by Aaron Schatz

This week, the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams played the best and closest of the recent DVOA Bowl games. The Eagles pulled out a 43-35 win (that was really a 37-35 win plus a meaningless touchdown returning the Rams' fumble on an end-game "zillions of laterals" attempt). So the team that wins the DVOA Bowl should be No. 1 in DVOA now, right?

Nope.

DVOA analyzes the play-by-play and cares not for the simple binary of win and loss. And when it analyzes the play-by-play for this game, it says that the way the Rams played is much more indicative of future success than the way the Eagles played. It was one of a number of close games this week where the team that lost came out with the higher DVOA rating.

Here's a look at the DVOA. Remember, both teams get big bumps from the opponent adjustments. But those bumps are similar for both teams, so I'm going to just run DVOA here and not also VOA:

DVOA OFF DEF ST TOT PHI 18.4% 19.1% -15.9% -16.6% LARM 62.5% -9.6% 4.1% 76.3%

What's going on here? One issue is that there were three fumbles in the game and the Eagles recovered all three. But when I mentioned this on Twitter, people rightfully pointed out that one of those fumbles was the meaningless final play. Another was an aborted snap to Nick Foles, and that's a play that only gets a small penalty in DVOA because it's usually recovered by the offense. So the fumble recovery luck is not a big issue here.

No, the bigger issue here is the problem of measuring efficiency vs. total value. DVOA measures the former. The Eagles outgained the Rams, 455 yards to 307 yards. But the main reason behind that is that the Eagles ran 85 plays to just 45 plays for the Rams. That's a disrepancy similar to last year's Super Bowl. The Rams were much more efficient, gaining 6.8 yards per play compared to just 5.4 yards per play for Philadelphia. The Rams were not as good on third down, but they rarely even got to third down. The Rams were 2-of-7 on third downs. The Eagles were 8-of-20. That's a better percentage, but also, wow, 20 third downs. There was also a red zone discrepancy, as the Rams scored on all four of their red zone trips while the Eagles scored on three of five.

And then there's the issue of special teams. The gap between the teams is not just about the blocked punt that the Rams returned for a touchdown. The Rams got 74 yards on four kickoff returns while the Eagles didn't return a single kickoff. However, the DVOA system does penalize the punting team more for a blocked punt than it credits the return team. That's something that needs to be fixed in the next iteration of the system.

To those questioning: at a certain point, yes, I do need to figure out what to do about these ridiculously lopsided games where one team is more efficient but runs far fewer plays. Is there some predictive value to running more plays that I should be including? It's certainly a project for the future. (And am I asking for trouble by being open and honest about the possible deficiencies of the DVOA system? Of course I am.)

But with the Rams climbing to No. 5 on offense this week, they've achived something remarkable. The Rams are currently ranked in the top five in all three phases of the game. This is remarkably rare. Going back to 1989, there are only four other teams that ranked in the top five in all three phases any time after Week 14: the 1991 Redskins, 1992 Eagles, 1996 Packers, and 2012 Seahawks. Expanding that to the top six in all three phases brings in more teams, but still only four teams since the year 2000. Most of them are the rival the Rams will have to face this week. The teams to rank in the top six in all three phases since 2000, any time after Week 14, are:

2012 Seahawks after Weeks 14-17

2013 Seahawks after Week 14

2015 Chiefs after Week 14

2015 Seahawks after Weeks 16-17

2017 Rams after Week 14

That's right. Nobody did this so late in the season between the Jaguars in 1999 (after Week 14) and the Seahawks in 2012.

This doesn't mean that the Rams are one of the greatest teams in DVOA history, or that they should be considered the Super Bowl favorites. At 35.5% DVOA, the Rams are tied with the 2012 Broncos and 2007 Cowboys as the No. 19 teams DVOA has ever measured through Week 14. And much like the 2012 Seahawks, the Rams are probably going to have to go on the road at least once in order to advance to the Super Bowl. If they lose this week, they'll probably have to go on the road three times.

Let's take a look at the two other major "reverse DVOA" games from this week:

DVOA OFF DEF ST TOT NO -3.6% -34.9% 3.7% 35.0% ATL -24.7% -19.7% 2.4% -2.6%

This is another game where the winning team had more plays, and the losing team was more efficient. The numbers are closer, as the Saints had 52 plays at 5.9 yards per play while the Falcons had 65 plays with 5.3 yards per play. A much bigger issue was penalties, as the Saints committed 11 for 87 yards, and the Falcons only 4 for 35 yards.

DVOA OFF DEF ST TOT BAL 49.3% 11.9% 16.8% 54.2% PIT 56.1% 38.7% 6.3% 23.7%

And a third game where the team that ran more plays had fewer yards per play. The Steelers had 85 plays at 6.4 yards per play, while the Ravens had only 62 plays with 6.7 yards per play. The Steelers actually had more penalties in this game, but much of that was defensive pass interference, a penalty that is counted in DVOA. The Ravens started their average drive at the 26 and the Steelers only at the 21, which you see impacting that big gap in special teams DVOA.

