by Aaron Schatz

Seattle's loss to Tampa Bay (covered here in Any Given Sunday) drops the Seahawks out of the top spot in DVOA and leaves us with one big smush on top of our ratings. Five teams are packed together within five percentage points, all far below any No. 1 team of years past. It all emphasizes the most important narrative of the 2016 season: there are no great teams.

Yes, there are teams with excellent win-loss records. Dallas is 10-1. New England and Oakland are 9-2. Yet there have been so many close games this year -- roughly 59 percent of games have been decided by a touchdown or less, which would be a new record -- that the difference between the league's top teams is smaller than in years past.

Our new No. 1 team is the Atlanta Falcons, thanks to a strong offensive performance against a very good Arizona defense. (That's the part of the Cardinals that hasn't imploded this season.) The Falcons are better than conventional wisdom says they are, in part because they have played the second-toughest schedule in the NFL this season. This is actually only the second week in the 27-year history of DVOA where the Falcons have ranked No. 1. In their great 1998 season, they peaked at No. 7 at the end of the regular season. The only other week since 1989 when they were on top was Week 3 of 2012. (And these may remain the only two weeks for Atlanta at No. 1, now that they've lost their best defensive player, Desmond Trufant, for the season.)

Dallas is right behind the Falcons, trailing by less than 0.5 percentage points. The two teams have very similar splits between offense, defense, and special teams. The teams switch places in weighted DVOA, with the Cowboys on top and the Falcons at No. 2. However, the Patriots would lead the league in both DVOA ratings if we removed games with Jacoby Brissett at quarterback. New England is the only AFC team in the top five, along with Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Seattle. However, given how close the top teams are, it's hard to say that the NFC is particularly dominant this season. AFC teams are ranked No. 6 through No. 9, meaning that the top 10 is half AFC and half NFC. Each conference also has a team you are probably surprised to find outside the top ten: the Giants (14th) and the Broncos (15th).

It's good that Atlanta and Dallas are on top of the NFL right now, but it's tough to overstate how unimpressive these teams are compared to the teams that led the league in years past. In the 27-year history of DVOA, there had never been a No. 1 team after Week 12 with DVOA below 30%. The 2010 Steelers were the lowest, at 30.9% DVOA. The Falcons are nine percentage points behind that. But wait, there's more. There's only one team that ever ranked No. 2 after Week 12 with a lower rating than the 2016 Falcons have at No. 1: the 1994 Steelers, at 21.3%. In 21 of the previous 27 seasons, the No. 3 team after Week 12 was rated better than the 2016 Falcons. And in 9 of the previous 27 seasons, at least five teams rated better than the 2016 Falcons.

Lest we upset the Cowboys fans, it's worth noting that Dallas is not anywhere near the lowest-rated 10-1 team in DVOA history. In fact, it was just four years ago that two different teams (Houston and Atlanta) were 10-1 after Week 12 with lower ratings than the 2016 Cowboys.

The Philadelphia Eagles are still hanging around at No. 3 even though they now have a losing record. They have played their worst two games of the season in the past two weeks, with their DVOA dropping from 30.2% to 20.3% over that time. I've written plenty in recent weeks about why our system has the Eagles rated so high, so you can read about that here and here. The Eagles do not have the best DVOA in history for a losing team through Week 12. That distinction belongs to the 2004 Bills, who were sixth at 24.6% DVOA with a 5-6 record. The 2006 Eagles (21.9%) and 1998 Raiders (21.8%) were also higher with 5-6 records. It's worth noting that these three teams went a combined 12-3 over the final five weeks of the season.

The 2004 Buffalo Bills ended the season with 31.3% DVOA, the highest rating ever for a team that missed the playoffs. The Eagles are unlikely to be good enough over the last five games to challenge that mark. However, the Eagles could challenge a couple of other records. If they go 3-2 over their last five games, they may challenge the 2002 Kansas City Chiefs (24.4% DVOA) for the best DVOA rating by an 8-8 team. If they go 2-3 over their last five games, they may challenge the 2004 Kansas City Chiefs (15.1% DVOA) for the best DVOA rating ever by a team with a losing record over a full season. Man, those Dick Vermeil Chiefs years were absurdly frustrating, weren't they?

Philadelphia's poor performance against Seattle also knocked the Eagles defense out of the No. 1 spot. The new No. 1 defense belongs to the Baltimore Ravens, followed by Denver and Philadelphia. The Ravens' ascent to No. 1 finally led me to notice something I had been missing in past weeks. I've written a number of times that the lack of great teams in 2016 extends to a lack of great units. But that's actually not true if we look at pass/run splits instead of just offense/defense splits.

