by Aaron Schatz

The big news in this week's Football Outsiders DVOA ratings is the impact of the Rams' huge blowout upset of the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts, who were third overall in DVOA just a couple weeks ago, drop from fifth all the way down to 14th. That's a huge change at this point in the season; remember, because DVOA considers every single game, team ranks change much less each week compared to subjective "power rankings" which tend to overreact to a single game. Perhaps DVOA is overreacting to a single game as well, but when you add every single play of this game to every other single play the Colts have run this year... well, that's a lot of bad plays. The Rams, in turn, jump ten spots from 26th to 16th based on this one game. This isn't just about rankings changing because teams are bunched close together. Indianapolis' overall DVOA dropped from 20.2% to 3.6%, while St. Louis went from -13.2% to -2.9%.

With opponent adjustments, the Colts' single-game DVOA of -107.1% is the third-lowest of the season, trailing only Jacksonville in their 28-2 loss to Kansas City in Week 1 (-118.9% DVOA) and Oakland in last week's 49-20 loss to Philadelphia (-109.0% DVOA).

Most of the other teams stay in roughly the same places this week. Of course, Football Outsiders already had Carolina ranked third, so their win over San Francisco wasn't a huge surprise (it was our ESPN Upset Watch, after all) and the Panthers' overall DVOA only rises by 2.7%. In the NFC North, Detroit moves up while Green Bay and Chicago move down. In the NFC South, the Saints and Bucs move up while the Falcons move down. And just in case you were looking for more evidence of Football Outsiders' pro-Patriots bias, New England moves from 11th to seventh without even playing a game. In reality, the Patriots just moved up by a few tenths of a percentage point in DVOA because of changes in opponent adjustments; it helps a team's ranking when a few teams above you (Green Bay, Cincinnati, Indianapolis) lose during your bye week.

One split that's interesting to note is the split between the AFC and NFC. Going into this season, it certainly looked like the NFC was the clearly dominant conference. Early results went completely counter to this expectation. The AFC started 11-3 against the NFC in the first three weeks of the season. But a few weeks later, things have evened out. The AFC and NFC are now at 23-23 in interconference games, and the NFC dominance is once again showing itself in the DVOA rankings. Denver may be our top team, but NFC teams currently rank second through sixth. The NFC also has nine of the top 13 teams and 11 of the top 16 teams. The bottom eight teams all represent either the AFC or the NFC East.

I had someone from the Washington Post contact me to ask about Washington's playoff chances this year compared to last year when they were also 3-6 through nine games. The similarity between the two years is actually quite remarkable. Last year, we gave Washington a 4.5 percent chance to make the playoffs after Week 10. This year it's about half that, 2.1 percent, despite the fact that Washington is one game closer to first place in the division compared to a year ago. The difference is in total DVOA; Washington is 30th overall right now, compared to 21st overall last year at this time. But if we look at the rankings in each category, the differences aren't really that big. Last year at this time, Washington was 14th in offense, 23rd in defense, and 28th in special teams. This year, Washington is 15th in offense, 24th in defense, and 32nd in special teams. The difference between the two teams is almost entirely Washington's historically awful special teams performance -- which also is the unit most likely to improve in the second half of the season, since special teams performance is so much less consistent than offense or defense. As for schedule, a year ago we ranked Washington's remaining schedule 19th. This year, we rank Washington's remaining schedule... 19th.

BEST AND WORST DVOA EVER WATCH

Although Denver's overall DVOA rating is still number one, it's fallen quite a bit over the past few weeks. There are two reasons for that. First, with more information about how good teams are in 2013, it has become clear that the Broncos (along with the Chiefs and Chargers) have played a ridiculously easy schedule this season. Second, the Broncos have not matched their dominating victories of September in October and November. Their big Week 8 victory over Washington has a single-game DVOA of 69.8%, but they are below 10% in Weeks 5, 6, and 7, and just at 22.1% for this week's win over San Diego. The Broncos have now dropped off our list of the best total DVOA teams ever, which means we've dropped that table from our "Best and Worst Ever Watch." For those wondering, the Broncos are the 20th best team through Week 10 since 1989. The Broncos remain on the list for the best offensive DVOA ever. In addition, the Jaguars are still coming close to the worst DVOA ever despite their victory over Tennessee. One of the teams below them has a bit of an asterisk, as 1993 was the year with two bye weeks; the 1993 Buccaneers had only played eight games and were 2-6 after Week 10.

Meanwhile, we continue to see some of the worst special teams of all time from Washington, Houston, and the New York Giants. Mike Tanier wrote about that over at Sports on Earth a couple days ago.

BEST OFFENSIVE DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 10 x WORST TOTAL DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 10 x WORST OFFENSIVE DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 10 x WORST SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA

THROUGH WEEK 10 Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA x Year Team DVOA 2007 NE 49.1% x 1993 TB -66.7% x 2005 SF -53.0% x 2010 SD -19.0% 1999 WAS 42.6% x 2005 SF -65.6% x 2002 HOU -47.0% x 2008 MIN -14.9% 1993 DAL 40.0% x 2013 JAC -62.3% x 2010 CAR -45.9% x 2013 WAS -14.2% 1995 DAL 37.4% x 1996 STL -56.5% x 2013 JAC -44.5% x 1997 PHI -12.9% 1998 DEN 36.4% x 2009 DET -56.4% x 1992 SEA -44.3% x 2011 CAR -12.2% 2013 DEN 35.4% x 2008 STL -53.1% x 2007 SF -43.8% x 1995 PHI -12.2% 2004 IND 34.7% x 2009 OAK -51.2% x 1996 STL -43.0% x 1997 STL -12.1% 1993 SF 34.1% x 2002 HOU -50.5% x 2009 OAK -42.7% x 2013 HOU -11.8% 2005 SD 33.9% x 2007 SF -50.3% x 1993 TB -41.2% x 2013 NYG -11.5% 2002 KC 33.6% x 1991 IND -50.1% x 1992 IND -39.9% x 2006 ARI -10.7% 2011 GB 33.5% x 2000 CIN -48.0% x 2006 OAK -39.7% x 2007 IND -10.2% 2010 NE 33.0% x 1999 CIN -47.8% x 2009 CLE -38.6% x 1998 OAK -10.1%

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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 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 10 are:

Luke Kuechly, MLB, CAR (Limited Edition): 11 tackles, 4 Defeats, PD, sack.

(Limited Edition): 11 tackles, 4 Defeats, PD, sack. Davin Joseph, RG, TB: Tampa RB gained 87 yards on 11 carries listed as "right guard."

Tampa RB gained 87 yards on 11 carries listed as "right guard." Kevin Williams, DT, MIN: 1.5 sacks and 4 TFL on runs.

1.5 sacks and 4 TFL on runs. Keenan Lewis, CB, NO: Limited Dez Bryant to just one catch.

Limited Dez Bryant to just one catch. Shane Lechler, P, HOU: Seven punts averaging 58.9 gross yards.

Other players we considered (not including players such as Vinny Rey and Tavon Austin who were on Madden's "Team of the Week") included Drew Brees, Alvin Bailey, Jarrell Freeman, Lardarius Webb, and Chris Jones.

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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.

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These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through ten 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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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 DEN 36.9% 1 35.2% 1 8-1 35.4% 1 3.0% 20 4.5% 8 2 SEA 33.6% 2 32.1% 2 9-1 10.1% 8 -16.8% 3 6.8% 2 3 CAR 28.7% 3 31.3% 3 6-3 7.6% 10 -19.8% 1 1.3% 15 4 NO 23.2% 7 24.8% 4 7-2 21.7% 2 -3.7% 12 -2.2% 23 5 CHI 20.5% 4 20.1% 5 5-4 14.0% 6 -3.1% 13 3.4% 10 6 SF 15.0% 6 17.0% 6 6-3 8.8% 9 -5.0% 11 1.2% 16 7 NE 13.7% 11 14.5% 7 7-2 2.2% 14 -5.3% 10 6.2% 5 8 KC 13.0% 9 12.1% 9 9-0 -3.4% 18 -10.2% 7 6.2% 4 9 CIN 12.2% 8 12.5% 8 6-4 -2.6% 17 -11.8% 4 3.0% 11 10 DET 8.5% 13 9.2% 10 6-3 13.6% 7 2.6% 19 -2.5% 24 11 DAL 6.6% 12 7.2% 11 5-5 6.5% 12 7.2% 23 7.2% 1 12 ARI 6.2% 14 7.1% 12 5-4 -13.0% 27 -19.5% 2 -0.4% 20 13 GB 5.5% 10 4.2% 13 5-4 19.7% 4 11.1% 29 -3.1% 26 14 IND 3.6% 5 3.4% 14 6-3 6.1% 13 3.0% 21 0.5% 18 15 PHI 3.6% 16 3.0% 15 5-5 16.7% 5 10.3% 28 -2.8% 25 16 STL -2.9% 26 -3.0% 16 4-6 -10.2% 26 -1.7% 15 5.6% 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 SD -3.4% 15 -3.6% 18 4-5 20.3% 3 22.9% 32 -0.8% 21 18 MIA -3.8% 17 -5.1% 19 4-5 -3.6% 19 -1.6% 16 -1.9% 22 19 NYJ -4.3% 19 -3.3% 17 5-4 -21.7% 30 -11.2% 5 6.3% 3 20 TB -5.0% 23 -6.1% 20 1-8 -7.5% 22 -1.9% 14 0.6% 17 21 PIT -6.4% 24 -6.1% 21 3-6 0.8% 16 9.1% 27 1.9% 13 22 ATL -6.9% 18 -8.7% 25 2-7 6.9% 11 13.4% 30 -0.3% 19 23 BAL -7.5% 21 -6.4% 22 4-5 -20.1% 29 -10.4% 6 2.2% 12 24 MIN -8.4% 25 -7.8% 23 2-7 -5.5% 21 8.4% 25 5.5% 7 25 BUF -8.9% 20 -11.9% 27 3-7 -9.7% 25 -5.9% 9 -5.2% 28 26 CLE -10.1% 22 -7.9% 24 4-5 -9.4% 24 5.2% 22 4.5% 9 27 TEN -11.3% 27 -11.3% 26 4-5 -5.3% 20 -1.1% 17 -7.1% 29 28 NYG -19.9% 30 -19.2% 28 3-6 -14.7% 28 -6.2% 8 -11.5% 30 29 HOU -21.1% 29 -22.1% 30 2-7 -8.8% 23 0.4% 18 -11.8% 31 30 WAS -21.4% 28 -19.8% 29 3-6 0.9% 15 8.1% 24 -14.2% 32 31 OAK -35.9% 31 -36.3% 31 3-6 -23.3% 31 9.1% 26 -3.6% 27 32 JAC -62.3% 32 -60.5% 32 1-8 -44.5% 32 19.4% 31 1.6% 14

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).