by Aaron Schatz

Denver remains on top of this week's Football Outsiders DVOA ratings, and the Broncos still rank as one of the top ten teams in DVOA history despite a bit of a decline in recent weeks. Seattle remains in second place, although the Seahawks' overall rating drops after last night's narrow win over St. Louis. Indianapolis is third, with Carolina a surprising fourth and Cincinnati climbing from 11th to fifth thanks to their 49-9 drubbing of the New York Jets. Chicago climbs two spots to sixth, even on a bye week, although DVOA of course doesn't take into account the effect of injuries (or McCowns) on a team's future peformance. Close behind the Bears are three other NFC contenders, the Saints, 49ers, and Packers, and...

Wait a minute. Where the hell are the 8-0 Kansas City Chiefs?

The shocking answer is tenth place. The Chiefs drop six spots this week from fourth to tenth. Although many power rankings around the Internet will still have Kansas City in first place because they are slaves to ranking teams by win-loss record, it's pretty obvious that the Chiefs are not the best team in the league right now.

The biggest issue is schedule strength. We've pointed this out a few times this year, but the Chiefs' schedule has been phenomenally easy. The Chiefs have played only one opponent this year with an above-average DVOA, the Dallas Cowboys. If we take out the opponent adjustments and look at non-adjusted VOA, the Chiefs actually rank third in the league; the difference between the two ratings is more than 10 percentage points. Each week, as the opponent adjustments in our system become stronger and stronger, the Chiefs see their DVOA rating fall a little bit more. It doesn't help that the Chiefs have been declining a bit, with their three worst games by DVOA coming in the last three weeks. The game against Cleveland comes out as their worst of the year by DVOA, another reason for their big drop this week. In fact, DVOA has Cleveland outplaying the Chiefs this week even if we remove the opponent adjustments. The Browns gained 6.5 yards per play compared to just 4.7 yards per play for Kansas City, but were hurt by third-down efficiency (just 3-for-12) and the fact that they lost their one fumble while the Chiefs recovered theirs. Without opponent adjustments, that comes out to 19.5% DVOA for the Browns and -4.6% DVOA for the Chiefs. With opponent adjustments, it comes out to 28.1% DVOA for the Browns and -23.1% DVOA for the Chiefs.

(By the way, the Chiefs aren't the only team with huge opponent adjustments this season. Denver and San Diego have also had extremely easy schedules this season. Denver's gap between DVOA and VOA is almost as big as Kansas City's, but because the Broncos have been so good, the opponent adjustments don't knock them out of first place in our ratings.)

A couple weeks ago, we looked at where Kansas City stood among the "worst" 6-0 teams of all-time. At that point, the Chiefs weren't particularly low. However, only 14 teams since 1989 have made it to 8-0, and out of those teams, the Chiefs come out near the bottom. (Yes, one team that ranks below them ended up winning the Super Bowl, but remember that team got its best defensive player back from injury right before the playoffs.)

8-0 TEAMS, 1989-2013 Year Team DVOA 2007 NE 73.6% 1991 WAS 58.8% 2003 KC 44.4% 1998 DEN 38.8% 1990 NYG 38.1% 2005 IND 35.8% 2009 IND 31.2% 2009 NO 30.8% 2011 GB 27.7% 2008 TEN 24.0% 1990 SF 19.6% 2013 KC 17.6% 2006 IND 15.6% 2012 ATL 13.2%

(Ed. Note: This table originally left out the 2012 Falcons, but they have now been added.)

Despite the slight decline in recent weeks, the Chiefs have been one of the most consistent teams in the league, ranking second in variance. Which team comes out ahead of them? Why, it's the other team with a win-loss record much better than its DVOA rating, the 6-2 New England Patriots. The Patriots drop a slot to 13th this week despite their win over Miami, because their win over Miami has been like almost all their other games this year: slightly above average. Right now, every New England Patriots game falls in a tiny range between -3% DVOA and 15% DVOA except for the Week 5 loss to Cincinnati (-17.8%) and the Week 6 win over New Orleans (26.4%).

The idea of the Patriots as the most consistent team in the league seems ridiculous, because they seem so inconsistent from drive to drive. Nonetheless, the Patriots may not be the enigma that everyone thinks they are. The Patriots are not suddenly a bad team. They seem to be a slightly above-average team that plays most games slightly above-average. Maybe the reason the Patriots are so hard for people to judge is that their performance this year is so different from what we've come to expect from the Patriots in recent years. Their defense ranks sixth in DVOA and has been the most consistent in the league (variance of only 2.0%) despite all the injuries in recent weeks. The offense, on the other hand is just 20th in offensive DVOA (12th in variance). Even stranger, the offense is being carried in part by the running game. The Patriots rank 12th in rushing DVOA but 24th in passing DVOA.

It's hard to determine how to divy up the blame pie for Tom Brady's massive decline this year. Is his lack of accuracy related to the fact that he doesn't trust his new receivers? Is it related to age? An injury to his hand? How much do we blame the new receivers and how much do we blame Brady himself? What we do know is that Brady's year-to-year decline is one of the biggest for any quarterback in history.

