by Aaron Schatz

The Seattle Seahawks have finished No. 1 in DVOA for three straight seasons. Is it possible for them to make it four straight in 2015?

The idea sounded ridiculous when Seattle started the season 2-4, but the Seahawks stayed near the top of the DVOA ratings even when they were losing close games to other strong teams. The lowest Seattle has ranked all year was 12th after the 13-10 win over Detroit that was one big officiating mistake away from dropping them to 1-3. The Seahawks were back in the top 10 the following week, despite losing to Cincinnati in overtime. They've slowly climbed the ladder since, even when they narrowly lost to Carolina and Arizona. This week's dominating win over Minnesota spawned many calls of "the Seahawks are back," but according to DVOA they never really went anywhere.

With that huge win over Minnesota, the Seahawks climbed all the way up to No. 2 in overall DVOA. Right now, they trail only Cincinnati for the entire season. Even more remarkable, the Seahawks climbed ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs this week and now rank No. 1 in weighted DVOA. It helps that the Seahawks' worst single-game DVOA of the year came all the way back in Week 1 when they lost to the Rams, and that game has very little importance in the weighted DVOA formula by this point. But it's also impressive that the Seahawks have a 65.7% DVOA in the four games since their Week 9 bye.

Maybe it seems odd to have two 7-5 teams leading the league in weighted DVOA even though there's a team still undefeated at 12-0 and three teams sitting at 10-2, but that's all part and parcel of a very strange year that combines a lack of parity with what DVOA sees as a lack of historically great teams. Obviously, win-loss record says something very different about the latter, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Eight teams are far, far ahead of the rest of the league right now. In order by total DVOA, those teams are Cincinnati, Seattle, Arizona, Kansas City, New England, Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Denver. The gap between those teams and No. 9 Green Bay is 7.5% DVOA. Those same teams are also the top eight in weighted DVOA, where the gap is even larger: 12.9% DVOA separates the Broncos from the No. 9 Jets. Honestly, the true gap is even larger than that since the No. 7 and No. 8 teams in weighted DVOA are Pittsburgh and Denver -- two teams whose offensive ratings have gone up in recent weeks because of a healthy Ben Roethlisberger and a functional Brock Osweiler replacing the corpse of Peyton Manning.

Currently, our playoff odds simulation lists seven of these eight teams with at least 7.4 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh is at just 2.1 percent because there's still a reasonable possibility of the Steelers missing the playoffs. After that, the rest of the league combined wins the Super Bowl in just 5.2 percent of current simulations.

Below these eight teams, only four other teams have a DVOA above 0% right now. Do you feel like the NFL is filled with below average teams this year? Well, DVOA agrees with you. Think of that again: only 12 of 32 teams are above average for the year, although that becomes 14 teams if we look at weighted DVOA. And a look at those 12 teams show you just how big a difference there is right now between the two conferences -- or more accurately, one conference and three-fourths of the other conference. Eight of the 12 teams that are currently above average in DVOA come from the AFC North, East, and West. None of those 12 teams come from the NFC East or AFC South.

And that huge difference between this year's good divisions and bad divisions is a major reason why DVOA is still relatively unimpressed by the undefeated Carolina Panthers. You probably aren't surprised to see the Patriots dropping from second to fifth in DVOA after their upset loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. But you are probably very surprised to see the Panthers still below them; Carolina fell from fourth to sixth despite a win over New Orleans. In fact, New England's single-game DVOA against the Eagles (-21.0%) is actually higher than what the Panthers get for their win over New Orleans (-27.3%). The Panthers had three turnovers against the worst defense in the league, and averaged only 5.7 yards on first down against a defense that has allowed 6.3 yards per play on first down all season. On defense, the problem was allowing 9.2 yards per play on second downs (including a 37-yard DPI call).

Although the Panthers are undefeated, their No. 6 position in DVOA makes sense when you look closer at point differential and schedule. They have outscored opponents 373 to 243, which would normally lead to 9.0 wins rather than 12. If the season ended now, the Panthers would set a new post-merger record for the difference between wins and Pythagorean wins. Their .250 difference in winning percentage beats the 1992 Colts (.244) and the 2012 Colts (.238).

