Week 8 DVOA: Ravens Extend First-Place Lead

The Baltimore Ravens remain No. 1 in DVOA after this week’s 31-24 victory over the Cardinals. With San Francisco and Kansas City losing this week, the Ravens have now opened a huge lead over the rest of the league, more than 10 percentage points.

San Francisco remains second, with Kansas City dropping one spot into fourth place and Buffalo now in third place. Miami and Detroit exchange places, with the Dolphins now up to fifth place. The Eagles drop a couple of spots — we’ll get to that surprise in a bit — and Jacksonville and Dallas move up into seventh and eighth place.

Below the top 10, the big movers are the Super Bowl teams from a couple years ago. Here come the Bengals, now that their offense seems to be fixed. Cincinnati moves from 21st to 13th after beating San Francisco. The Los Angeles Rams, on the other hand, drop from 13th to 21st after they got crushed by the Cowboys. They may now have to play without Matthew Stafford, so things are not looking up for them.

Let’s talk a bit today about the two teams where DVOA differs substantially from conventional wisdom and from other power ratings around the Internet, even other advanced metrics: Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Ravens: Best 6-2 Team Ever

The Ravens are really, really good in DVOA right now. So good, in fact, that they now rank as the best 6-2 team in the history of the metric. Here’s the list of the other top 6-2 teams, along with the 2001 Eagles, who at 5-3 had a higher DVOA than any 6-2 team.

Teams with asterisks are for Week 9 rather than Week 8 due to bye weeks.

Only two of the teams on this list won the Super Bowl. A lot of 6-2 teams go on to win the Super Bowl, but most of them were not that high in DVOA early in the season. Twelve of the 17 teams since 1981 that went from 6-2 to Super Bowl champion had a DVOA below 20% when they were 6-2.

You are probably wondering just how much impact Baltimore’s huge 38-6 blowout of Detroit is having on the DVOA ratings. The answer is “a lot.” That’s a huge game, one of the biggest single-game DVOAs of all time because the Ravens clobbered another top-10 team without needing to do much in fourth-quarter garbage time. That game is single-handedly responsible for the giant gap between the Ravens and the rest of the league right now. And yet, if you took out that game, the Ravens would drop from fourth to ninth in offense and from first to second in defense… and they would still be the No. 1 team in DVOA at 29.7%, slightly ahead of the 49ers at 29.3%.

The surprise isn’t which game is the best for the Ravens, but where this week’s game fits in. With a single-game DVOA of 43%, the victory over the Cardinals is the third-best Ravens game this year. That’s a surprise because of opponent adjustments which lower the rating. It’s an even bigger surprise when you see that the Cardinals had a better success rate on offense than the Ravens did, 52% to 49%. So how do the Ravens come out so strong?

First, there’s very little opponent adjustment for the Cardinals offense. The adjustment is for the Cardinals defense, and the Ravens do take a hit there. The Ravens had the advantage in yards per play, especially if you add in two DPIs on passes to Odell Beckham. Those plays make the difference 5.0 yards per play to 4.6 yards per play. Add in two interceptions by the Cardinals. There’s also the issue of the Cardinals coming back late, in the fourth quarter, with the game mostly decided. The Ravens had -42% defensive DVOA in the first three quarters, then -1% in the fourth quarter, but some of that is dialed down in weight because the Cardinals were way behind. The Cardinals for the game gained 7.8 net yards per play when they were behind by 15 or more points in the fourth quarter, and 3.2 net yards per play the rest of the time.

Looking at the larger picture rather than individual games, there’s nothing surprising about the Ravens being No. 1 on defense. They lead the NFL with only 4.2 yards allowed per play. No other team is below 4.8 yards per play. Their offensive rank is a little surprising since the Ravens rank seventh in success rate and 10th in yards per play. It’s the specifics of certain plays and the downweighting of plays in the fourth quarter of blowouts that puts Baltimore ahead of other offenses which are close in DVOA such as Philadelphia, Detroit, and Kansas City (which fell behind the Ravens yesterday).

Philadelphia Eagles: Waiting for More Signature Victories

Speaking of the Eagles, that’s the other team where DVOA is really different from the markets and conventional wisdom right now. The Eagles have the best record in the NFL but are only ninth in DVOA. The gap between DVOA and EPA, at least, is on the offensive side of the ball. The Eagles are fourth in EPA offense but seventh in DVOA. On the defensive side of the ball, ranks are similar, with the Eagles at 17th in EPA defense and 18th in DVOA. The Eagles are third in special teams, so that’s not the reason why DVOA is lower than conventional wisdom or other metrics.

It’s always difficult to determine the difference between DVOA and EPA without lining up every play and making comparisons. Some of what’s going on is schedule strength, as the Eagles have played the No. 22 schedule of opposing defenses. The difference appears to be related to passing, as that’s where the Eagles are fifth in EPA but ninth in DVOA. Either way, the Eagles are more of a big-play team than a steady, consistent passing game. They rank 12th in success rate on dropbacks.

Eagles fans know the defense has been a bit problematic this year. The Eagles are No. 1 against the run but rank 23rd in DVOA against the pass. After last year’s super sack festival, the Eagles have dropped to the middle of the pack in adjusted sack rate. Coverage hasn’t been great either, with the Eagles giving up a ton of targets to No. 1 receivers with a good DVOA, but poor DVOA against No. 2 receivers, other receivers, and tight ends (worst DVOA in the league).

Looking at the week-to-week DVOA ratings gives you a better idea of why the system isn’t as high on the Eagles. Philadelphia has only three games with a single-game rating over 15%: Week 3’s 25-11 win over Tampa Bay, Week 5’s 23-14 win over the Rams, and Week 7’s 31-17 win over Miami. That last one was definitely Philadelphia’s statement win, a healthy victory over a strong opponent. But a lot of their schedule has been close wins (and a close loss) to bad teams. They have low ratings for wins over the Patriots, Vikings, and Commanders (twice).

As I said on Monday’s livestream/podcast with Mike Tanier, this is definitely one where I subjectively disagree with DVOA. But I still would not put the Eagles on top of the league this year because their defense hasn’t been good enough. Looking at the DVOA ratings, I would subjectively move them ahead of the Cowboys and Jaguars, and probably the Lions. Maybe you would want to move them in front of the Dolphins since they beat Miami head-to-head? Even that would put the Eagles fifth, still lower than conventional wisdom.

They’ll have the chance for that big statement win that proves DVOA wrong this Sunday, with their first Cowboys matchup of 2023.

One other note: There’s no countdown today of where the Broncos defense ranks among the worst defenses ever, because the Broncos defense has played so much better in recent weeks that they’re no longer on that list. Denver put up -45% defensive DVOA in this week’s win over Kansas City! The Broncos didn’t have a negative defensive DVOA in a single game this year until this week. Absolutely crazy.

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These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through eight weeks of 2023. Our Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system 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.) Opponent adjustments are currently at 80% strength.

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted for performance indoors and 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. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

DAVE is a formula which combines our preseason forecast with current DVOA to get a more accurate projection of how a team will play the rest of the season. DAVE is currently 45% preseason forecast and 55% actual performance for teams with eight games and 50% forecast with 50% actual performance for teams with seven games. The projection part of DAVE is now adjusted for Minnesota’s backup quarterbacks instead of Kirk Cousins.