by Aaron Schatz

Houston stays on top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings this week. That's not much of a shock since they didn't play this week. Green Bay remains at number two, but falls back a bit after a close game with Tampa Bay. Obviously you can't fully judge teams based solely on how they played against a single shared opponent, but it's interesting to note that Tampa Bay has now played three of the top teams in the league this year, and they played the Packers closest. They got clobbered in San Francisco by 45 points. They lost to Houston at home by 28 points. But they only lost in Green Bay by nine.

I've got a little graph to help show people why Houston has a higher DVOA rating than Green Bay, and why despite this it is perfectly legitimate to say that Green Bay is better than Houston. The graph below shows the week-to-week single-game DVOA for both teams this year. You can see that Houston has absolutely been on fire in its last four games, starting with the 41-7 whipping of Tennessee in Week 7. However, Green Bay has been really consistent this year. This week's Tampa Bay game was Green Bay's lowest DVOA of the year, and the Packers have been above 0% in all ten games.

Green Bay also is far ahead of the league in the "estimated wins" statistic. Estimated wins uses a formula that gives extra consideration to consistency as well as certain splits of DVOA that correlate strongly with a team winning more games. Estimated wins suggests how many wins a team would have if it played an average schedule with average luck. Green Bay is number one in the league in DVOA on both offense and defense in the second half of close games (score within a touchdown). The Packers are also third in first-quarter offense. All that means that Green Bay has 8.3 estimated wins. Houston and New England are tied for second with 7.3 apiece. However, it is worth noting that total DVOA and weighted DVOA have a stronger correlation with future performance than estimated wins, which is why the main ranking of teams here is in DVOA and not estimated wins.

I will admit that the chances of Green Bay going 16-0 in our playoff odds report seem a little low, only around five percent. Upsets happen all the time in the NFL, but I probably should look in the offseason to make sure our equation isn't expecting upsets to happen a little too much.

I've written numerous times about how Green Bay, while a great team, is not an "all-time great" team. The opposite is also true this year. The Indianapolis Colts, although bad and threatening to go 0-16, are not an all-time horrible team. The current Colts DVOA of -43.7% does not even qualify as one of the ten worst DVOA ratings we've ever measured through Week 11. The worst DVOA ever through Week 11 belonged to the 2-7 Tampa Bay Bucs of 1993, at -61.3%. That team gets a bit of an asterisk, since that was the year of two bye weeks and the team had played only nine games. They won their tenth game and their DVOA improved significantly. The worst team we've ever measured through ten games, regardless of week, would be the 2-8 2005 San Francisco 49ers at -60.1%.

A couple of other notes about teams and players on historic pace:

The Chicago Bears' current special teams DVOA of 10.6% is the best ever for a team through Week 11. The previous record was 10.2% by the 2004 Buffalo Bills. The highest all-time final special teams DVOA is 10.0% by the 2002 New Orleans Saints. The 2007 Bears at 9.5% were the only other team to ever finish above 9.0%.

New England tight end Rob Gronkowski (294 DYAR) is on pace to break the all-time record for most DYAR in a season by a tight end. This one comes with a bit of an asterisk. The record was set last year by Antonio Gates, with 371 DYAR. But Gates did that in only ten games before an injury ended his season. So while Gronkowski's current pace would give him 470 receiving DYAR over 16 games, easily passing Gates for the record, we really should be comparing Gronkowski's current numbers to Gates' 2010 season. In that case Gronkowski falls short. Gronkowski's current DVOA of 47.5% is the second-highest DVOA rating ever for a tight end with at least 60 passes. Only three different tight ends with at least 60 passes have ever put up DVOA above 40%: Gronkowski if he continues his current pace, Mark Chmura with 46.6% in 1995, and Antonio Gates with -- this is not a misprint -- 79.5% in 2010.

