by Aaron Schatz

How much can we learn from one huge early victory?

That's the big question this week after Washington dismantled Jacksonville on Sunday, 41-10. It was a huge single-game performance according to our DVOA metric. Washington currently gets 115.5% DVOA for this game. There were only two games better than that in all of the 2013 season: Philadelphia when it beat Chicago 54-11 in Week 16 (125.1%) and Seattle in the Super Bowl (125.2%). Jacksonville is currently at -117.9% DVOA for this game. There was only one game worse than that in all of the 2013 season: Green Bay's 40-10 Thanksgiving loss to Detroit (-140.5%).

Of course, the important word in there is "currently." The 2013 single-game DVOA ratings listed in that paragraph incorporate opponent adjustments; that's a big reason why Seattle's rating for the Super Bowl was so high. The ratings for Washington-Jacksonville do not include opponent adjustments. We do not include opponent adjustments in our numbers until Week 4 because this early in the season, it is hard to tell which results are "real" and which results are "fluky." Our research has suggested that we have enough data to start doing opponent adjustments after four games. After Week 4, we do the opponent adjustments at 40 percent their usual strength, and then that goes up by 10 percent each week until we reach full strength after Week 10.

And yet, we do know there's a strong chance that Washington's rating will drop for this game. We know that Jacksonville was one of the worst teams in the league last year. We forecast before the season that the Jaguars would be one of the worst teams in the league this year, and there's no reason after two games to think that's not going to be the case. But right now, no opponent adjustments, and as a result, you will see below that we rank Washington as the No. 2 team in the entire NFL after two games, trailing only Denver. That's all about this one game; Washington was No. 22 after Week 1. Our DAVE formula which incorporates the preseason forecast is a little more relaxed about Washington but still has it at No. 13.

There is one possible way to adjust games like this for the quality of opponents even without enough data to do our usual opponent adjustments. We could adjust early games by DAVE, thus incorporating the preseason projection not only into our ratings but also into adjustments of those ratings. I've never had the time to fully set this up, in part because it would take more work than simply "use DAVE instead of DVOA" -- the opponent adjustments are different for passing and rushing, and different by down, and it isn't as simple as just "apply opponent's DVOA to team's rating to get the adjusted rating." But let's see what happens if we do that.

For each of the first two games, I simply subtracted the opponent's DAVE on the opposite side of the ball from each team's DVOA for the game. So, for example, Arizona's offense had -1.9% DVOA for Week 1. San Diego's defensive DAVE is 5.0%. Therefore, our adjusted Week 1 offensive rating for Arizona is -6.9%. Special teams don't usually include opponent adjustments, so special teams are added in with no adjustments.

The resulting numbers are not as different from the actual numbers as you might expect. Here's a look at the overall top dozen teams, both with actual Week 1-2 DVOA and with our new "DAVE-adjusted" numbers.

Rk Team Actual

Wk 1-2 DVOA x Rk Team "DAVE-Adjusted"

Week 1-2 DVOA 1 DEN 46.8% x 1 BUF 38.8% 2 WAS 40.4% x 2 SEA 36.7% 3 BUF 33.8% x 3 DEN 33.9% 4 CIN 33.1% x 4 WAS 31.3% 5 SEA 29.2% x 5 CIN 28.6% 6 CAR 26.1% x 6 CAR 26.2% 7 DET 23.8% x 7 NE 21.3% 8 ARI 23.6% x 8 CHI 19.7% 9 NE 21.5% x 9 DET 18.3% 10 PHI 16.7% x 10 ARI 17.2% 11 CHI 14.4% x 11 GB 17.1% 12 GB 10.2% x 12 BAL 14.5%

Denver takes a big hit because both Kansas City and Indianapolis are below average in DAVE. Washington takes a bit of a hit for Jacksonville, but Houston is now seen as a roughly average team so Week 1 doesn't get adjusted much. Seattle moves up a bit, and look who is now on top: Buffalo, whose two opponents each won their other game.

These changes would have even less impact on our playoff odds, because those are based on DAVE, which is currently only 25 percent based on 2014 results. Washington, to give an example, would drop from 3.3% DAVE to 1.0% DAVE. It's not much change.

Another way to try to figure out what this big early win means for Washington is to look at similar teams throughout DVOA history. Right now, Washington has 40.4% DVOA. From 1989-2013, there were 33 teams that were 1-1 with a DVOA rating between 30% and 50% -- for the most part, although there are a couple exceptions, these are teams that like Washington had one huge win in the first two weeks of the season. These teams averaged 11.8% DVOA for the entire season, finishing an average of tenth in the league, with 9.4 wins.

Only ten of these teams were coming off seasons with a below-average DVOA, but surprisingly, these ten teams didn't do any worse over the course of the next season than the other 23 teams in our study group. These teams ended up averaging 7.8% DVOA, ranking 12th in the league, with 9.7 wins.

These teams, for those curious:

The Browns went 3-13 in 1990, but in the second game of 1991 they slammed the Patriots 20-0. But that Patriots team was one of the worst teams in the league, so that win really didn't mean too much in the long run. The Browns ended the season 6-10 with a DVOA of 1.0%, 15th in the NFL.

Also in 1991, the Broncos were coming off a 5-11 year but opened the season with a 45-14 stomping of Cincinnati before losing 16-13 at the Raiders in Week 2. Cincinnati, like the Patriots, ended up as one of the five worst teams in the league in 1991. But for Denver, that win did seem to signal improvement. The Broncos ended up 12-4, though they were only 12th in DVOA in 1991.

