by Aaron Schatz

The gap between the top two teams in our DVOA ratings gets even wider this week, a combination of Seattle's 23-0 stomping of the Giants and Denver's upset loss to San Diego. But at this point, Seattle doesn't just rank as the best team of 2013. It ranks as one of the best teams in DVOA history.

Yes, Seattle's 40.4% DVOA rating ties the Seahawks with the 1995 San Francisco 49ers for the third highest DVOA ever after 14 games. Don't think the Seahawks belong in that rarified company? Well, there's a colossal gap between the Seahawks and the top two teams in DVOA history. Both the 1991 Redskins and the 2007 Patriots were more than 15 percentage points higher than Seattle at this point. The Seahawks certainly don't belong in that rarified company. There's also a little bit of a weird timing fluke that puts the Seahawks all the way up to third all-time. A number of the best teams in DVOA history had surprising losses in Week 15, which means that their DVOA ratings dropped specifically this week. To give a few examples:

The 1998 Broncos, who had 43.4% DVOA through Week 14, lost their first game of the year in Week 15, to the 6-8 Giants.

The 2004 Patriots, who had 40.9% DVOA through Week 14, lost only their second game of the year in Week 15, to the 3-11 Dolphins.

The 2004 Steelers, who had 45.1% DVOA through Week 14, barely beat the 5-9 Giants in Week 15, 33-30.

The 2012 Patriots, who had 41.8% DVOA through Week 14, lost to San Francisco in Week 15.

Because of this string of Week 15 losses and close games, we go from 11 teams that had DVOA over 40% through 12 games (including Seattle this year) to just five teams that had DVOA over 40% through 14 games.

BEST TOTAL DVOA THROUGH 14 GAMES Year Team DVOA 1991 WAS 57.3% 2007 NE 56.3% 2013 SEA 40.4% 1995 SF 40.4% 2010 NE 40.1% 2012 NE 39.8% 2004 PIT 39.7% 1999 STL 38.9% 2005 IND 38.5% 2012 SEA 38.5% 1996 GB 38.1% 2004 PHI 37.4%

Will Seattle finish as only the sixth team in DVOA history with a rating over 40%? There's a good chance the Seahawks can keep this up. Remember, last year's Seahawks finished with 38.7% DVOA, which currently stands as the sixth highest season total ever. They also have their final two games at home, against Arizona and St. Louis. Seattle's home-field advantage makes them strong favorites to take both contests, unless they sit starters in the final game. Those two games are also going to take care of complaints about Seattle's schedule strength, thanks to the overall strength of the NFC West this year. Even right now, Seattle's schedule doesn't rank particularly low; they are 22nd with an average opponent DVOA of -1.7%. Once you add in Arizona and St. Louis, the Seahawks' schedule goes to -0.7% DVOA, which ranks 18th. So they're basically playing an average schedule in 2013. If you want to complain about teams that aren't as good as they look, you have to complain about Denver and Kansas City. Add in the final two games, and those teams have by far the easiest schedules in the NFL this year, at -8.6% DVOA for Kansas City and -7.4% for Denver. No other team has an average opponent DVOA below -4.0%.

That's not to say that Kansas City and Denver aren't still strong Super Bowl contenders. After all, it's a sign of a strong team to clobber the easy teams on the schedule. And Kansas City has done just that the past two weeks, beating Washington and Oakland by a combined score of 101-41. Even when we account for opponent strength, these are by far the Chiefs' most impressive games of the year. Both games have a single-game DVOA over 80% even though no previous Kansas City game had a single-game DVOA over 40%. With these wins, the Chiefs have climbed from eighth in DVOA two weeks ago to fifth this week. I don't buy the idea that these huge wins mean the Chiefs are "peaking at the right time," but they do show that perhaps this offense had more tricks up its sleeve than we realized and the Chiefs shouldn't be written off as Super Bowl contenders. (They certainly shouldn't be written off as division champions; our playoff odds report now gives them a 26.4 percent chance of winning the AFC West.)

