by Aaron Schatz

We went through a large part of the year worrying about how our ratings looked when an undefeated Green Bay team wasn't at number one. Turns out that we were worrying for no reason. Green Bay didn't end up undefeated, and they eventually ascended to the top spot in DVOA nonetheless. In fact, the Packers end the year with a reasonable lead, more than five percentage points ahead of No. 2 Pittsburgh. Still, as we've noted all season, the Packers are not a historically great team. They just happen to be the best team this year. The Packers' final DVOA of 28.3% is the second-lowest ever for a team that finished at No. 1, behind only the 1993 San Francisco 49ers (25.6%).

The Packers also don't finish the year as the hottest team in the league. That would be the New Orleans Saints, who moved into the top spot in weighted DVOA this week. New Orleans has single-game DVOA ratings above 35% in five of their last six games, and ratings above 60% in three of those last six. Pittsburgh is second in weighted DVOA, followed by Green Bay and New England. The really hot teams, the teams with a big difference between total DVOA and weighted DVOA, were Seattle and Philadelphia, and they didn't make the playoffs.

One of the interesting things about 2011 is how similar it was to 2010. Although some different teams made the playoffs, and ratings were more condensed than last year, most of the top teams were the same. Eight of the top ten teams in 2010 are once again in the top ten in 2011. That includes a couple of teams that DVOA seems to particularly like, the Jets and Eagles. In addition, 11 of the top 13 teams are the same in both years. The teams that dropped out of the top 13 were San Diego and Tampa Bay. No team went from the top ten in 2010 to the bottom ten in 2011, and only San Francisco (just barely) went from the bottom 10 last year to the top 10 this year.

From 2001-2010, the year-to-year correlation of total DVOA was .526. For 2010-2011, it was .622. This actually isn't the highest year-to-year correlation between two recent years. The correlation between 2008 and 2009 was ridiculous, .744. However, part of the reason the correlation was higher for 2008-2009 is that ratings were higher and lower at the extremes in those seasons (especially at the low extreme). If we look at the correlation between a team's rank 1-32 in one year and its rank 1-32 the next year, the correlation in 2010-2011 is the highest ever at .673. Here's a look at the year-to-year correlation of DVOA ratings (not rankings) since 2000:

Years DVOA

Correlation 08-09 0.744 01-02 0.634 10-11 0.622 02-03 0.591 06-07 0.525 04-05 0.522 05-06 0.501 07-08 0.497 00-01 0.485 09-10 0.418 03-04 0.405

This year's higher level of parity also played out in the individual games each week, as we didn't have a lot of spectacular individual game performances this year. This year there were only three games with DVOA over 100%. The highest was Houston at 119.1% when they dismantled Tennessee 41-7 in Week 7. Baltimore got 113.0% for its turnoverfest over Pittsburgh in Week 1. And the Eagles get 100.4% for their 45-19 win over the Jets in Week 15. There was only one game under -100% this year, as Washington gets -107.7% for its 23-0 loss to Buffalo in Week 8. By comparison, 2010 had seven games over 100% and nine games under 100%.

I know that a lot of people will look at this year's tables and think something is wrong with opponent adjustments. All the top teams played easy schedules this year, and the top six teams all have schedules in the bottom seven. However, this is a one-year fluke. Look back at 2010 and you'll notice that last year four of the top six teams actually played top ten schedules.

Like last year, I'm going to go through and show where the teams and players of 2011 fit historically -- at least as far as the regular season goes. Note that all these historical rankings come with a bit of an asterisk. One of the first projects I'm planning for the offseason is an update of DVOA that will normalize the ratings so every season averages out at 0%. This will adjust for the big uptick in offensive numbers in recent years, which is likely to move more seasons from 1992-2003 into the various top ten rankings. We may run updated "best ever" lists this summer once we've done the new normalized DVOA and added 1991 to our database. (That's another one of my February projects.)

