raiders.

As noted above, the Rams had the worst single game of the year in Week 17. The best games of the year are still Pittsburgh's crazy Week 3-4 swing, with the Eagles rated 99.2% for their 34-3 win over the Steelers in Week 3 and the Steelers rated 99.4% for their 43-14 win over the Chiefs in Week 4.

Every single team that made the playoffs overperformed its Pythagorean projection based on points scored and allowed. Oakland (12-4) outperformed its projection (8.8) by the most. The most underperforming team according to Pythagorean projection was not Philadelphia but Jacksonville, which went 3-13 but was projected to win 5.8 games based on points scored and allowed. San Diego, Cleveland, and the Eagles also underperformed by two or more wins.

The Dallas offensive line, considered the best in the NFL, finished just fifth in adjusted line yards. Maybe the narrative of "any running back could succeed behind that line" isn't quite as true as people tend to believe. New Orleans was a clear No. 1 in this metric.

Our defensive stats for adjusted sack rate are significantly scrambled this year. The teams with the most sacks finished third and fifth in ASR. Seattle, tied for third in sacks, was just 10th in ASR. Cleveland was next-to-last in sacks but 21st in ASR because the Browns faced so few pass plays. Also, the ASR ratings don't necessarily resemble the pressure rate numbers in Premium Charting from our friends at Sports Info Solutions. Cincinnati, the leader in pressure rate through Week 16, was just 15th in ASR. The Giants and Dolphins had two of the best pass rushes in the league by pressure rate and were near the bottom of the league in ASR. Denver and Minnesota are better fits, ranking 3-4 in pressure rate through Week 16 and ranking 1-2 in adjusted sack rate.

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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 17 are:

HB Jordan Howard, CHI (FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS HERO): Fourth among Week 17 RB with 44 DYAR (23 carries, 135 yards).

Fourth among Week 17 RB with 44 DYAR (23 carries, 135 yards). RE Sheldon Richardson, NYJ: 3 run TFL, forced fumble, PD.

3 run TFL, forced fumble, PD. TE Kyle Rudolph, MIN: 11 catches, 117 yards, TD.

11 catches, 117 yards, TD. C Matt Slauson, SD: No sacks allowed; Chargers RB had 20 carries, 117 yards up the middle with 70 percent success rate.

No sacks allowed; Chargers RB had 20 carries, 117 yards up the middle with 70 percent success rate. SS D.J. Swearinger, ARI: 6 tackles including 2 that prevented third-down conversions, sack, 2 QB knockdowns.

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All player/team DVOA stats pages are now updated through the end of the regular season. Playoff odds, snap counts, and the premium DVOA database are also fully updated, and you'll find links to matchup pages with various DVOA splits on the front page of Standard Premium. Drive stats and pace stats will be updated by the end of Tuesday.

Vince Verhei will discuss which players had the best and worst seasons by FO stats in tomorrow's Quick Reads Year in Review. Loser League results will be announced in Scramble for the Ball Wednesday, and our Playoff Challenge game will go up on the site sometime tomorrow.

Please note that while this article is called "Final 2016 DVOA Ratings," we will continue with our unofficial postseason weighted DVOA ratings each Monday through the playoffs.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through the entire 2016 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.)

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 2015.

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 WEI.

DVOA RANK OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 NE 25.3% 2 6 14-2 34.0% 1 21.1% 2 -1.5% 16 2.7% 7 2 DAL 21.0% 1 27 13-3 24.2% 2 20.4% 3 0.8% 17 1.4% 10 3 ATL 19.6% 4 26 11-5 19.8% 4 25.3% 1 8.1% 27 2.4% 8 4 PHI 17.1% 5 22 7-9 11.7% 10 -4.2% 20 -13.5% 4 7.8% 1 5 PIT 15.8% 3 7 11-5 20.0% 3 11.1% 8 -4.7% 11 0.0% 16 6 KC 13.9% 7 5 12-4 18.7% 5 3.8% 13 -2.5% 14 7.6% 2 7 GB 12.1% 6 10 10-6 12.9% 7 16.4% 4 2.4% 20 -1.8% 20 8 WAS 9.2% 9 15 8-7-1 12.3% 8 16.1% 5 7.3% 25 0.4% 14 9 SEA 8.7% 10 1 10-5-1 4.7% 14 -2.7% 17 -10.9% 5 0.5% 13 10 NYG 8.7% 12 20 11-5 13.1% 6 -6.4% 22 -15.0% 2 0.2% 15 11 OAK 8.3% 8 14 12-4 5.3% 13 12.2% 7 4.9% 23 1.1% 11 12 BAL 5.9% 11 17 8-8 11.8% 9 -7.8% 24 -9.3% 6 4.4% 4 13 TEN 3.9% 14 31 9-7 10.9% 11 10.5% 9 5.5% 24 -1.0% 19 14 DEN 3.8% 17 8 9-7 -3.2% 21 -12.9% 28 -19.0% 1 -2.3% 22 15 CIN 3.0% 20 2 6-9-1 4.2% 15 7.2% 11 1.5% 18 -2.7% 28 16 ARI 1.7% 21 3 7-8-1 3.1% 17 -6.2% 21 -13.9% 3 -6.0% 30 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK LAST

YEAR W-L WEI.

DVOA RANK OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 MIA 0.3% 15 29 10-6 4.2% 16 0.9% 14 1.5% 19 1.0% 12 18 NO -0.4% 16 28 7-9 1.2% 19 15.9% 6 13.8% 30 -2.6% 27 19 BUF -0.7% 13 12 7-9 -4.1% 22 9.6% 10 8.0% 26 -2.4% 23 20 SD -1.0% 18 24 5-11 -6.6% 23 -3.0% 19 -6.8% 8 -4.7% 29 21 MIN -1.1% 23 11 8-8 -11.7% 26 -9.3% 26 -6.7% 9 1.4% 9 22 TB -1.6% 19 21 9-7 7.4% 12 -2.9% 18 -3.2% 12 -2.0% 21 23 CAR -4.8% 25 4 6-10 -3.1% 20 -8.1% 25 -5.8% 10 -2.5% 26 24 IND -5.1% 24 23 8-8 2.6% 18 4.0% 12 13.2% 29 4.1% 5 25 CHI -7.9% 22 19 3-13 -9.4% 24 -2.6% 16 4.7% 22 -0.6% 18 26 JAC -10.7% 26 25 3-13 -10.2% 25 -11.4% 27 -3.1% 13 -2.5% 25 27 DET -17.6% 27 13 9-7 -19.3% 29 -1.0% 15 20.4% 32 3.7% 6 28 SF -19.7% 28 32 2-14 -18.4% 28 -7.4% 23 12.1% 28 -0.2% 17 29 HOU -21.4% 29 18 9-7 -17.7% 27 -21.4% 30 -6.9% 7 -7.0% 32 30 LARM -29.0% 30 16 4-12 -37.1% 32 -38.1% 32 -1.8% 15 7.2% 3 31 CLE -30.9% 31 30 1-15 -29.9% 30 -13.8% 29 14.6% 31 -2.5% 24 32 NYJ -32.4% 32 9 5-11 -33.6% 31 -21.6% 31 4.0% 21 -6.8% 31

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. 2016 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).