by Aaron Schatz

Now that the Arizona Cardinals have been nice enough to fall back to earth, the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings are looking a lot more like the actual NFL standings. Three of the five current 9-3 teams are our DVOA top three, and all three teams -- Denver, New England, and Green Bay -- see very little change from last week's ratings. The fourth 9-3 team, Philadelphia, is now seventh in total DVOA but fifth in weighted DVOA. And then the Cardinals... well, things haven't changed much in our numbers, which don't see their two losses as being worth much less than some of their early-season wins.

After the Packers beat the Patriots, I noted on Twitter that I expected both teams to come out of the game with positive DVOA ratings, and that's in fact what happened. The Patriots actually ended up with a higher DVOA for the game, despite the fact that the Packers gained more yards per play, 6.8 to 5.9. Slight differences add up. The Patriots had a slightly higher success rate on offense (44.4 percent vs. 42.6 percent). Mason Crosby loses more value for missing a 40-yard field goal than Stephen Gostkowski does for missing a 47-yard field goal. The Packers also get dinged for Aaron Rodgers' fumble on a sack (which he recovered himself) and Micah Hyde's muffed punt return. The numbers end up looking like this, with and without the opponent adjustments:

DVOA OFF DEF ST TOT GB 28.9% 11.3% -9.6% 8.0% NE 36.2% -0.6% -4.9% 31.9%

VOA OFF DEF ST TOT GB 27.0% 29.4% -9.6% -12.0% NE 34.5% 21.7% -4.9% 7.9%

Both teams see their overall DVOA ratings drop by less than one percentage point this week; the Patriots fall despite having the slightly higher DVOA in this game because of changes in schedule adjustments for their previous opponents. But both teams also move up in weighted DVOA because Week 1 -- when the Packers and Patriots both lost -- has now dropped to only 20 percent strength in the formula. The gap between the Patriots and Broncos is nearly 10 percentage points of total DVOA, but is less than two percentage points in weighted DVOA. Meanwhile, the Packers lead over the rest of the NFC becomes bigger when we look at weighted DVOA, and the second-best team switches from Seattle in total DVOA to Philadelphia in weighted DVOA because we're discounting that wacky Week 1 Jacksonville game where the Eagles were competely outplayed for a half.

The Patriots have been the best team in the league since Week 7. This is, of course, completely arbitrary endpoint-setting, but at least it's arbitrary endpoint-setting that has nothing to do with the Patriots. It comes from something I put together for the ESPN playoff odds report today, looking at how the Saints have improved since their Week 6 bye. Anyway, as long as I ran these numbers, I figured folks would find them interesting. Here's a look at teams with an overall DVOA difference of at least 20% between Weeks 1-6 and Weeks 7-13:

Week 1-6 DVOA vs. Week 7-13 DVOA, Biggest Change Weeks 1-6 Weeks 7-13 Team OFF DEF ST TOT Rk OFF DEF ST TOT Rk Change NE 4.0% 0.7% 2.9% 6.2% 15 32.8% -2.3% 8.8% 43.9% 1 37.6% NO 15.6% 30.1% -0.6% -15.0% 25 18.1% 1.5% 2.5% 19.2% 7 34.2% TB -24.8% 14.3% -5.6% -44.6% 32 -24.9% -13.5% -1.1% -12.5% 23 32.1% PIT 9.6% 19.6% 0.6% -9.4% 21 25.1% 3.1% -1.4% 20.7% 6 30.1% MIN -22.8% 4.1% 1.0% -26.0% 30 -3.6% -0.9% 5.9% 3.2% 16 29.1% JAC -29.6% 9.3% -4.5% -43.5% 31 -25.8% -12.7% -2.6% -15.8% 25 27.7% STL -3.3% 12.9% -4.3% -20.4% 26 -13.3% -11.3% 6.4% 4.4% 13 24.8% x x x x x x x x x x x x CHI 9.7% -2.7% -7.2% 5.1% 16 -7.1% 18.7% -0.9% -26.7% 28 -31.8% CLE 18.2% 7.5% 0.4% 11.1% 8 -21.1% -5.8% -1.8% -17.1% 26 -28.2% CAR 7.2% 14.9% -2.5% -10.2% 23 -26.4% -3.0% -10.2% -33.5% 32 -23.3% WAS 3.8% 4.7% -9.3% -10.2% 22 -21.6% 11.1% -0.6% -33.4% 31 -23.2% CIN 15.1% 0.3% 0.1% 14.9% 5 -15.1% 1.0% 7.8% -8.3% 22 -23.2% NYG -1.2% -1.4% -3.4% -3.1% 19 -11.5% 16.0% 1.8% -25.6% 27 -22.5% DAL 17.6% 1.1% -2.3% 14.2% 6 3.6% 12.1% 2.3% -6.2% 21 -20.5%

Yes, that's Carolina with the worst special teams of Weeks 7-13. And, of course, that's heavily just Week 13, where the Panthers somehow allowed two blocked punts to be returned for touchdowns. Carolina had -50.9% special teams DVOA for this game, and our system estimates that special teams cost the Panthers -15.9 points compared to an average performance. That's not quite enough to make me dig out the list of the worst special teams games ever, but I'm sure it would at least make the bottom 25. And that gets me to this question which came up in the comment thread for Quick Reads today:

Thunderbolt of ... : Once a punt is blocked, does DVOA reward/penalize special teams for recovering the ball and/or returning it for a TD? I'm not sure, but my guess is that DVOA treats a blocked punt like a fumble, where credit is given for the block but not for the recovery. But I'm not sure this is as accurate in the case of a blocked punt; a clean block will almost always be recovered by the defense, while a partial block isn't as good.