Teams

Although the Packers aren't a historically great team, they are a historically great offense. So are the Saints and the Patriots. Here's where they finish up on the all-time DVOA lists:

BEST TOTAL OFFENSE DVOA

1992-2011 BEST PASS OFFENSE DVOA

1992-2011 NE 2010 46.1% x NE 2007 75.4% NE 2007 45.2% x GB 2011 73.2% GB 2011 39.2% x NE 2010 72.5% KC 2002 38.0% x IND 2004 69.1% NO 2011 37.8% x SD 2009 63.7% NE 2011 36.8% x NE 2011 60.7% IND 2004 33.2% x NE 2009 57.0% KC 2004 32.9% x IND 2006 56.9% KC 2003 32.2% x NO 2011 55.8% DEN 1998 30.8% x SD 2008 54.9%

The Carolina Panthers set a new record for the largest year-to-year improvement in offensive DVOA, and they set it by leaps and bounds. The Panthers were dead last in 2010 at -31.9%. This year, they rank fourth at 23.0%. That's an increase of 54.9%. There is only one other team that has ever improved its offense by 40% DVOA in one season: the 1998-1999 Raiders, who went from -28.1% DVOA to 15.2% DVOA.

The Panthers also set a new record with the best running game in DVOA history, thanks to adding Cam Newton to their running back tandem of DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. The Panthers led the league with 36.0% rushing DVOA. The previous record was 34.4% by the 2000 St. Louis Rams, followed by the 2002 Kansas City Chiefs at 32.0%.

Defenses were neither historically great nor historically terrible this year. Baltimore leads the league at -13.7%, only the second team to lead the league with defensive DVOA above 18%. (The other: the 2007 Titans at -13.3%.) Carolina edges out Tampa Bay and New England to rank as this year's worst defense, but it isn't close to the all-time worst. At one point it looked like Jacksonville and Houston were challenging for the title of "best year-to-year defensive improvement," but both teams declined a little bit on defense in the final weeks.

Chicago ends up with this year's best special teams at 7.3%. Finally, Atlanta ends up with a variance of 4.6%, which makes the Falcons the most consistent week-to-week team in DVOA history. Amazingly, the second most consistent week-to-week team in DVOA history was last year's Falcons at 4.9%.

Players

We'll be running a season-review version of Quick Reads on Thursday, so for now let's just go through players who set records rather than listing all the best and worst players at every position.

Just like the pass offense ratings for teams were historically great, so too were the passing DVOA and DYAR numbers for the top three quarterbacks. The difference in FO stats is the same difference that's going to be discussed when it comes to the MVP race: Which is more important for a quarterback, quality or quantity? Not that Drew Brees' season wasn't filled with quality, but he threw far more passes than Aaron Rodgers. Brees finishes fifth all-time in pass attempts (he has four of the top nine seasons) and his DVOA and DYAR are based on 138 more pass plays than Rodgers' ratings. So Brees ends up with 2,544 passing DYAR, the second highest total we've ever measured, but he finishes second to Rodgers in DVOA. Here's how the three quarterbacks end up on the all-time lists. I've limited the DVOA list here to quarterbacks with at least 400 passes so we're not listing guys who had a smaller sample but still enough passes to make the FO yearly rankings, such as Boomer Esiason (53.6% DVOA on 197 passes in 1997) and Wade Wilson (55.3% DVOA on 169 passes in 1992).

Top 11 Passing DVOA, 1992-2011

(min. 400 passes) Top 10 Passing DYAR, 1992-2011 Year Player Team DVOA Year Player Team DYAR 2004 P.Manning IND 60.6% x 2007 T.Brady NE 2,788 2007 T.Brady NE 56.9% x 2011 D.Brees NO 2,544 2010 T.Brady NE 53.3% x 2004 P.Manning IND 2,493 2011 A.Rodgers GB 52.6% x 2006 P.Manning IND 2,308 2006 P.Manning IND 51.0% x 2011 A.Rodgers GB 2,268 2009 P.Rivers SD 45.9% x 2011 T.Brady NE 2,235 2011 D.Brees NO 44.5% x 2009 T.Brady NE 2,170 2009 T.Brady NE 44.2% x 2010 T.Brady NE 2,137 1998 R.Cunningham MIN 42.9% x 2009 P.Manning IND 1,936 2011 T.Brady NE 41.0% x 2004 D.Culpepper MIN 1,929 2009 D.Brees NO 41.0%

Blaine Gabbert, with -825 passing DYAR, finishes with the fifth worst season we've ever measured in that stat.

Pierre Thomas led the league with 32.6% rushing DVOA, which is the third highest rating ever for a running back with at least 100 carries, behind Marshall Faulk (35.0% in 2000) and Jamaal Charles (33.9% in 2010). LeSean McCoy led the league in rushing DYAR.

