by Aaron Schatz

Perhaps the New York Giants were just miffed about last week's DVOA ratings, where they dropped five spots based entirely on changes in opponent adjustments. They took their frustrations out on the Seattle Seahawks, and now they are back on top. Their division rivals in Philadelphia are still close behind thanks to a win over the always-tough Indianapolis Colts, another one of those rare games where both teams emerge with positive DVOA. Philadelphia got 30.1% for the win, Indianapolis 20.2% for the loss. That's how close the game was, and how strong the opponent adjustments are for these two teams overall.

This week was the most upset-friendly of the NFL season so far, at least judged by DVOA ratings. (One piece of evidence: Our premium picks against the spread, which had been hitting at over 60 percent so far this season, went just 4-8-1 this week.) It wasn't just the surprising wins, like Cleveland over New England and Oakland over Kansas City. This week also had surprisingly close wins, like the Jets barely beating Detroit and Cincinnati coming within a few yards of edging past Pittsburgh. As a result, we've got a lot of movement in the rankings this week. Six different teams move by four or five spots, which is par for the course in subjective power rankings around the Internet but somewhat rare for the DVOA ratings once we've got a few games in the books.

Overall, the theme of parity still applies to the 2010 season, although the Carolina Panthers are starting to really stand out like a sore thumb. At least Buffalo and Arizona are playing some close games, but Carolina looks horrible. Still, the Panthers are far from "worst DVOA ever" status. Last year at this time, Oakland and Detroit were each below -50%, much worse than what Carolina has this year.

A couple of other interesting notes I noticed when going through this week's numbers:

As I noted on Twitter Sunday afternoon, this is the first season since 1971 where no team is either 7-1 or 8-0 after eight games. In 1971, the Redskins were 6-1-1 after eight games, but I can't find a season where the best team after eight games was only 6-2.

Although only four NFC teams rank in the top dozen for DVOA, the extreme stratification of the NFC causes our playoff odds report to list those four teams as four of the top five possibilities to win the Super Bowl. After all, those good AFC teams all have to go through each other -- not only to get to the Super Bowl, but to make it to the postseason in the first place. How ironic it would be if the unfortunate fans of Arlington, Texas had to watch not one but two Giants championship celebrations in a four-month period.

You may have noticed that the Innovative Stats box on the FO front page now shows the top teams in the last playoff odds, rather than the top teams in DVOA. Don't forget you can use the tabs in that box to get a quick look at the top teams and players this season without having to click through to individual stats pages.

The San Diego Chargers special teams not only is the worst of the DVOA Era, but they haven't even had one good week. San Diego's special teams DVOA has been below 0% in all nine games this season.

The Oakland Raiders story is swell and all, but when you look at the schedules it becomes clear how difficult it will be for them to get past Kansas City -- and stay ahead of San Diego -- to win the division. The Raiders still have to play at Kansas City and at San Diego. Their other five games include Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Miami, plus the inscrutable Jaguars, who honestly could beat Oakland 45-0 or lose to Oakland 45-0. Neither result would really surprise me.

Seattle has completely melted down over the past two weeks with DVOA of -98.3% against Oakland and then -108.9% against the Giants. Because of this, the 2-6 San Francisco 49ers actually have the best DVOA in the NFC West right now. Maybe they really could pull off a division title. The current DVOA playoff odds report gives all four teams in the NFC West an average projection between 6.5 and 7.1 wins, and all four teams are listed with between 19 percent and 29 percent chance of winning the division.

I think I've given my solution to the problem before, but if not, here it is: The NFL should change the rules to state that when no team in a division has at least eight wins, that team forfeits its postseason spot to a third wild card team, with the top wild card team now hosting a first-round playoff game. The solution to the NFC West problem isn't a wholesale change in the playoff structure, as some people have suggested. Even if we get a 7-9 division champion this year, it's not something we need to worry about more than once per decade. In general, I think it is important to maintain the integrity of the divisions because it makes those divisional games more important and thus strengthens rivalries. But there really should be something in place to prevent a losing team from making the playoffs in those rare years like 2010.

* * * * *

This week actually sees a small fix to the DVOA formula for both teams and quarterbacks. When I made my last big overhaul to DVOA a couple of years ago, it included a fix that lowered the penalty for interceptions on fourth down. However, fourth-down interceptions still do have some negative value, because of the possibility of a return. If the ball gets picked off on the line of scrimmage, that's obviously going to be worse than a simple incomplete pass, even if both plays result in the defense taking over control of the ball.

