by Aaron Schatz

Once again, it is time for postseason DVOA ratings. As always, the following rules apply:

All 32 teams are ranked, whether they made the playoffs or not.

Teams are ranked in order of weighted DVOA, not total season DVOA. Since weighted DVOA is meant to lower the strength of older games, these ratings do not include Weeks 1-5, and Weeks 6-11 are somewhat discounted.

Only weighted DVOA is listed for offense, defense, and special teams. Total DVOA is also listed, but adding eight games to a 256-game sample doesn't change much.

Teams are treated as having a bye week in any week where they did not play. Since most teams haven't played in two weeks, that means some of the ratings for non-playoff teams can start getting a little unreliable. Really, this is only to be used for playoff teams, the other teams are just there for ranking comparison purposes.

DVOA, as always, takes a long-term view of an NFL team's performance. That means that the games of the last two weeks are just two games among many, so teams may be listed below other teams that they have beaten in the playoffs.

You will find DVOA matchup pages for conference championships on the FO Premium page. Snap counts should be updated as well. And if you have a team in the Football Outsiders 2017 Playoff Fantasy Challenge, you can check out your team right here. Scores should now be updated, including a fix for last week's problem with Julio Jones. (Let us know in the comments if that's still a problem, ok? Thanks.)

* * * * *

To save people some time, we remind everyone to put their angry troll hatred into the official zlionsfan angry troll hatred Mad Libs form:

<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>

If you are new to our website, you can read the explanation of how DVOA is figured here. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

There are no adjustments here for sitting starters in Week 17. The Eagles are not adjusted for Nick Foles replacing Carson Wentz, although we do adjust the ratings that we use in the playoff odds report. At this point, Foles games represent roughly 40 percent of the Eagles' weighted offensive DVOA.

Teams in yellow are still alive in the playoffs. Teams in gray lost this past weekend.

TEAM WEI.

DVOA LAST

WEEK W-L WEI OFF

DVOA OFF.

RANK WEI DEF

DVOA DEF.

RANK WEI S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK TOTAL

DVOA RANK 1 NE 35.5% 1 14-3 29.5% 1 1.8% 17 7.7% 2 24.3% 5 2 MIN 30.1% 3 14-3 14.0% 5 -18.3% 3 -2.2% 22 26.0% 4 3 NO 29.3% 2 12-6 20.9% 3 -4.4% 9 4.0% 10 28.7% 1 4 LARM 26.3% 5 11-6 13.1% 6 -6.0% 7 7.2% 4 27.3% 3 5 BAL 26.2% 6 9-7 4.4% 13 -10.0% 5 11.8% 1 18.5% 7 6 PIT 25.9% 4 13-4 25.6% 2 7.1% 25 7.3% 3 27.4% 2 7 PHI 22.4% 7 14-3 5.3% 11 -19.2% 2 -2.1% 21 24.0% 6 8 LACH 19.6% 8 9-7 16.6% 4 -9.0% 6 -6.1% 29 7.9% 11 9 CAR 15.1% 9 11-6 5.2% 12 -4.5% 8 5.5% 5 13.3% 9 10 JAC 13.0% 10 12-6 1.6% 18 -10.3% 4 1.1% 17 14.7% 8 11 SF 9.5% 13 6-10 9.6% 8 2.2% 19 2.1% 13 -8.3% 20 12 DAL 8.6% 11 9-7 2.3% 15 -1.1% 13 5.1% 6 5.4% 13 13 ATL 7.0% 12 11-7 8.6% 9 1.9% 18 0.3% 18 3.2% 14 14 KC 1.4% 16 10-7 10.0% 7 13.1% 31 4.4% 7 10.0% 10 15 DET 1.3% 15 9-7 8.1% 10 10.5% 30 3.7% 11 5.6% 12 16 SEA 0.6% 14 9-7 3.3% 14 -1.3% 12 -4.0% 25 3.2% 15 TEAM WEI.

DVOA LAST

WEEK W-L WEI OFF

DVOA OFF.

RANK WEI DEF

DVOA DEF.

RANK WEI S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK TOTAL

DVOA RANK 17 ARI -0.7% 19 8-8 -19.8% 30 -20.6% 1 -1.6% 19 -11.2% 22 18 OAK -5.7% 17 6-10 -2.0% 19 1.5% 15 -2.2% 23 -6.6% 18 19 TEN -7.4% 18 10-8 -4.4% 20 4.3% 24 1.3% 16 -8.3% 19 20 IND -8.1% 22 4-12 -9.0% 24 3.5% 23 4.4% 8 -22.4% 31 21 WAS -11.5% 20 7-9 -13.6% 28 -4.0% 10 -1.8% 20 -0.5% 16 22 GB -11.6% 23 7-9 -5.4% 21 8.3% 26 2.1% 14 -3.3% 17 23 CHI -12.2% 21 5-11 -11.6% 26 2.2% 20 1.6% 15 -15.9% 25 24 CIN -12.2% 25 7-9 1.9% 17 9.5% 29 -4.6% 26 -12.5% 24 25 TB -14.2% 24 5-11 1.9% 16 9.1% 27 -6.9% 32 -11.9% 23 26 NYJ -14.3% 27 5-11 -7.6% 22 0.9% 14 -5.9% 28 -17.3% 26 27 CLE -14.6% 26 0-16 -8.8% 23 2.5% 21 -3.4% 24 -27.2% 32 28 BUF -15.3% 28 9-8 -15.5% 29 3.2% 22 3.4% 12 -9.0% 21 29 MIA -15.8% 29 6-10 -10.9% 25 9.3% 28 4.4% 9 -19.8% 27 30 NYG -20.1% 30 3-13 -11.8% 27 1.8% 16 -6.6% 31 -22.2% 30 31 DEN -29.4% 31 5-11 -26.3% 32 -1.9% 11 -5.0% 27 -20.9% 29 32 HOU -43.2% 32 4-12 -20.5% 31 16.4% 32 -6.3% 30 -20.3% 28





Here are the one-game DVOA ratings for the divisional round. Sometimes in close games, the losing team ends up with a better DVOA than the winning team. That didn't happen this week; instead, the close games actually end up less close than expected in DVOA. Note that the blocked punt ends up as a negative for the Vikings special teams but not as a positive for the Saints special teams; that's one of those things I need to measure better when I get my next chance to update the special teams formulas.

There will be more analysis of the close games in Clutch Encounters later on Monday, and an Any Given Sunday report on Jacksonville's victory over Pittsburgh on Tuesday.