Baltimore leads the league in defensive DVOA even though the Ravens are just eighth against the pass. That's because they have a mind-blowing -42.5% DVOA against the run this year. How good is that? It puts the Ravens on pace to have the greatest run defense in DVOA history, surpassing their Super Bowl-winning 2000 team.





BEST RUN DEFENSE DVOA, 1989-2016 Team Year Defense

DVOA Rk Pass D

DVOA Rk Run D

DVOA Rk BAL 2016* -18.6% 1 -4.2% 8 -42.5% 1 BAL 2000 -23.8% 2 -14.8% 7 -36.6% 1 PHI 1991 -42.4% 1 -48.6% 1 -34.9% 1 SD 1998 -15.9% 2 -1.3% 11 -32.9% 1 DET 2014 -13.9% 3 -3.0% 8 -31.4% 1 MIN 2006 -9.3% 6 3.4% 18 -30.5% 1 KC 1995 -17.5% 2 -7.1% 7 -30.5% 1 PIT 2010 -20.7% 1 -15.7% 3 -29.0% 1 BAL 2008 -27.8% 2 -27.1% 2 -28.6% 1 TEN 2000 -25.0% 1 -23.0% 2 -27.4% 2 BAL 2007 -8.6% 5 9.0% 21 -27.3% 1 SD 2000 -9.5% 9 4.5% 17 -26.6% 3 *Weeks 1-12 only

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The raw stats for this year's Ravens (3.4 yards per carry, 75 yards per game) aren't quite as eye-popping as those for the 2000 Ravens (2.7 yards per carry, 61 yards per game), but the main reason for that is the schedule. The league was very imbalanced in 2000, the year after an expansion, and the Ravens played the league's easiest schedule of opposing offenses. This year's Ravens have stiffened more on third and fourth downs, allowing a 36 percent conversion rate on runs on third/fourth down compared to a 46 percent conversion rate allowed by the 2000 Ravens. And the averages for this year's Ravens would be a lot lower without a single outlier play, an 85-yard touchdown by Cleveland's Isaiah Crowell early in Week 2. That's the only run for more than 30 yards given up by the Ravens all season. In fact, they've given up only one other run by a running back for more than 20 yards, a 28-yarder by Oakland rookie DeAndre Washington in Week 4. The 2000 Ravens didn't give up a single run longer than 33 yards.

Baltimore's spectacular run defense makes for a really interesting matchup this week with the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins are No. 3 in run offense DVOA but just 21st in pass offense. Miami has been winning with a running-and-defense philosophy. Their defense will probably have a strong game against Baltimore's No. 30 offense, but it's really going to be on Ryan Tannehill to move the ball this week. He's not going to get much help from Jay Ajayi, especially if road-grading linemen such as Laremy Tunsil and Mike Pouncey miss another game with injuries.

(Quick note: the table above shows full-season run defense DVOA rather than rating through Week 12 for past years because the big spreadsheet I have with all the ratings through each specific week does not list run/pass splits.)

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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 12 are:

LOLB Justin Houston, KC (FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS HERO) : 3 sacks, 4 hurries, PD, FF, and 7 run tackles for a combined 3 yards.

: 3 sacks, 4 hurries, PD, FF, and 7 run tackles for a combined 3 yards. WR Quincy Enunwa, NYJ : Ranked fourth among Week 12 WR with 60 DYAR (5-for-5, 109 yards, TD).

: Ranked fourth among Week 12 WR with 60 DYAR (5-for-5, 109 yards, TD). QB Colin Kaepernick, SF : Ranked fourth among Week 12 QB with 136 DYAR (297 passing yards, 3 TD vs. No. 6 DVOA pass defense; 113 rushing yards).

: Ranked fourth among Week 12 QB with 136 DYAR (297 passing yards, 3 TD vs. No. 6 DVOA pass defense; 113 rushing yards). C Maurkice Pouncey, PIT : No sacks allowed; Steelers RB had 16 carries for 67 yards up the middle with 63 percent success rate.

: No sacks allowed; Steelers RB had 16 carries for 67 yards up the middle with 63 percent success rate. LE Noah Spence, TB: 1.5 sacks, 2 hurries, FF, run TFL.

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All player/team DVOA stats pages are now updated through Week 12 of 2016. Playoff odds and the premium DVOA database are also fully updated. It looks like the "in-season trends" page of premium, which lists Weeks 1-9 vs. Weeks 10-17 splits, isn't populating yet. We'll try to get that fixed soon. Snap counts, drive stats, and pace stats will be updated later this evening.