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There's also the issue of schedule. Right now, Carolina's past schedule ranked 29th in the NFL based on average DVOA of opponent. Carolina's schedule this year, both past and future, includes just one team with an above-average DVOA (Seattle). If you look below at the column for non-adjusted VOA, you will see that without opponent adjustments, Carolina comes out third in the league, barely behind Arizona and Cincinnati. Before the game against New Orleans, the Panthers were No. 1 in non-adjusted VOA.

The Panthers will still be favored in all of their remaining games by our playoff odds simulation, but this week's drop in DVOA is part of why we still have their odds of going 16-0 as just 25.9 percent. And their odds of winning the Super Bowl dropped too, from 23.9 percent last week to 19.9 percent this week, though we still have them as the Super Bowl favorites.

So if the Panthers aren't a historically great team by DVOA, what about the rest of the league? Actually, while there's a huge difference between the top eight teams and the rest of the NFL, the difference between the best and worst team is actually fairly compact. Cincinnati's current DVOA of 34.1% is below average among the teams that have been No. 1 after Week 13 during the DVOA era. On the other side of the league, San Francisco improved to -31.1% DVOA with a win over Chicago. Only three teams in DVOA history were in last place with a better DVOA rating than the 49ers: the 2001 Bills, last year's Jaguars, and the 1994 Oilers. Even more ridiculous is that the only team even close to the 49ers in DVOA is Cleveland. No. 30 Tennessee is currently at -18.6% DVOA, which means that over half the league is currently sitting with a DVOA somewhere between -2% and -20%. The only other year in history with only two teams below -20% at this point was 1994.

Things are even tighter between the best and worst teams if we specifically look at offense. In part because of all the injuries suffered by past offensive juggernauts such as New England and Pittsburgh, there's currently only one team with offensive DVOA over 20%: Cincinnati, which leads the league with 22.2% offensive DVOA. That's the lowest rating for a No. 1 offense (through Week 13) since the 2008 Broncos. The last-place Rams were the highest-rated offense to ever rank last through Week 12; after their loss to Arizona, they now rank third in that category... but San Francisco at -15.1% offensive DVOA is the highest-rated offense to ever rank second-to-last through Week 13. This is the first time ever that only two teams at this point either had offense above 20% or below 20%.

Defense is a little bit more spread out. The Broncos no longer are challenging for the title of best defense ever, but their current rating of -27.4% is tenth on the all-time list through Week 13. And there is one unit in the NFL this year that is challenging historical extremes, and it brings us back to why Carolina saw its DVOA for the year drop despite a win:

WORST DEFENSIVE DVOA EVER THROUGH WEEK 13 Year Team W-L DVOA 2015 NO 4-8 24.8% 1996 ATL 2-10 24.3% 2001 ARI 5-7 24.0% 2008 DET 0-12 24.0% 2013 SD 5-7 23.6% 2005 HOU 1-11 23.0% 2004 STL 6-6 22.9% 1999 CLE 2-11 22.6% 2004 NO 4-8 22.4% 1999 SF 3-9 22.4% 2000 ARI 3-9 22.1% 2008 STL 2-10 21.8%

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Once again in 2015, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 16 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:

RE Olivier Vernon, MIA (24-HOUR HERO): 2.5 sacks, 5 QB hits.

2.5 sacks, 5 QB hits. MLB Stephone Anthony, NO: 10 combined tackles, 7 of which were for 2 yards or less, plus a forced fumble and the first defensive two-point conversion in NFL history.

10 combined tackles, 7 of which were for 2 yards or less, plus a forced fumble and the first defensive two-point conversion in NFL history. QB Carson Palmer, ARI: Led all quarterbacks in DYAR Week 13 (356 passing yards, 2 TD vs. Rams defense ranked sixth against pass by DVOA)

Led all quarterbacks in DYAR Week 13 (356 passing yards, 2 TD vs. Rams defense ranked sixth against pass by DVOA) RT Mike Remmers, CAR: Panthers RB had 7 carries for 82 yards on the right side, plus no sacks allowed.

Panthers RB had 7 carries for 82 yards on the right side, plus no sacks allowed. RB Darren Sproles, PHI: 83-yard punt return touchdown, plus 14 carries for 66 yards.