Calvin Johnson had a huge 122 DYAR week in Week 17, which rocketed him past Wes Welker and into this year's top spot for wide receiver DYAR. In fact, Johnson's huge final week puts him into historic company, because it also rocketed him past Jerry Rice, Marvin Harrison, and Randy Moss. Johnson's 586 receiving DYAR are the second highest total we've ever measured, behind only Michael Irvin's 636 DYAR in 1995. Jordy Nelson finishes second for the season with 530 DYAR and ends up with 54.1% receiving DVOA. That's not technically the record, but it is a record for players with more than 60 pass targets. Our rankings for wide receivers start at 50 pass targets, and there was one wide receiver who had a higher DVOA on exactly 50 targets: Dennis Northcutt with 61.0% DVOA in 2002. However, no wide receiver had ever put up 50% receiving DVOA on more than 60 pass targets. In fact, this year we get three of the five highest wide receiver DVOAs with a minimum of 60 passes, as Malcom Floyd and Laurent Robinson also had great seasons with smaller sample sizes. (Floyd was injured for a few weeks; Robinson was the third option in Dallas.) Here is where everyone ends up in the record books:

Top 10 WR DYAR, 1992-2011 Top 10 WR DVOA, 1992-2011

(min. 60 passes) Year Player Team DYAR Year Player Team DVOA Passes 1995 M.Irvin DAL 636 x 2011 J.Nelson GB 54.1% 96 2011 C.Johnson DET 586 x 2011 M.Floyd SD 51.9% 70 2007 R.Moss NE 569 x 1993 J.Taylor SF 49.7% 74 1995 J.Rice SF 550 x 2010 M.Wallace PIT 48.8% 98 1994 J.Rice SF 545 x 2011 L.Robinson DAL 43.1% 80 2001 M.Harrison IND 537 x 2002 J.Porter OAK 41.5% 70 2011 J.Nelson GB 530 x 2009 R.Meachem NO 39.2% 64 2006 M.Harrison IND 510 x 1998 E.Moulds BUF 38.9% 116 2005 S.Smith CAR 497 x 2009 V.Jackson SD 38.7% 109 2004 R.Wayne IND 496 x 2004 R.Wayne IND 38.0% 115

Finally, tight ends. Rob Gronkowski absolutely destroyed the previous record for receiving DYAR by a tight end with 505 DYAR. The previous record was 371 DYAR by Antonio Gates last year, when he played only ten games. The difference between Gronkowski's total and the previous record is equal to the difference between the previous record and the season now ranked 21st all-time, which is Tony Gonzalez's 237 DYAR this season. Between Gronkowski and Gonzalez are two other tight ends who make the all-time top ten in receiving DYAR. Jimmy Graham finishes with 331 DYAR, which is fourth all-time. Antonio Gates finishes with 287 receiving DYAR, which is ninth all-time. Gates has four of the top nine tight end seasons, and five of the top 11.

Gronk doesn't get onto the all-time tight end DVOA top ten because the minimum number of passes to be ranked as a tight end is 25, and there are a number of tight ends who had 25-40 passes and DVOA ratings in the 50s and 60s (including Gronkowski himself last year). However, no tight end with at least 80 passes has ever come close to Gronk's 52.0% DVOA. The next-highest would be Gates with 38.4% DVOA in 2009.

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All team and individual stats pages should be updated in the next few minutes after this article posts. FO Premium will be updated with final 2011 ratings later today, and there are already matchup views available so you can check out how the wild card games match up. We'll get all the 2011 stats onto the player pages sometime in the next few weeks, as well as updated similarity scores based on 2009-2011 rather than 2008-2010. Loser League results will be announced in Scramble for the Ball on Wednesday, and look for a brand new playoff fantasy game on FO coming this evening.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through the end of the 2011 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.)

Please note that ratings may change in the future as we get a chance to incorporate stat changes from throughout the season.

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 is adjusted so that earlier games in the season become gradually less important. It better reflects how well the team is playing right now. LAST WEEK represents rank after Week 16, while LAST YEAR represents rank in 2010.