Baltimore's problem in this game was a total inability to convert third downs. The Ravens had -73.3% DVOA on third downs, with four conversions but also an interception and a fumble. Pittsburgh had a 148.3% DVOA on third downs, with 12 conversions out of 18. So even though Baltimore and Pittsburgh had similar overall offensive DVOA, Pittsburgh was able to do much more to sustain drives.

But seriously, look at those offensive numbers. Going into this game, the Ravens and Steelers were ranked No. 1 and No. 5 in defensive DVOA. Now the Steelers are down to No. 11 in defensive DVOA, and the Ravens are... well, somehow, the Ravens are still No. 1, just a lot lower than they were last week. In one week, the Ravens' defensive DVOA went from -23.4% to -19.5%.

Usually, that would knock you out of the top spot, except that this week saw another battle of two strong defensive teams that inexplicably had a ton of offense: Jacksonville's win over Seattle. So look at what happened to these four teams this week.

Baltimore's defense went from -23.4% (1) to -19.5% (1), while the offense jumped from -9.8% (23) to -5.8% (22).

Pittsburgh's defense went from -10.6% (5) to -5.5% (11), while the offense jumped from 14.9% (5) to 18.2% (3).

Jacksonville's defense went from -21.8% (2) to -19.2% (2), while the offense jumped from -2.8% (20) to 0.4% (16).

Seattle's defense went from -7.0% (9) to -3.1% (13), while the offense jumped from 3.4% (13) to 6.1% (12).

Finally, let's look at one more game. This one didn't have the team with the higher DVOA lose the game, but it's interesting to look at nonetheless.

DVOA OFF DEF ST TOT IND -21.7% -12.7% -13.6% -22.6% BUF -32.9% -17.0% -1.0% -17.0%

Unfortunately, the weather adjustments for DVOA are generic and based solely on what week of the season it is, whether the team plays indoors, and the team's home climate if it plays outdoors. There are then a couple of extra adjustments after that, correcting for the altitude in Denver, the ease of field goals in Florida, and the difficulty punting in San Francisco's old stadium. What I don't have are specific adjustments for snow and high-wind games that can help us correct for what happened in Buffalo on Sunday. Part of the problem is that there simply aren't enough games where the snow is that bad. A lot of the snow games that Vince Verhei wrote about in Quick Reads on Monday were light snow, not the crazy "lake effect snow" conditions we saw this week. But again, this is something I would love to play around with when I get time to do improvements on the system. In the meantime, readers will just have to look at Colts and Bills numbers with the knowledege that the offense/special teams are a bit depressed (and the defense enhanced) by the snow from last Sunday.

The Bills and Colts both dropped in DVOA this week, but the Dolphins and Broncos both climbed with upset wins, which puts Cleveland back in the No. 32 spot. The Browns still finish 0-16 in only 40 percent of simulations, which seems surprisingly low. The odds in the simulation for each week: 28 percent odds of beating Baltimore at home this week, 36 percent chance of winning in Chicago in Week 16, and 16 percent chance of winning in Pittsburgh Week 17. However, those odds do not account for the possibility that the Steelers will have their playoff spot clinched and thus sit starters.

The Browns are just not as awful as you the 0-13 record makes it seem. The gap between the Browns and the Giants/Colts (essentially tied for No. 30/31) is less than a percentage point. Moreover, at -27.5%, the Browns are the second-best team to ever be in last place after Week 14. Only the 2001 Bills (2-11, -24.6% DVOA) were a better last-place team according to DVOA. Other years with strong last-place teams included 1995 (Arizona, 4-9 and -28.7% DVOA); 1997 (Chicago, 2-11 and -30.9% DVOA); and 2006 (Oakland, 2-11 and -31.3% DVOA).

Meanwhile, the "Awful Eight" separation from earlier this season is now completely gone. There is no significant gap between the bottom teams and the middle teams in the NFL. We're back to having 16 teams above zero and 16 teams below zero, and the biggest gap in the rankings between one team and the next is the 6.8% gap between No. 16 Atlanta and No. 17 Washington.

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Once again this season, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 18. This year, our content for Madden Ultimate Team on consoles comes monthly, while our content for Madden Mobile comes weekly. Come back to each Tuesday's DVOA commentary article for a list of players who stood out during the previous weekend's games. Those players will get special Madden Mobile items branded as "Powerline, powered by Football Outsiders," beginning at 11am Eastern on Friday. Our stars for Week 14 are:

DT Johnathan Hankins, IND (HERO): 7 run tackles for a total of 8 yards. Four prevented third-down conversions.