The exception, of course, is in the last two minutes of the game when a team is driving in an attempt to tie the game. At that point, any throw on fourth-down is basically a "what the hell" kind of play, where there are only two results: a complete pass that gets past the sticks, and anything else. Unfortunately, the DVOA formula was still giving a small amount of negative value to fourth-down interceptions at the end of a game. I have now changed this so that any fourth-down interception in the final two minutes is translated as an incomplete pass. This is the same way we treat passes which we manually mark as "Hail Mary," like the 50-yard downfield interception on second down with three seconds left. The change gives a small boost to a handful of quarterbacks who threw last-gasp fourth-down picks this season: Sam Bradford, Bruce Gradkowski, Philip Rivers, and Chad Henne (twice!). However, since the change only affects interceptions in the final two minutes, Trent Edwards is still penalized for his goal-line interception against Tennessee with 6:06 left in that boring Week 6 Monday Night Football game. (That one's a great example of the difference between an incomplete and a pick, actually -- an incomplete pass gives the Titans the ball back at their own one-yard line, but the pick gave them the ball at their own 20 thanks to the touchback.)

I won't have time to go back and make this change in previous seasons until after 2010 is finished, but the change is now made for both 2010 team stats and quarterback passing stats.

* * * * *

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through nine weeks of 2010, 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.

Opponent adjustments are currently at 90 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.

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 NYG 30.9% 6 31.2% 1 6-2 16.3% 6 -21.4% 1 -6.8% 31 2 PHI 29.5% 2 30.3% 2 5-3 26.6% 3 -4.9% 7 -1.9% 25 3 TEN 27.4% 4 26.7% 3 5-3 6.3% 13 -16.7% 3 4.5% 5 4 PIT 25.1% 5 24.9% 4 6-2 3.4% 17 -19.8% 2 2.0% 12 5 KC 21.2% 1 19.8% 6 5-3 12.1% 9 -9.6% 6 -0.4% 17 6 GB 21.1% 10 20.2% 5 6-3 14.5% 8 -10.8% 4 -4.3% 28 7 SD 18.4% 7 19.6% 7 4-5 23.3% 4 -10.7% 5 -15.5% 32 8 NE 17.8% 3 16.4% 9 6-2 28.8% 1 14.5% 27 3.5% 9 9 IND 14.9% 8 16.7% 8 5-3 23.1% 5 3.6% 20 -4.5% 29 10 ATL 13.3% 12 12.6% 10 6-2 16.3% 7 1.2% 17 -1.7% 24 11 BAL 11.0% 13 11.5% 11 6-2 9.8% 10 1.1% 16 2.4% 11 12 NYJ 9.9% 9 8.9% 14 6-2 2.4% 18 -2.5% 12 5.0% 4 13 NO 9.8% 14 9.8% 12 6-3 6.3% 12 -4.5% 8 -1.0% 20 14 CLE 7.6% 16 9.0% 13 3-5 3.9% 16 0.7% 15 4.4% 6 15 MIA 5.6% 11 6.8% 15 4-4 8.5% 11 2.3% 18 -0.6% 19 16 HOU 2.0% 15 1.4% 16 4-4 28.5% 2 25.4% 31 -1.0% 22 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 SF -4.2% 17 -0.4% 17 2-6 -7.2% 26 -3.3% 10 -0.3% 16 18 CIN -4.7% 20 -3.5% 18 2-6 4.3% 15 4.9% 22 -4.1% 27 19 DET -5.4% 19 -4.6% 20 2-6 -4.4% 23 5.2% 23 4.2% 8 20 OAK -6.0% 22 -3.6% 19 5-4 -8.1% 27 -2.0% 13 0.1% 14 21 MIN -8.3% 18 -7.8% 21 3-5 -5.9% 25 2.3% 19 -0.1% 15 22 WAS -9.5% 21 -8.4% 22 4-4 -5.1% 24 4.0% 21 -0.4% 18 23 TB -9.9% 23 -10.8% 23 5-3 -1.1% 19 9.7% 25 0.9% 13 24 JAC -13.6% 25 -14.6% 24 4-4 -1.2% 20 19.7% 29 7.3% 2 25 STL -18.0% 28 -16.2% 25 4-4 -14.1% 28 0.5% 14 -3.5% 26 26 CHI -19.9% 26 -21.8% 26 5-3 -29.2% 30 -3.5% 9 5.8% 3 27 DAL -23.4% 27 -25.6% 28 1-7 -4.1% 22 18.3% 28 -1.0% 21 28 DEN -24.7% 29 -24.6% 27 2-6 4.3% 14 24.4% 30 -4.7% 30 29 SEA -25.4% 24 -28.9% 29 4-4 -22.1% 29 10.8% 26 7.5% 1 30 BUF -28.7% 30 -29.0% 30 0-8 -2.6% 21 29.2% 32 3.1% 10 31 ARI -35.5% 32 -36.5% 31 3-5 -32.1% 31 7.6% 24 4.3% 7 32 CAR -42.9% 31 -43.4% 32 1-7 -44.7% 32 -3.3% 11 -1.4% 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).