For now, let's just look at quarterbacks since 1989 using DVOA ratings. After Week 8, Brady's DVOA rating stands at -16.6%. That's actually lower than replacement level, which is astonishing for a player who has led the league in passing DVOA three times and passing DYAR four times. As of right now, Brady's drop of over 50 percentage points in DVOA trails only Brett Favre's final season in Minnesota as the biggest year-to-year drop in DVOA for a quarterback with at least 300 passes in two straight seasons.

One interesting thing about this list is that very few of the quarterbacks on the list are particularly old. A huge decline like this doesn't necessarily represent the end of a player's career. It's also worth noting that most of these players did not play a full season in the year listed in our table. There's a small sample size effect going on here, even given our minimum of 300 passes. That should give Patriots fans hope that while Brady may never be the Brady of 2007-2012 again, there's at least a pretty good chance he's going to be better than this over the last half of the 2013 season.

One last aside: Since I went to look if the Chiefs were the worst 8-0 team ever, I figured I should also look to see if the Patriots are the worst 6-2 team ever. No, they are not. They aren't even in the bottom 20. But the actual list of the worst 6-2 teams ever is really quirky. The three worst 6-2 teams in DVOA history were all the Detroit Lions. They had -17.1% DVOA in 2007 (finished 7-9), -10.9% DVOA in 1993 (finished 10-6), and -8.0% DVOA in 1991 (finished 12-4). Two other teams had negative DVOA at 6-2, and both were in 1998: Atlanta at -8.0% DVOA and Oakland at -5.4% DVOA. Those teams went two completely different directions after midseason. Atlanta went on a crazy hot streak, winning its final eight games while raising its DVOA all the way up to 18.8% for the season. They finished with 30.3% weighted DVOA. Oakland went 2-6 in the second half of the season, finishing 27th in the league with -18.3% DVOA.

BEST AND WORST DVOA EVER WATCH

BEST TOTAL DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 8 x BEST OFFENSIVE DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 8 x WORST TOTAL DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 8 x WORST OFFENSIVE DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 8 x WORST SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 8 Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA 2007 NE 73.6% x 2007 NE 49.7% x 2005 SF -63.1% x 1992 SEA -49.7% x 2010 SD -19.9% 1991 WAS 62.8% x 1999 WAS 47.2% x 2013 JAC -62.2% x 2004 MIA -46.0% x 2008 MIN -17.6% 1996 GB 54.0% x 1998 DEN 40.8% x 1993 TB -60.9% x 2005 SF -45.5% x 2013 WAS -15.8% 2007 IND 48.7% x 2013 DEN 37.7% x 2009 DET -55.3% x 2010 CAR -44.4% x 1990 DEN -14.4% 1994 DAL 48.2% x 2000 IND 35.9% x 2005 MIN -54.1% x 1996 STL -42.3% x 1995 PHI -14.0% 2003 KC 45.2% x 2004 IND 35.5% x 2008 KC -53.3% x 1993 TB -40.8% x 1997 STL -13.7% 2006 CHI 44.3% x 2000 STL 35.5% x 1991 IND -52.2% x 2013 JAC -40.5% x 1996 ARI -13.4% 1999 STL 43.2% x 1992 SF 35.4% x 1996 STL -50.3% x 2002 HOU -40.3% x 1999 CIN -13.3% 2013 DEN 42.9% x 2005 DEN 34.9% x 2009 OAK -50.3% x 2009 OAK -39.8% x 1994 HOIL -12.3% 1998 DEN 41.9% x 2007 IND 34.7% x 2005 HOU -49.8% x 2006 OAK -39.2% x 1999 IND -12.1% 1990 CHI 41.1% x 1995 DAL 33.9% x 1998 WAS -49.3% x 1991 PHI -39.2% x 2000 CIN -11.8% 2009 NE 41.1% x 2002 KC 33.8% x 2000 CIN -48.6% x 2007 SF -39.1% x 2006 ARI -11.4%

I've kept these lists to 12 teams each week, but if we extended the lists by two teams each, the 2013 New York Giants would show up as 14th on the "Worst Special Teams Ever" list.

* * * * *

During the 2013 season, we'll be partnering with EA Sports to bring special Football Outsiders-branded items to Madden 25 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 standard stats. Others will be under-the-radar players who only stood out with advanced stats, including DYAR, Defeats, and our game charting coverage stats for cornerbacks. 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 Friday night.

The Football Outsiders stars for Week 8 are:

LT David Bakhtiari, GB: Limited Jared Allen to three hurries with no sacks or QB hits.

Limited Jared Allen to three hurries with no sacks or QB hits. C Alex Mack, CLE: No sacks or hurries allowed vs. NFL's best pass rush.

No sacks or hurries allowed vs. NFL's best pass rush. LE Robert Quinn, STL: Three sacks, three QB hits, and TFL. (We also assume there were some hurries, but we haven't had a chance to chart that yet.)

Three sacks, three QB hits, and TFL. (We also assume there were some hurries, but we haven't had a chance to chart that yet.) ROLB Marcus Benard, ARI: Sack, three QB hits, and two hurries.