If you've always wanted to try Football Outsiders' "Standard Premium" service, you now have a special discounted chance. A late-season subscription to Premium through Super Bowl LI costs ONLY $20. You'll get the DVOA database, the fantasy answering service to use during your league's playoffs, and the last few weeks of premium picks. Premium picks are 26-11-3 against the spread over the past three weeks (with four games too close to pick) and 30-13 straight up over that same time period (with one game too close to pick).

If you're looking for more of my thoughts on the Football Outsiders playoff odds and DVOA ratings, my playoff odds commentary at ESPN Insider will be running on Tuesday afternoons instead of Wednesday mornings for the remainder of the regular season.

We've added some more possible Super Bowls to the "Special Super Bowl Matchups" table on the playoff odds page, trying to rope in some of this year's most likely pairings with some fun nicknames. Please enjoy.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 12 weeks of 2016, 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. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

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.

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 WEI.

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 ATL 21.9% 5 21.8% 2 7-4 26.5% 2 7.4% 24 2.8% 7 2 DAL 21.5% 4 23.1% 1 10-1 27.8% 1 8.5% 27 2.3% 10 3 PHI 20.3% 2 18.7% 4 5-6 -5.3% 20 -16.3% 3 9.3% 1 4 SEA 19.2% 1 18.5% 5 7-3-1 3.1% 11 -15.1% 4 1.0% 14 5 NE 18.3% 3 20.7% 3 9-2 21.0% 3 4.7% 21 1.9% 11 6 PIT 12.9% 10 13.4% 6 6-5 9.1% 9 -4.7% 11 -0.8% 18 7 OAK 12.1% 8 10.9% 9 9-2 17.1% 5 7.8% 26 2.8% 8 8 KC 10.1% 13 11.7% 8 8-3 -1.0% 15 -3.4% 13 7.7% 2 9 MIA 9.1% 6 12.3% 7 7-4 1.5% 13 -6.5% 8 1.1% 12 10 WAS 8.8% 7 9.7% 10 6-4-1 15.8% 6 7.8% 25 0.8% 15 11 NO 7.5% 14 9.0% 11 5-6 18.2% 4 6.5% 22 -4.2% 28 12 BUF 6.7% 9 6.1% 13 6-5 9.6% 8 3.3% 19 0.4% 16 13 BAL 5.1% 17 6.4% 12 6-5 -18.3% 30 -18.6% 1 4.8% 6 14 NYG 5.1% 15 5.1% 14 8-3 -2.6% 18 -10.4% 7 -2.6% 21 15 DEN 4.9% 11 2.4% 17 7-4 -9.1% 24 -16.9% 2 -2.9% 22 16 MIN 3.7% 12 1.2% 18 6-5 -11.0% 25 -11.9% 6 2.8% 9 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK WEI.

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 SD 2.6% 16 2.6% 16 5-6 -1.7% 16 -5.7% 9 -1.4% 19 18 GB 2.2% 20 0.9% 19 5-6 6.9% 10 1.8% 17 -3.0% 24 19 TB -0.2% 23 2.6% 15 6-5 -1.8% 17 -3.9% 12 -2.3% 20 20 TEN -1.8% 21 0.2% 20 6-6 10.3% 7 9.2% 28 -2.9% 23 21 CIN -2.2% 18 -3.4% 22 3-7-1 3.0% 12 1.9% 18 -3.2% 25 22 CAR -2.6% 22 -2.2% 21 4-7 -2.9% 19 -5.1% 10 -4.9% 29 23 ARI -3.0% 19 -3.7% 23 4-6-1 -12.3% 26 -15.1% 5 -5.8% 30 24 CHI -9.3% 24 -9.0% 24 2-9 -7.0% 23 3.4% 20 1.1% 13 25 DET -12.3% 26 -10.6% 25 7-4 -0.2% 14 18.4% 31 6.4% 4 26 LARM -13.8% 25 -14.4% 26 4-7 -23.7% 32 -2.3% 15 7.6% 3 27 SF -17.1% 28 -17.2% 27 1-10 -6.2% 22 10.2% 29 -0.7% 17 28 IND -18.4% 27 -18.2% 28 5-6 -5.4% 21 18.6% 32 5.6% 5 29 JAC -19.6% 29 -20.3% 29 2-9 -15.7% 28 -0.1% 16 -3.9% 27 30 HOU -26.3% 30 -27.3% 31 6-5 -22.0% 31 -2.3% 14 -6.6% 31 31 NYJ -26.9% 31 -26.2% 30 3-8 -13.0% 27 6.6% 23 -7.4% 32 32 CLE -37.6% 32 -38.9% 32 0-12 -15.9% 29 17.8% 30 -3.8% 26

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).