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 LAST

YEAR W-L WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 GB 28.3% 1 3 15-1 26.1% 3 39.2% 1 12.6% 24 1.6% 8 2 PIT 23.7% 2 2 12-4 29.9% 2 16.3% 6 -5.8% 7 1.6% 9 3 NO 23.3% 5 10 13-3 30.1% 1 37.8% 2 15.0% 28 0.6% 13 4 NE 22.5% 3 1 13-3 23.7% 4 36.8% 3 17.9% 30 3.7% 5 5 HOU 19.4% 4 13 10-6 17.2% 7 13.3% 9 -5.2% 8 0.9% 12 6 SF 19.0% 6 23 13-3 16.1% 8 1.6% 18 -10.3% 3 7.0% 2 7 BAL 17.2% 7 4 12-4 14.8% 9 8.2% 13 -13.7% 1 -4.7% 30 8 ATL 15.5% 9 8 10-6 19.5% 6 10.3% 12 -6.2% 6 -1.0% 22 9 NYJ 14.2% 8 6 8-8 9.9% 11 -2.7% 21 -11.9% 2 5.0% 4 10 PHI 14.1% 10 5 8-8 22.9% 5 14.3% 8 0.3% 12 0.1% 18 11 DET 11.6% 11 18 10-6 14.5% 10 11.8% 10 -4.0% 9 -4.3% 29 12 NYG 9.0% 13 9 9-7 4.8% 16 15.6% 7 6.9% 20 0.3% 16 13 TEN 7.2% 12 11 9-7 5.0% 15 6.0% 15 4.2% 15 5.5% 3 14 DAL 4.4% 14 24 8-8 3.9% 17 10.8% 11 4.8% 16 -1.6% 25 15 CHI 1.8% 15 16 8-8 -0.1% 20 -15.7% 30 -10.2% 4 7.3% 1 16 SD 0.6% 20 7 8-8 6.3% 13 17.7% 5 15.9% 29 -1.2% 23 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK LAST

YEAR W-L WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 CIN 0.5% 18 19 9-7 0.3% 18 3.9% 17 5.4% 17 2.0% 7 18 MIA -0.4% 19 14 6-10 5.6% 14 -2.2% 20 0.3% 11 2.2% 6 19 SEA -0.7% 16 30 7-9 8.7% 12 -4.1% 22 -3.1% 10 0.2% 17 20 CAR -2.4% 17 31 6-10 0.1% 19 23.0% 4 20.1% 32 -5.4% 32 21 WAS -5.9% 21 27 5-11 -6.6% 21 -2.1% 19 2.8% 14 -1.0% 21 22 OAK -6.8% 22 21 8-8 -10.8% 25 7.6% 14 13.7% 26 -0.7% 20 23 BUF -8.2% 23 28 6-10 -25.3% 28 5.5% 16 12.3% 23 -1.3% 24 24 DEN -11.0% 24 26 8-8 -8.8% 23 -5.1% 23 6.4% 19 0.5% 15 25 CLE -12.9% 25 20 4-12 -10.0% 24 -6.3% 25 8.0% 21 1.4% 10 26 KC -15.7% 26 17 7-9 -8.1% 22 -14.2% 29 0.9% 13 -0.7% 19 27 JAC -16.6% 27 22 5-11 -13.5% 26 -21.4% 31 -6.6% 5 -1.8% 26 28 ARI -18.9% 28 32 8-8 -15.4% 27 -13.7% 28 6.4% 18 1.1% 11 29 MIN -21.2% 30 25 3-13 -33.0% 30 -5.2% 24 12.7% 25 -3.3% 27 30 TB -25.0% 29 12 4-12 -38.4% 32 -6.7% 26 18.8% 31 0.6% 14 31 IND -32.0% 31 15 2-14 -30.9% 29 -12.5% 27 14.3% 27 -5.2% 31 32 STL -35.5% 32 29 2-14 -34.1% 31 -22.8% 32 8.7% 22 -4.0% 28

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. WEIGHTED DVOA is adjusted so that earlier games in the season become gradually less important. It better reflects how the team was playing at the end of the season.

is adjusted so that earlier games in the season become gradually less important. It better reflects how the team was playing at the end of the season. 2011 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. Please note that for 2011, Pythagorean wins uses the new "Pythagenport" method where the projection takes into account the "offensive environment" that each team played in, rather than just using the same exponent to project for each team.

represent a projection of the team's expected wins based solely on points scored and allowed. Please note that for 2011, Pythagorean wins uses the new "Pythagenport" method where the projection takes into account the "offensive environment" that each team played in, rather than just using the same exponent to project for each team. 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).