The answer to this question is that right now, I've got it in the system where the punting team gets penalized for the blocked punt based on where the ball ends up after a recovery and return, but the punt return team doesn't get any credit for what happens after the block. Honestly, that's pretty silly and is an example of one of those small things in our ratings that I probably set ten years ago and don't make sense given how we handle other things now. One of my goals for the offseason is to overhaul the special teams ratings to really segregate these special, "non-repeatable" but valuable plays like punt blocks, maybe even creating two different ratings for special teams -- one that is only for looking backwards at how well a team played that day, the other that only measures elements of special teams that are likely to tell us something about that team going forward. When I do this, I'll fix the punt blocks so they make more sense.

* * * * *

Once again in 2014, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 15 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 13 are:

* * * * *

All stats pages are now updated with Week 13 information -- or will be in the next few minutes -- including FO Premium, snap counts, and playoff odds. You can also read the new weekly playoff odds report on ESPN Insider to get more commentary on the current playoff odds.

* * * * *

[ad placeholder 3]

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 13 weeks of 2014, 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. 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.

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 DEN 34.6% 1 33.0% 1 9-3 23.8% 2 -15.3% 4 -4.5% 27 2 NE 25.3% 2 31.1% 2 9-3 18.7% 3 -0.8% 12 5.8% 3 3 GB 23.9% 3 25.2% 3 9-3 25.4% 1 0.5% 16 -1.0% 19 4 BAL 21.6% 4 24.4% 4 7-5 10.7% 9 -2.2% 9 8.6% 2 5 SEA 21.4% 6 16.4% 7 8-4 12.6% 7 -9.7% 6 -0.9% 18 6 MIA 16.4% 5 16.2% 8 7-5 10.6% 10 -9.6% 7 -3.8% 25 7 PHI 16.0% 8 20.0% 5 9-3 -1.4% 15 -8.6% 8 8.8% 1 8 KC 13.8% 7 18.0% 6 7-5 8.3% 11 0.1% 14 5.6% 6 9 BUF 9.4% 9 10.6% 9 7-5 -12.4% 27 -16.0% 3 5.8% 4 10 IND 9.1% 12 9.1% 11 8-4 4.6% 13 1.2% 19 5.7% 5 11 DET 7.2% 14 5.8% 13 8-4 -6.0% 20 -18.9% 1 -5.7% 31 12 SF 6.8% 11 4.9% 15 7-5 -4.7% 18 -16.5% 2 -5.0% 30 13 PIT 5.6% 13 5.6% 14 7-5 17.6% 4 11.5% 29 -0.4% 14 14 NO 5.3% 18 9.8% 10 5-7 17.1% 5 12.9% 31 1.2% 11 15 DAL 4.0% 10 5.9% 12 8-4 11.1% 8 7.1% 24 0.0% 13 16 SD 1.8% 16 2.2% 16 8-4 12.8% 6 10.2% 28 -0.8% 16 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 CIN 1.4% 15 -3.0% 19 8-3-1 -2.5% 16 0.7% 17 4.6% 7 18 ARI -1.8% 17 -1.9% 18 9-3 -9.9% 24 -10.9% 5 -2.8% 22 19 ATL -3.1% 20 -6.9% 22 5-7 7.7% 12 15.2% 32 4.4% 8 20 STL -4.9% 24 1.8% 17 5-7 -8.5% 22 -1.7% 10 1.9% 10 21 CLE -5.6% 19 -6.3% 21 7-5 -4.9% 19 -0.2% 13 -0.9% 17 22 HOU -8.2% 21 -6.2% 20 6-6 -3.1% 17 0.3% 15 -4.8% 28 23 CHI -10.7% 22 -14.5% 24 5-7 1.9% 14 8.6% 27 -4.1% 26 24 MIN -11.7% 23 -13.2% 23 5-7 -13.7% 28 1.5% 20 3.4% 9 25 NYG -14.6% 25 -15.3% 25 3-9 -6.3% 21 7.5% 25 -0.8% 15 26 NYJ -18.4% 28 -18.0% 26 2-10 -15.4% 29 1.7% 21 -1.3% 20 27 WAS -21.4% 27 -22.9% 27 3-9 -8.7% 23 7.8% 26 -4.9% 29 28 CAR -22.4% 29 -25.8% 28 3-8-1 -10.0% 25 6.1% 23 -6.3% 32 29 TEN -26.2% 30 -31.0% 32 2-10 -12.1% 26 11.8% 30 -2.2% 21 30 OAK -28.5% 26 -28.5% 30 1-11 -24.6% 30 4.5% 22 0.5% 12 31 TB -29.4% 32 -26.5% 29 2-10 -24.8% 31 1.2% 18 -3.3% 23 32 JAC -29.9% 31 -29.2% 31 2-10 -27.7% 32 -1.3% 11 -3.6% 24

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).