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All individual stats, team stats, and playoff odds report now updated. The playoff odds report this week has two different versions. One version is the normal version based on weighted DVOA. The second version tries to estimate the effect of the injuries to Matt Cassel, Jay Cutler, and Matt Schaub. I've reduced the weighted DVOA for each of those teams by 13.3%, which is a rough estimate of the difference between an average quarterback and a replacement-level quarterback. Obviously, those guys aren't necessarily average quarterbacks -- Schaub is above-average, Cassel below -- the quality of teammates means that Tyler Palko and Matt Leinart probably won't play at precisely replacement level either. (Palko was worse, starting with last night, and I'm assuming Leinart will be better. Actually, Palko may turn into Kyle Orton before the week is over.)

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 11 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. 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.

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 HOU 33.9% 1 35.9% 1 7-3 24.8% 3 -8.8% 7 0.3% 16 2 GB 27.6% 2 26.8% 2 10-0 37.9% 1 12.6% 27 2.3% 10 3 NE 24.1% 4 24.3% 3 7-3 31.1% 2 9.4% 22 2.3% 8 4 SF 23.3% 5 23.5% 4 9-1 2.8% 19 -12.3% 3 8.2% 2 5 NYJ 22.6% 3 22.1% 7 5-5 1.7% 21 -16.0% 2 4.9% 3 6 CHI 19.6% 9 22.2% 6 7-3 -0.9% 22 -9.9% 6 10.6% 1 7 PIT 19.4% 7 22.2% 5 7-3 18.1% 5 -0.5% 11 0.8% 13 8 NYG 18.1% 8 18.7% 8 6-4 16.8% 6 -1.0% 10 0.4% 15 9 BAL 16.1% 6 15.3% 10 7-3 2.7% 20 -18.3% 1 -5.0% 29 10 ATL 15.8% 11 16.5% 9 6-4 7.9% 11 -6.5% 8 1.4% 11 11 NO 14.5% 12 12.6% 12 7-3 24.8% 4 9.6% 23 -0.7% 21 12 DAL 11.8% 10 12.3% 13 6-4 13.2% 8 -0.3% 12 -1.7% 25 13 DET 10.9% 14 10.9% 14 7-3 5.1% 17 -12.1% 4 -6.3% 30 14 PHI 10.8% 15 12.7% 11 4-6 12.4% 9 2.8% 14 1.3% 12 15 TEN 7.5% 13 5.0% 16 5-5 10.4% 10 5.5% 17 2.7% 7 16 CIN 6.6% 16 6.6% 15 6-4 7.3% 13 3.6% 16 2.9% 6 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 MIA 0.0% 19 1.3% 17 3-7 3.1% 18 3.1% 15 0.0% 18 18 OAK -1.3% 18 -3.0% 18 6-4 6.6% 14 6.9% 20 -1.0% 22 19 DEN -6.1% 22 -4.4% 19 5-5 -2.2% 23 6.3% 18 2.3% 9 20 BUF -6.1% 17 -11.5% 21 5-5 7.3% 12 11.6% 26 -1.8% 26 21 TB -6.7% 23 -8.8% 20 4-6 6.3% 15 16.3% 30 3.3% 5 22 WAS -11.5% 26 -14.0% 26 3-7 -13.9% 27 -2.3% 9 0.1% 17 23 SD -11.7% 21 -11.6% 22 4-6 6.0% 16 15.4% 29 -2.4% 27 24 SEA -13.9% 24 -11.6% 23 4-6 -13.1% 26 0.4% 13 -0.4% 19 25 CLE -14.6% 28 -13.9% 25 4-6 -7.3% 25 6.8% 19 -0.5% 20 26 JAC -15.1% 27 -13.2% 24 3-7 -23.6% 32 -10.0% 5 -1.5% 23 27 MIN -16.0% 20 -18.1% 28 2-8 -3.5% 24 9.2% 21 -3.3% 28 28 CAR -17.0% 25 -16.8% 27 2-8 15.0% 7 25.1% 32 -6.9% 31 29 ARI -24.2% 29 -24.6% 30 3-7 -14.4% 28 13.7% 28 3.9% 4 30 KC -26.6% 30 -23.7% 29 4-6 -16.6% 30 10.6% 24 0.6% 14 31 STL -36.0% 31 -35.0% 31 2-8 -23.4% 31 11.0% 25 -1.5% 24 32 IND -43.7% 32 -46.6% 32 0-10 -16.4% 29 20.3% 31 -7.0% 32

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).