The 1993 Packers had been 9-7 the year before but only 18th in DVOA. They beat the Rams 36-6 in the first week of the season, then lost to the Eagles 20-17. The Rams were not quite as bad as the 1991 Patriots or the current Jaguars, but they were 20th in DVOA in 1992 and 23rd in 1993. However, that big early win was an indication that the Packers had improved. Weird fact: the Packers went 9-7 for three straight years from 1992 to 1994 but finished 18th, ninth, and fourth in DVOA before finally breaking through with a double-digit win season in 1995.

The 1997 Jets were coming off a 1-15 year but hired Bill Parcells and opened the season with a 41-3 blowout in Seattle before losing to Buffalo 28-22 at home. Seattle wasn't a horrible team; it ended up 8-8 and 21st in DVOA out of 30 teams. The Jets finished the year 9-7 with 2.6% DVOA.

Washington went 6-10 in 1998, then lost their 1999 opener to Dallas in overtime. In Week 2, Washington went to the Meadowlands and tore the Giants apart 50-21. The Giants ended up 22nd in DVOA, the Cowboys ended up ninth, and Washington ended up seventh, going 10-6 to win the NFC East.

In 2000, the Saints won their division at 10-6 but actually were slightly below average with -0.9% DVOA. They started the 2011 season with a 24-6 victory at Buffalo, but lost to the Giants in Week 2. The Saints ended up losing their last four games to finish 7-9 that year, and their DVOA dropped to 21st at -8.7%.

The 2004 NFC West was the worst four-team division DVOA has ever measured. Seattle won the division at 9-7 with -2.7% DVOA, 15th in the league. The next year, of course, they won the NFC Championship. Was the early season a signal of how good the Seahawks would be? That's a strange question. In Week 1, the Seahawks had a positive DVOA despite losing to Jacksonville 26-14, even without opponent adjustments. Jacksonville recovered all four fumbles in that game, and Josh Scobee hit four field goals. In Week 2, the Seahawks had 63.8% DVOA -- again, without opponent adjustments -- but only beat Atlanta 21-18. Just giving it a cursory glance, with that one it is really hard to figure out why the system loved Seattle so much in that game. But it did, and in the long run it clearly looks like it was right about something with the beginning of that Seahawks season.

The 2005 Bears also fall into our little study group. They were horrid with -27.1% DVOA in 2004. In 2005, they lost on the road to Washington 9-7 and then beat Detroit at home 38-6. That Detroit team -- are you sensing a trend? -- ended up as one of the worst in the league, 29th in DVOA in 2005. The Bears ended up with -0.9% DVOA, 15th in the league, but somehow went 11-5 to win the NFC North.

The Eagles were slightly below average in 2005. They started the 2006 season by beating Houston 24-10 in a game that was much bigger by DVOA than by points scored. (The Eagles ended up with almost twice as many yards as the Texans.) Houston was -- here we go again -- one of the worst teams in the league that year, finishing 31st in DVOA. However, that Eagles win seemed to be a sign that the team had bounced back to their 2004 Super Bowl form. The Eagles ended up fourth in DVOA for the year and finished 10-6.

The final team in our group is the 2012 Vikings. The 2011 Vikings had gone 3-13, 29th in DVOA, in the aborted Donovan McNabb year. But the start for the 2012 team isn't really comparable to this year's Washington start. Minnesota's first two games were both very close, but the Vikings had a higher-than-you-might-expect DVOA rating for each of them. It wasn't like the other teams listed here where the season started with one huge game and one average or below average game.

Which of these teams might be most similar to Washington? I leave that to you all to discuss in the comments.

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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 2 are:

LE Calais Campbell, ARI (24 HOURS ONLY) : Sack, 3 hurries, 9 run tackles for a combined gain of just 13 yards.

: Sack, 3 hurries, 9 run tackles for a combined gain of just 13 yards. P Ryan Allen, NE: Worth 1.6 estimated points of field position. Two punts inside the 10, two more inside the 20, and the fifth went 53 yards.

Worth 1.6 estimated points of field position. Two punts inside the 10, two more inside the 20, and the fifth went 53 yards. ROLB Quinton Coples, NYJ: Sack, 4 QB hits, 2 hurries.

Sack, 4 QB hits, 2 hurries. RB DeMarco Murray, DAL: Led all RB this week in rushing value with 48 total DYAR (29 runs, 167 yards, and a touchdown).

Led all RB this week in rushing value with 48 total DYAR (29 runs, 167 yards, and a touchdown). RT Seantrel Henderson, BUF: Kept Cameron Wake without a sack or hurry.

By the way, I've noticed some questions on Twitter about why certain players are or are not chosen as FO stars. There are a few elements that go into these choices. First, of course, we need guys who had good weeks. Second, over time we want to make sure we get a good mix of positions -- including punters and kickers! -- with players from every team. Third, we can't choose players who are on Madden Ultimate Team's "Team of the Week," which is announced by the Madden folks on Mondays. Four, sometimes we specifically leave room to add a player from Monday's game and sometimes we don't. (That's part of why there's no Darren Sproles this week.) And finally, sometimes we can't choose certain players because there currently isn't room to offer new, higher-rated editions of those players without messing up the balance of the game. So if you ask "why didn't Football Outsiders pick Player X," the answer will usually be one of those five reasons.

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All stats pages are now updated with 2014 data! That includes for the first time offensive lines, defensive lines, and defense vs. receivers, plus the FO Premium database. Snap counts and playoff odds are also fully updated.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through two 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 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 called DVOA below because I honestly didn't feel like going through and changing all the tables manually this year. You folks know what's up, anyway.) 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 75 percent of DAVE.

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>