7 run tackles for a total of 8 yards. Four prevented third-down conversions. TE Trey Burton, PHI: Led all tight ends with 40 DYAR in Week 14 (5-for-6, 71 yards, 2 TD).

Led all tight ends with 40 DYAR in Week 14 (5-for-6, 71 yards, 2 TD). OLB Chandler Jones, ARI: Sack, 2 run TFL, 2 QB hits.

Sack, 2 run TFL, 2 QB hits. C Cody Whitehair, CHI: Chicago RB had 36 carries, 227 yards, 2 TD, with 63 percent success rate on runs up the middle.

Chicago RB had 36 carries, 227 yards, 2 TD, with 63 percent success rate on runs up the middle. RT Daryl Williams, CAR: Carolina RB had 24 carries, 138 yards, 3 TD against one of the NFL's top run defenses.

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All stats pages should now be updated through Week 14, including snap counts, playoff odds, and the FO Premium DVOA database.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 14 weeks of 2017, 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.

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 WEI.

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 1 LARM 35.4% 1 40.0% 1 9-4 15.3% 5 -12.0% 4 8.2% 2 2 NO 30.8% 3 35.7% 2 9-4 24.7% 2 -7.8% 9 -1.7% 21 3 PHI 29.9% 2 33.9% 3 11-2 15.8% 4 -12.3% 3 1.7% 12 4 PIT 25.1% 4 22.6% 6 11-2 18.2% 3 -5.5% 11 1.3% 14 5 BAL 23.7% 5 24.7% 4 7-6 -5.8% 22 -19.5% 1 10.0% 1 6 MIN 20.0% 6 20.4% 7 10-3 12.7% 7 -8.1% 8 -0.8% 19 7 NE 18.2% 7 22.7% 5 10-3 25.1% 1 12.8% 30 6.0% 5 8 JAC 16.8% 8 19.6% 8 9-4 0.4% 16 -19.2% 2 -2.7% 23 9 CAR 14.4% 10 14.4% 9 9-4 -0.4% 17 -10.8% 6 4.0% 8 10 KC 9.7% 11 -0.5% 15 7-6 13.1% 6 9.6% 27 6.2% 4 11 SEA 8.1% 9 10.6% 12 8-5 6.1% 12 -3.1% 13 -1.0% 20 12 DAL 7.5% 12 13.3% 10 7-6 9.7% 9 9.0% 26 6.8% 3 13 LACH 6.9% 16 12.6% 11 7-6 9.6% 10 -5.7% 10 -8.4% 31 14 GB 4.6% 13 4.3% 13 7-6 3.4% 13 0.6% 16 1.7% 13 15 DET 3.8% 15 -1.5% 16 7-6 3.3% 14 4.5% 20 5.1% 6 16 ATL 2.8% 14 1.8% 14 8-5 10.0% 8 6.5% 22 -0.7% 18 TEAM TOTAL

DVOA LAST

WEEK WEI.

DVOA RANK W-L OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK S.T.

DVOA S.T.

RANK 17 WAS -4.0% 17 -10.3% 21 5-8 -2.6% 19 -3.1% 12 -4.5% 27 18 OAK -7.4% 21 -9.7% 20 6-7 8.7% 11 16.3% 32 0.2% 17 19 TEN -7.8% 20 -13.4% 22 8-5 -2.6% 18 6.0% 21 0.8% 15 20 CIN -9.6% 18 -8.0% 18 5-8 -5.6% 21 4.4% 19 0.4% 16 21 HOU -9.7% 19 -14.0% 24 4-9 -5.3% 20 0.6% 18 -3.8% 26 22 ARI -11.2% 23 -6.5% 17 6-7 -16.2% 28 -11.9% 5 -6.8% 30 23 BUF -12.0% 22 -16.7% 25 7-6 -17.3% 29 -1.0% 15 4.3% 7 24 CHI -14.0% 26 -9.1% 19 4-9 -13.3% 26 -2.8% 14 -3.5% 25 25 TB -15.1% 25 -18.1% 26 4-9 2.1% 15 14.0% 31 -3.2% 24 26 NYJ -18.4% 24 -13.6% 23 5-8 -9.2% 23 7.0% 23 -2.2% 22 27 SF -20.9% 27 -19.8% 27 3-10 -13.0% 25 9.8% 28 1.9% 11 28 MIA -21.0% 31 -21.3% 29 6-7 -16.1% 27 7.6% 25 2.6% 9 29 DEN -23.7% 32 -32.0% 32 4-9 -24.0% 32 -9.0% 7 -8.7% 32 30 NYG -26.9% 28 -26.2% 31 2-11 -11.0% 24 9.9% 29 -6.0% 29 31 IND -26.9% 29 -20.8% 28 3-10 -22.2% 31 7.2% 24 2.5% 10 32 CLE -27.5% 30 -21.9% 30 0-13 -21.3% 30 0.6% 17 -5.6% 28

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).