The Chiefs are also making waves with their special teams, which have now climbed up to 9.6% DVOA. That's tied with the 1996 Carolina Panthers as the seventh highest special teams DVOA ever through 14 games. However, that comes with a wee bit of an asterisk. Kansas City's high special teams rating is built almost entirely on kickoff and punt returns. I have never been able to work opponent adjustments properly into special teams, but we know that the Chiefs had their best return game against Washington's worst-ever special teams. They also had strong return games against the Broncos (who are terrible at covering kicks) and the Giants (who are terrible at covering punts). Maybe I need to work on those opponent adjustments for special teams returns against this offseason.

As just noted, yes, Washington is still the worst special teams in DVOA history despite having almost average value in Week 15's loss to Atlanta. We'll have to see if they can have one more disaster game in the final two weeks, which they'll need to fend off the 2000 Bills for the full-season title of worst special teams ever.

WORST ST DVOA THROUGH 14 GAMES Year Team DVOA 2013 WAS -13.7% 1997 SEA -13.1% 2000 BUF -11.8% 2010 SD -11.7% 1995 PHI -9.7% 2009 GB -9.5% 1998 OAK -9.3% 1997 STL -9.2% 1993 MIN -9.1% 2008 MIN -9.0% 2002 CIN -9.0% 1996 NYJ -8.9%

At this point, we can probably drop the whole "WORST DVOA EVER WATCH" with multiple tables each week. San Diego's surprising clampdown on Peyton Manning and the Broncos moves its defense out of the ten worst ever. Jacksonville's offense has also climbed out of the depths of the ten worst ever. The Jaguars are still ninth in worst overall DVOA ever, but that's mainly because of poor play early in the season. Jacksonville had five games with single-game DVOA below -50% before their Week 9 bye. They haven't had a single one since. This is the first week that the weighted DVOA formula fully drops the first week of the season, when the Jaguars got crushed 28-2 by Kansas City, and that helps the Jaguars climb out of the bottom spot in weighted DVOA for the first time all season. Oakland is now the weakest team in the league by weighted DVOA.

* * * * *

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 15 are:

Brian Orakpo, OLB, WAS (Limited Edition): 1.5 sacks, 4 TFL (including the sacks), 6 Stops.

1.5 sacks, 4 TFL (including the sacks), 6 Stops. Kelvin Beachum, LT, PIT: Allowed just one hurry and no sacks vs. Cincinnati.

Allowed just one hurry and no sacks vs. Cincinnati. Vontae Davis, CB, IND: Allowed just two catches for nine yards, mostly covering Andre Johnson.

Allowed just two catches for nine yards, mostly covering Andre Johnson. Geoff Schwartz, RG, KC: Allowed no hurries or sacks vs. Oakland, started at guard then moved to tackle when Eric Fisher was injured.

Allowed no hurries or sacks vs. Oakland, started at guard then moved to tackle when Eric Fisher was injured. Justin Tucker, K, BAL: 6-for-6 on field goals including game-winning 61-yarder, plus four touchbacks.

I feel bad that Justin Tucker knocked poor Dan Bailey off the list, as Bailey was a fabulous 5-for-5 on field goals and 9-for-9 on touchbacks against Green Bay, but Tucker's 61-yard field goal was worth more than Bailey's touchbacks because in our current system, the expected score of a field goal over 60 yards is zero. Some other players we considered (not including players we did in previous weeks or those included in Madden's Team of the Week) were D.J. Fluker, Stephon Gilmore, DeSean Jackson, Matt Kalil, Ryan Kalil, Rodger Saffold, Michael Thomas, and DeAngelo Williams. We couldn't do Byron Maxwell of the Seahawks because he was just done for Team of the Week recently.

* * * * *

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. For more on what these DVOA changes have meant to the playoff odds, including an estimate of what getting Aaron Rodgers back would mean for Green Bay's chances of making the postseason, check out Danny Tuccitto's playoff odds commentary on ESPN Insider.