Sack, three QB hits, and two hurries. SS Troy Polamalu, PIT (Limited Edition): Sack, INT, PD, and TFL.

Most of you are probably asking: Where is Calvin Johnson? Well, in order to provide some variety in the game, the Madden 25 folks have asked us not to choose players who have been featured as either special elite Football Outsiders stars or Madden 25 Team of the Week stars in recent weeks. This week, that prevented us from choosing a lot of players that we were considering otherwise, including not just Megatron but also Andy Dalton and Sean Lee. And of course we can't choose players who made this week's Madden Team of the Week, and this week those players include players with high DYAR like Andre Ellington, Marvin Jones, Jordy Nelson, and Kenny Stills. Other players we considered this week who didn't make the cut: Mike Tolbert, Joe Thomas, and Chris Long.

* * * * *

All 2013 stat pages are now updated or will be updated in the next few minutes, including snap counts, playoff odds, and the FO Premium database.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through eight weeks of 2013, 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.)

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This week, we say goodbye to DAVE, our method which combines 2013 performance with our preseason projections. All numbers now represent 2013 only.

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 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.

Because it is early in the season, opponent strength is at only 80 percent; it will increase 10 percent every week through Week 10. 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 WEIGHTED

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 DEN 42.9% 1 42.5% 1 7-1 37.7% 1 0.5% 18 5.6% 5 2 SEA 32.4% 2 32.2% 2 7-1 4.4% 14 -23.2% 1 4.9% 8 3 IND 26.1% 3 26.2% 3 5-2 17.1% 5 -4.4% 9 4.6% 9 4 CAR 23.5% 6 23.6% 4 4-3 12.8% 9 -9.9% 5 0.8% 14 5 CIN 22.4% 11 22.8% 5 6-2 7.5% 11 -11.0% 4 3.8% 11 6 CHI 20.9% 8 21.2% 6 4-3 17.0% 7 0.3% 17 4.2% 10 7 NO 20.5% 7 20.3% 8 6-1 17.8% 4 -2.9% 12 -0.1% 19 8 SF 20.0% 10 20.3% 7 6-2 17.1% 6 -2.1% 14 0.8% 15 9 GB 19.6% 5 19.6% 9 5-2 28.6% 2 6.1% 26 -2.8% 25 10 KC 17.6% 4 17.3% 10 8-0 -1.6% 16 -12.7% 3 6.5% 3 11 DAL 11.9% 9 12.2% 11 4-4 6.7% 12 2.1% 21 7.3% 2 12 DET 7.7% 14 7.8% 12 5-3 13.3% 8 3.8% 25 -1.8% 24 13 NE 7.2% 12 7.2% 13 6-2 -6.4% 20 -6.2% 6 7.4% 1 14 ARI 2.7% 19 3.2% 14 4-4 -14.6% 26 -17.2% 2 0.1% 18 15 SD 1.3% 13 1.2% 15 4-3 25.0% 3 22.8% 32 -1.0% 23 16 PIT -4.1% 18 -4.0% 16 2-5 -2.7% 17 0.8% 19 -0.6% 20 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 BUF -7.0% 17 -7.4% 17 3-5 -9.3% 21 -6.0% 7 -3.7% 27 18 ATL -7.7% 15 -8.0% 18 2-5 8.6% 10 15.6% 30 -0.7% 22 19 BAL -8.6% 23 -8.4% 19 3-4 -14.5% 25 -4.2% 10 1.7% 13 20 TEN -9.6% 21 -10.0% 21 3-4 -3.1% 18 -1.3% 15 -7.9% 29 21 CLE -9.8% 25 -9.7% 20 3-5 -11.4% 23 3.5% 23 5.1% 6 22 MIA -10.0% 22 -10.2% 22 3-4 -6.0% 19 3.3% 22 -0.7% 21 23 NYJ -11.2% 16 -11.3% 23 4-4 -22.1% 31 -5.9% 8 5.0% 7 24 PHI -12.4% 20 -12.2% 24 3-5 6.3% 13 13.5% 29 -5.2% 28 25 MIN -13.6% 27 -13.9% 25 1-6 -10.4% 22 8.9% 28 5.7% 4 26 STL -14.8% 26 -14.4% 26 3-5 -13.6% 24 3.7% 24 2.5% 12 27 TB -17.3% 24 -17.7% 27 0-7 -18.0% 30 -0.3% 16 0.5% 16 28 OAK -22.1% 28 -21.7% 28 3-4 -16.8% 28 1.8% 20 -3.4% 26 29 HOU -23.7% 30 -24.4% 30 2-5 -17.1% 29 -3.1% 11 -9.7% 30 30 WAS -24.2% 29 -24.3% 29 2-5 -0.4% 15 8.0% 27 -15.8% 32 31 NYG -25.3% 31 -24.8% 31 2-6 -16.5% 27 -2.4% 13 -11.2% 31 32 JAC -62.2% 32 -61.8% 32 0-8 -40.5% 32 22.1% 31 0.3% 17

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).