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. "Last week" here refers to last week's rank in weighted DVOA, not total season DVOA.

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.

With that in mind, we had a lot of readers ask last week why we update the weighted DVOA ratings in the playoffs, but don't post total DVOA ratings that include both the regular season and the playoffs. Well, with more and more weeks of data, DVOA ratings change less and less each week. If you want total DVOA ratings for the season, you have them right here. Adding two more weeks of data really doesn't change much.

The playoff odds report is updated for the final four. Roster data is also updated, as are the scores for the FO Playoff Challenge game. (If you picked LeGarrette Blount and Keenan Allen, you're feeling pretty good right now.) You will find DVOA matchup pages for the AFC and NFC Championship games on the FO Premium page. Remember that the equation used to determine win probabilities for the playoff odds report is not as complex as the one used for FO Premium picks, so picks may differ.

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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.

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 1 SEA 45.6% 1 14-3 8.0% 10 -29.1% 1 8.4% 5 2 NE 31.5% 2 13-4 30.4% 1 7.0% 22 8.2% 6 3 DEN 27.2% 3 14-3 25.2% 3 -8.3% 9 -6.3% 28 4 PHI 26.0% 5 10-7 27.0% 2 -0.9% 14 -2.0% 24 5 SF 24.2% 6 14-4 10.1% 8 -5.2% 12 8.9% 4 6 CAR 22.8% 4 12-5 4.0% 12 -15.2% 5 3.6% 11 7 KC 22.8% 7 11-6 12.1% 7 1.1% 18 11.8% 3 8 STL 21.0% 9 7-9 -5.7% 21 -13.6% 6 13.0% 2 9 NO 21.0% 8 12-6 20.0% 5 -6.3% 10 -5.4% 27 10 SD 16.8% 10 10-8 24.0% 4 8.2% 23 1.0% 17 11 CIN 15.1% 11 11-6 1.5% 15 -11.6% 7 2.0% 14 12 ARI 12.7% 12 10-6 2.7% 13 -18.9% 2 -9.0% 29 13 PIT 7.9% 13 8-8 8.9% 9 3.6% 19 2.6% 12 14 BAL 0.6% 14 8-8 -23.9% 30 -11.0% 8 13.5% 1 15 CHI -0.7% 15 8-8 12.6% 6 17.0% 31 3.7% 10 16 DET -1.3% 17 7-9 -8.6% 24 -5.3% 11 2.0% 13 TEAM WEI.

DVOA LAST

WEEK W-L WEI OFF

DVOA OFF.

RANK WEI DEF

DVOA DEF.

RANK WEI S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 MIN -4.7% 21 5-10-1 -0.5% 17 11.1% 26 6.9% 9 18 MIA -5.3% 19 8-8 0.1% 16 0.3% 16 -5.1% 26 19 TB -5.4% 22 4-12 -7.6% 23 -4.4% 13 -2.2% 25 20 TEN -5.4% 18 7-9 4.2% 11 8.9% 25 -0.8% 21 21 NYJ -6.2% 23 8-8 -6.6% 22 0.9% 17 1.3% 15 22 NYG -6.9% 24 7-9 -24.9% 32 -18.9% 3 -0.9% 22 23 BUF -7.4% 20 6-10 -13.8% 26 -16.6% 4 -10.2% 30 24 IND -10.6% 16 12-6 -3.9% 20 6.4% 20 -0.3% 19 25 DAL -13.8% 25 8-8 2.4% 14 23.1% 32 6.9% 8 26 ATL -14.9% 27 4-12 -2.8% 19 13.4% 28 1.2% 16 27 GB -15.8% 26 8-8-1 -0.8% 18 14.3% 30 -0.7% 20 28 JAC -16.9% 28 4-12 -17.5% 28 6.7% 21 7.3% 7 29 CLE -25.0% 29 4-12 -12.8% 25 12.3% 27 0.2% 18 30 HOU -33.7% 31 2-14 -23.9% 31 8.3% 24 -1.5% 23 31 WAS -35.7% 30 3-13 -18.0% 29 -0.7% 15 -18.4% 32 32 OAK -42.7% 32 4-12 -16.6% 27 13.6% 29 -12.5% 31

There's been a lot written out there about how we ended up with the teams we all thought we were going to end up with. The big surprise of the weekend was the lack of surprises. The final four gives us four of the top five teams in weighted DVOA as of the moment, and four of the top six teams in total DVOA for the season. Seattle, New England, and Denver were the top three teams in the Football Outsiders preseason DVOA projections. San Francisco was seventh, but that was in part because of the Michael Crabtree injury, the 49ers played out as expected too: they got a little bit better once Crabtree came back.

