by Aaron Schatz

This was a week with some big movers in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings, but not in the number one spot. Buffalo still rules the roost after a victory over Philadelphia. Below the Bills, however, we have teams shooting way up (San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Minnesota) and dropping way down (Tennessee, Tampa Bay, Houston).

The playoff odds report this week really shows the difference between the two conferences this year. The AFC has quality spread out among many teams. Nine teams have winning records, and one of the teams with a losing record (the Jets) still ranks sixth in DVOA. That's a lot of teams in contention for playoff spots. Eight different teams are listed with a greater than 50 percent chance of making the playoffs. Meanwhile, the four teams with the strongest chance to make the playoffs are now in the NFC: San Francisco, Green Bay, Detroit, and New Orleans.

I'm guessing the most controversial ratings here will be San Francisco (2), the Jets (6), Minnesota (11), and Detroit (13). So let's get into some discussion of those four teams.

San Francisco: The DVOA system loves big, dominating wins, and the 49ers certainly had one this week. That stomping of Tampa Bay lifts them all the way up from 11th to second. That being said, San Francisco had a pretty good rating even before this win. The 49ers are not going to stumble into the playoffs as an 8-8 champion in a bad division. Based on current opponent adjustments, the 49ers are one of only two teams with positive DVOA in all five games this season (Buffalo being the other; Green Bay's DVOA in Week 3 was -0.8%). They are one overtime loss away from being undefeated. The 49ers are winning big with defense and special teams, ranking second in both, and have been shockingly efficient in the passing game this year, ranking seventh in pass offense DVOA. No, I don't think the 49ers are truly better than the Packers, Patriots, or Steelers (and those teams are all higher in DAVE) but we need to be taking them seriously as more than just first-round playoff bait. On the other hand, their DVOA will probably go down as the opponent adjustments get stronger, as they rank 26th in schedule so far and dead last in schedule remaining.

New York Jets: The Jets had one big dominating win (Week 2 against Jacksonville) and actually don't score that badly the last three weeks. This week, for example, they were excellent in the red zone. They stopped the Patriots from scoring touchdowns on three of six opportunities, including an interception. Since red zone plays have a bonus in DVOA, that helps make up for giving up yardage on the rest of the field. The Jets also rank first in special teams so far. However, the specifics of when they've struggled mean they rank much lower in "estimated wins" than in straight DVOA, just 17th. The Jets are dead last in the league in offense in the second half of close games, and even their defense, otherwise excellent, is ranked 19th in the second half of close games.

Minnesota: The Vikings have one huge win and four close losses, all by a touchdown or less. They would actually be higher if not for schedule strength, where they rank 29th. One "hidden" element that's killing the Vikings is "hidden special teams," which have been worth -15.2 points according to our estimates. Vikings opponents have yet to miss a field goal, and have hit four of 50 yards or more. Punts against them have also gone extra long.

Detroit: Obviously the Lions blew the doors off the Chiefs back in Week 2, but otherwise they are leading a bit of a charmed life. Like the Vikings, they've had an easy schedule so far. Unlike the Vikings, they've had great fumble recovery luck, picking up all of their own fumbles as well as half the fumbles of their opponents. This week, their game with Chicago was the rare game where both teams ended up with negative DVOA. Chicago gets penalized for all those false starts, for example, but Detroit doesn't get a bonus because our research has never shown that false starts have anything to do with the specific defense on the other side of the field.

One thing to watch for in the future: Detroit right now is dead last in first-quarter offense, one of the elements in "estimated wins." Scoring in the first quarter helps you dictate the pace of the whole game, and if the Lions could fix that problem, they wouldn't be stuck in so many close games right now.

Now, I don't personally think Minnesota should be favored to beat Detroit if the two were to meet tomorrow on a neutral field. But DVOA is telling us that Detroit is not playing like an undefeated team right now, and the Vikings are better than their 1-4 record, and those broad differences between conventional wisdom and DVOA are much more important than the small difference between 11th place and 13th place.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through five weeks of 2011, 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.