TEAM TOTAL

DVOA W-L NON-ADJ

TOT VOA ESTIM.

WINS RANK 2011

SCHED RANK PYTH

WINS RANK VAR. RANK 1 GB 28.3% 15-1 28.3% 12.6 1 -2.7% 28 12.2 3 6.7% 4 2 PIT 23.7% 12-4 24.2% 11.4 4 -3.0% 29 11.1 6 13.9% 16 3 NO 23.3% 13-3 24.7% 11.6 3 -4.2% 31 12.4 1 14.2% 18 4 NE 22.5% 13-3 24.6% 11.8 2 -1.4% 26 11.9 4 9.5% 7 5 HOU 19.4% 10-6 25.1% 10.2 8 -3.6% 30 10.9 7 15.7% 20 6 SF 19.0% 13-3 22.6% 10.3 7 -4.2% 32 12.3 2 6.2% 2 7 BAL 17.2% 12-4 16.9% 10.9 5 -0.1% 21 11.2 5 23.3% 31 8 ATL 15.5% 10-6 14.1% 10.5 6 0.2% 17 9.4 10 4.6% 1 9 NYJ 14.2% 8-8 12.7% 8.8 12 1.1% 13 8.4 15 19.8% 27 10 PHI 14.1% 8-8 13.7% 9.2 10 1.3% 11 9.8 9 17.4% 24 11 DET 11.6% 10-6 14.1% 9.4 9 0.3% 16 10.1 8 9.5% 6 12 NYG 9.0% 9-7 4.8% 9.1 11 4.3% 3 7.8 19 15.8% 21 13 TEN 7.2% 9-7 11.5% 8.6 15 -2.4% 27 8.2 17 16.6% 22 14 DAL 4.4% 8-8 6.6% 8.7 14 0.1% 19 8.6 13 12.7% 13 15 CHI 1.8% 8-8 2.1% 7.9 18 1.8% 9 8.3 16 14.9% 19 16 SD 0.6% 8-8 4.5% 7.6 19 -0.7% 23 8.7 11 20.8% 28 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA W-L NON-ADJ

TOT VOA ESTIM.

WINS RANK 2011

SCHED RANK PYTH

WINS RANK VAR. RANK 17 CIN 0.5% 9-7 4.5% 8.7 13 0.7% 14 8.6 12 7.0% 5 18 MIA -0.4% 6-10 -2.8% 8.2 16 3.3% 6 8.5 14 10.4% 11 19 SEA -0.7% 7-9 0.1% 8.2 17 -0.8% 24 8.2 18 16.9% 23 20 CAR -2.4% 6-10 -3.1% 7.6 20 -0.9% 25 7.4 20 19.5% 25 21 WAS -5.9% 5-11 -13.4% 7.1 24 0.3% 15 5.7 25 11.3% 12 22 OAK -6.8% 8-8 -3.2% 7.5 21 0.2% 18 6.1 23 19.7% 26 23 BUF -8.2% 6-10 -8.2% 7.2 23 3.8% 4 6.4 22 29.3% 32 24 DEN -11.0% 8-8 -9.1% 7.3 22 1.2% 12 5.8 24 9.7% 8 25 CLE -12.9% 4-12 -9.1% 6.8 25 -0.1% 20 5.0 28 6.3% 3 26 KC -15.7% 7-9 -17.3% 6.5 26 1.7% 10 4.1 29 21.5% 29 27 JAC -16.6% 5-11 -14.6% 5.9 27 2.8% 7 5.3 26 13.7% 15 28 ARI -18.9% 8-8 -14.6% 5.9 28 -0.5% 22 6.9 21 9.9% 9 29 MIN -21.2% 3-13 -21.5% 5.3 30 3.3% 5 5.3 27 14.0% 17 30 TB -25.0% 4-12 -31.5% 5.4 29 7.9% 1 3.2 30 22.8% 30 31 IND -32.0% 2-14 -35.5% 3.9 31 2.7% 8 3.2 31 13.4% 14 32 STL -35.5% 2-14 -42.3% 3.7 32 7.5% 2 2.3 32 9.9% 10

(Note: Although this post is titled "Final DVOA Ratings," unofficial postseason ratings will continue each Monday through the playoffs.)