This has nothing to do with the playoffs, but one thing that hit me when running these weighted DVOA ratings is that I had not realized how good the Baltimore and St. Louis special teams were over the second half of the season, especially St. Louis. Not that it has much to say for next year, given the year-to-year inconsistency of special teams, but that was a huge part of why Baltimore almost got into the playoffs and the Rams went 4-3 in their final seven games.

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The other item that will stand out is that the Patriots now rank No. 1 in weighted offensive DVOA, despite losing Rob Gronkowski in Week 14. The Patriots have had a consistently good but not dominating offense now for two months, though. The Pats had a season-high 74.8% offensive DVOA against Pittsburgh in Week 9, took Week 10 off, and then put up a fabulous 57.5% offensive DVOA against Carolina in Week 11. The haven't matched those two games, but they have been between 10% and 40% on offense in all seven games since. Denver, after adjusting for opponent, has actually been below that three times since midseason: Week 12 against the Patriots (-3.2%), Week 15 against the Chargers (5.2%), and then this week against the Chargers (6.2%), although obviously part of that are huge opponent adjustments based on how bad San Diego was on defense in the first three months of the season.

Here are the one-game DVOA ratings for this weekend's games.



DVOA (with opponent adjustments) TEAM TOT OFF DEF ST SEA 28% 6% -11% 10% NO 41% 39% -13% -12% NE 50% 35% -26% -11% IND -48% -32% 18% 1% SF 42% 23% -17% 2% CAR 4% -2% 1% 7% DEN 32% 6% -18% 9% SD -6% 9% -4% -20% VOA (no opponent adjustments) TEAM TOT OFF DEF ST SEA 10% 4% 4% 10% NO 4% 11% -4% -12% NE 51% 36% -26% -11% IND -47% -23% 25% 1% SF 23% 9% -12% 2% CAR -8% -6% 9% 7% DEN 27% 23% 4% 9% SD -28% 11% 19% -20%

Seattle-New Orleans ends up a bit closer than you probably expected, and New Orleans even ends up with the higher rating once we account for opponent adjustments. You may be wondering how that happened when the Saints looked so bad for most of the game. Here is the New Orleans offensive DVOA by quarter: 29.5%, -31.4%, -2.4%, and 122.7%. You may refer to that last quarter as "garbage time," but it wouldn't have been very trashworthy if Marques Colston had hopped out of bounds like a normal person and Drew Brees had managed one more big pass to tie the game.

The other three games were fairly one-sided. I'm actually a little surprised there isn't more of a gap between San Francisco and Carolina. It's a little strange that the Colts don't get more of an opponent-adjusted boost for playing the Patriots, but it's a related to the down/play combinations. For example, the Pats' offense was actually very poor running the ball on third down for most of the season, so the Colts defensive DVOA actually gets extra-penalized, not improved, on the Pats' seven third-down runs.

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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 week 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 the Divisional round are:

Keenan Allen, WR, SD (Limited Edition): Led all WR with 77 DYAR, 142 yards and 2 TD. We've been trying to find the right week to do Allen all year, so it's nice to finally get to him the last week it was possible.

Led all WR with 77 DYAR, 142 yards and 2 TD. We've been trying to find the right week to do Allen all year, so it's nice to finally get to him the last week it was possible. Jamie Collins, OLB, NE: sack, interception, run TFL, 3 QB knockdowns.

sack, interception, run TFL, 3 QB knockdowns. Dan Connolly, RG, NE: Helped lead Patriots running backs to 197 yards on 27 runs listed as middle/guard.

Helped lead Patriots running backs to 197 yards on 27 runs listed as middle/guard. Anthony Davis, RT, SF: Held Charles Johnson without a sack or a QB knockdown.

Other players we considered this week included Joe Staley, Julius Thomas, Bobby Wagner (5 Defeats), and Ryan Wendell.