Opponent adjustments are currently at 50 percent strength and will steadily grow stronger until Week 10. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

DAVE is a formula which combines our preseason projection with weighted 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 27 percent of DAVE for teams with five games and 40 percent of DAVE for teams with four games. Because DAVE uses weighted DVOA rather than total DVOA, Week 1 results are slightly discounted. (Weighted DVOA begins to discount results four weeks later.)

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 TOTAL

DAVE RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 BUF 33.4% 1 23.3% 2 4-1 34.7% 2 2.4% 13 1.1% 13 2 SF 30.3% 11 20.3% 5 4-1 7.8% 14 -10.0% 2 12.5% 2 3 GB 27.1% 4 22.8% 3 5-0 34.6% 3 7.8% 18 0.3% 18 4 NE 27.0% 3 27.6% 1 4-1 44.1% 1 19.2% 29 2.1% 10 5 BAL 23.3% 5 19.1% 6 3-1 -2.5% 23 -30.6% 1 -4.8% 30 6 NYJ 19.4% 10 19.0% 7 2-3 -3.7% 25 -9.3% 3 13.8% 1 7 NO 18.3% 8 16.2% 8 4-1 26.8% 4 10.7% 22 2.2% 9 8 TEN 16.5% 2 6.7% 14 3-2 18.0% 7 -0.8% 11 -2.3% 24 9 OAK 15.9% 12 7.8% 13 3-2 24.9% 5 9.6% 20 0.5% 15 10 PIT 15.6% 19 20.7% 4 3-2 12.6% 10 -1.0% 10 2.1% 11 11 MIN 15.2% 18 10.6% 10 1-4 7.4% 15 -1.4% 9 6.4% 4 12 NYG 14.2% 6 12.5% 9 3-2 13.2% 9 -1.9% 8 -0.8% 21 13 DET 13.1% 9 8.9% 12 5-0 6.9% 16 -6.9% 6 -0.7% 20 14 HOU 11.6% 7 10.1% 11 3-2 13.2% 8 4.7% 16 3.1% 8 15 CIN 8.2% 14 2.9% 17 3-2 -0.7% 20 -8.6% 4 0.3% 17 16 WAS 7.1% 15 -0.1% 19 3-1 -0.8% 21 -8.2% 5 -0.3% 19 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK TOTAL

DAVE RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 DAL 3.8% 17 -0.4% 20 2-2 2.1% 19 -5.5% 7 -3.8% 29 18 ATL 2.9% 16 4.5% 15 2-3 6.4% 17 3.9% 14 0.4% 16 19 SD -3.5% 20 3.3% 16 4-1 8.2% 12 9.1% 19 -2.6% 25 20 TB -7.5% 13 -7.5% 23 3-2 6.4% 18 19.7% 30 5.9% 5 21 PHI -7.6% 24 0.8% 18 1-4 11.0% 11 16.9% 26 -1.7% 22 22 DEN -8.5% 25 -10.1% 25 1-4 -2.3% 22 10.2% 21 4.0% 7 23 CLE -9.0% 21 -6.1% 21 2-2 -7.6% 27 7.2% 17 5.8% 6 24 CAR -11.3% 26 -11.9% 26 1-4 18.3% 6 19.8% 31 -9.8% 32 25 CHI -13.6% 23 -8.2% 24 2-3 -9.1% 28 14.2% 23 9.8% 3 26 MIA -16.9% 27 -6.5% 22 0-4 8.1% 13 22.3% 32 -2.6% 26 27 SEA -17.0% 28 -18.3% 28 2-3 -10.2% 29 4.1% 15 -2.8% 27 28 KC -20.0% 30 -17.5% 27 2-3 -4.5% 26 16.1% 25 0.6% 14 29 IND -24.2% 29 -20.7% 29 0-5 -2.8% 24 14.5% 24 -6.9% 31 30 ARI -26.3% 22 -23.7% 31 1-4 -10.5% 30 17.3% 27 1.5% 12 31 JAC -32.1% 31 -23.3% 30 1-4 -28.9% 32 0.1% 12 -3.1% 28 32 STL -40.8% 32 -29.9% 32 0-4 -20.1% 31 18.7% 28 -2.1% 23

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).