* * * * *

[ad placeholder 3]

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 15 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.)

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 SEA 40.4% 1 38.4% 1 12-2 11.5% 7 -23.3% 1 5.6% 5 2 DEN 30.5% 2 26.1% 2 11-3 30.6% 1 -0.3% 15 -0.4% 20 3 CAR 25.2% 3 25.0% 4 10-4 10.8% 8 -13.4% 3 1.0% 14 4 KC 20.7% 5 21.8% 5 11-3 4.2% 13 -6.9% 10 9.6% 1 5 SF 17.9% 8 25.1% 3 10-4 5.2% 11 -8.5% 8 4.1% 7 6 NE 17.0% 6 21.0% 6 10-4 14.8% 5 3.8% 21 6.0% 3 7 NO 16.9% 4 15.6% 8 10-4 14.4% 6 -5.2% 11 -2.7% 23 8 CIN 13.9% 7 14.8% 9 9-5 -0.6% 19 -11.6% 5 2.9% 10 9 CHI 12.4% 9 9.1% 12 8-6 16.1% 4 5.5% 22 1.8% 12 10 ARI 10.9% 10 16.8% 7 9-5 -1.8% 20 -15.5% 2 -2.8% 24 11 PHI 7.7% 11 11.1% 10 8-6 19.5% 3 8.0% 25 -3.8% 26 12 SD 3.1% 14 6.5% 13 7-7 22.5% 2 20.0% 32 0.7% 15 13 PIT 3.0% 16 6.1% 14 6-8 5.2% 12 3.6% 20 1.3% 13 14 IND 2.5% 17 -4.8% 20 9-5 4.0% 14 1.5% 17 0.0% 17 15 STL 2.3% 18 9.6% 11 6-8 -7.4% 23 -3.7% 13 5.9% 4 16 DET 1.9% 12 3.2% 15 7-7 0.3% 18 -1.8% 14 -0.1% 18 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 TB -0.9% 13 1.9% 16 4-10 -9.7% 24 -10.7% 6 -1.9% 22 18 MIA -1.4% 19 -0.8% 18 8-6 1.8% 15 0.3% 16 -2.9% 25 19 DAL -1.8% 15 -7.1% 21 7-7 8.4% 10 14.1% 31 3.9% 8 20 BAL -3.1% 21 0.9% 17 8-6 -20.9% 30 -10.2% 7 7.6% 2 21 GB -3.5% 20 -9.6% 24 7-6-1 9.3% 9 12.6% 30 -0.2% 19 22 TEN -5.8% 23 -3.9% 19 5-9 1.1% 17 2.5% 19 -4.4% 27 23 BUF -6.2% 22 -8.5% 23 5-9 -12.6% 25 -11.6% 4 -5.3% 28 24 MIN -10.6% 25 -7.7% 22 4-9-1 -4.2% 21 9.6% 26 3.2% 9 25 ATL -11.6% 24 -17.6% 27 4-10 1.6% 16 12.5% 29 -0.7% 21 26 NYJ -13.8% 26 -19.3% 28 6-8 -22.7% 31 -4.6% 12 4.2% 6 27 CLE -18.8% 28 -17.0% 26 4-10 -13.3% 26 5.9% 23 0.4% 16 28 NYG -18.9% 27 -12.4% 25 5-9 -20.8% 29 -8.2% 9 -6.4% 29 29 HOU -27.0% 29 -31.1% 30 2-12 -18.6% 28 1.8% 18 -6.6% 30 30 WAS -27.1% 30 -25.6% 29 3-11 -7.1% 22 6.3% 24 -13.7% 32 31 OAK -33.3% 31 -34.2% 32 4-10 -16.7% 27 9.8% 27 -6.9% 31 32 JAC -42.3% 32 -31.4% 31 4-10 -32.1% 32 12.4% 28 2.2% 11

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).