With Olivier Vernon as our first Miami player, we've now done at least one player from all 32 NFL teams this season.

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All stats pages are now updated with Week 13 information including FO Premium, snap counts and playoff odds. You can also check out further commentary on our playoff odds report at ESPN Insider.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 13 weeks of 2015, 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. 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 WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 CIN 34.1% 1 32.1% 3 10-2 22.2% 1 -8.1% 8 3.8% 4 2 SEA 31.0% 5 37.8% 1 7-5 16.6% 5 -10.9% 7 3.5% 5 3 ARI 30.2% 6 25.5% 5 10-2 16.8% 4 -14.6% 3 -1.1% 19 4 KC 28.5% 3 34.5% 2 7-5 13.1% 6 -11.3% 5 4.2% 3 5 NE 26.0% 2 22.3% 6 10-2 19.8% 2 -2.8% 12 3.4% 6 6 CAR 23.2% 4 25.7% 4 12-0 5.2% 11 -21.6% 2 -3.6% 27 7 PIT 19.2% 9 22.0% 7 7-5 17.7% 3 -2.4% 13 -0.9% 18 8 DEN 18.2% 7 19.4% 8 10-2 -11.7% 26 -27.4% 1 2.4% 9 9 GB 10.7% 8 3.3% 13 8-4 8.2% 10 -2.8% 11 -0.3% 17 10 NYJ 8.3% 10 6.5% 9 7-5 -0.2% 14 -11.5% 4 -3.0% 24 11 BUF 6.2% 11 4.5% 11 6-6 11.8% 7 7.3% 26 1.6% 12 12 OAK 2.2% 12 4.6% 10 5-7 8.4% 9 4.8% 22 -1.5% 20 13 MIN -2.5% 13 2.7% 14 8-4 -2.8% 17 2.8% 17 3.1% 8 14 TB -3.9% 21 4.3% 12 6-6 -2.0% 15 -0.6% 14 -2.5% 23 15 BAL -3.9% 14 -5.1% 19 4-8 -5.8% 22 4.5% 21 6.4% 2 16 DET -4.8% 16 -0.5% 15 4-8 -6.1% 24 1.0% 16 2.3% 10 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 NYG -5.0% 17 -6.2% 20 5-7 -4.6% 20 7.6% 27 7.2% 1 18 WAS -5.2% 15 -2.7% 17 5-7 -5.3% 21 3.1% 19 3.2% 7 19 HOU -5.2% 22 -1.5% 16 6-6 -3.0% 18 -3.1% 10 -5.3% 32 20 PHI -6.9% 24 -7.6% 21 5-7 -12.0% 27 -4.2% 9 0.9% 15 21 CHI -8.1% 19 -4.4% 18 5-7 2.3% 12 6.2% 24 -4.2% 30 22 STL -9.8% 18 -14.5% 26 4-8 -22.7% 32 -11.1% 6 1.8% 11 23 ATL -11.6% 23 -13.8% 24 6-6 -4.4% 19 5.0% 23 -2.2% 21 24 IND -12.8% 20 -11.7% 22 6-6 -12.6% 28 0.5% 15 0.4% 16 25 JAC -13.5% 25 -14.6% 27 4-8 -2.3% 16 8.2% 28 -3.0% 25 26 DAL -15.3% 29 -14.2% 25 4-8 -13.7% 30 2.9% 18 1.3% 13 27 MIA -15.4% 26 -13.8% 23 5-7 -5.8% 23 6.3% 25 -3.2% 26 28 NO -18.2% 30 -18.1% 28 4-8 8.8% 8 24.8% 32 -2.3% 22 29 SD -18.3% 27 -21.5% 29 3-9 1.6% 13 15.0% 31 -4.9% 31 30 TEN -18.6% 28 -25.4% 31 3-9 -11.5% 25 3.2% 20 -3.9% 28 31 CLE -24.7% 31 -24.5% 30 2-10 -13.5% 29 12.2% 30 1.0% 14 32 SF -31.1% 32 -31.4% 32 4-8 -15.1% 31 11.9% 29 -4.0% 29

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).