Aaron Schatz's Articles

A couple of years ago, I developed a new metric alled Post-Game Win Expectancy (PGWE). The idea was to explore games where the losing team has a higher DVOA rating than the winning team. How unlikely are these losses? PGWE has nothing to do with how good the teams are on the season, or coming […]

Recently, I was hit up by a local reporter to talk about this year’s Philadelphia Eagles collapse down the stretch. The next day, Ross Tucker tweeted out about how public perception of Jalen Hurts has fallen way too low because of those last few games. I happen to be in agreement with him about this, […]

The Kansas City Chiefs ended up with a higher DVOA than the San Francisco 49ers in their Super Bowl LVIII win. But as you might imagine given how good the Niners were in the regular season, that’s because of opponent adjustments. As befits a game where the Chiefs recovered six of seven fumbles including both […]

Well, here we are again with the question of whether we have to consider Patrick Mahomes as “playoff LeBron.” Does Mahomes specifically raise his game in the playoffs, to the point where we can’t accurately analyze the Super Bowl LVIII matchup because we can’t use past statistics to determine Kansas City’s strengths and weaknesses? Last […]

This was my fourth year as an official Associated Press voter for both the All-Pro team and the end-of-season awards. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a long article about my All-Pro votes. With the NFL awards now given out, I wanted to do the same and divulge my award ballot. Sign up for […]

I’m currently working on my 21st Super Bowl preview. That should run in the middle of next week, a few days before Super Bowl Sunday, but this means waiting more than a week before unveiling all the stat tidbits that get you ready for the big matchup. It was one thing when I was the […]

Welcome to Week 22 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]

Continuing with my traditions from the old site, we’re not going to bother with the full 32-team table of weighted DVOA ratings, since there are only two teams left and most teams haven’t played for three weeks. We’ll just take a quick look at both teams set for Super Bowl LVIII: The San Francisco 49ers […]

Here are the best and worst players of the conference championship games according to our DYAR stats. Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Sacks TotalDYAR PassDYAR RushDYAR Opp 1. Patrick Mahomes KC 30/39 241 1 0 2 147 139 8 BAL Mahomes had 125 passing DYAR before halftime and 13 passing DYAR after […]

NBA stat modelers have a problem. It’s called “playoff LeBron.” NBA teams are constantly sitting their star players for a game or two for “load management.” Some teams sit guys more than others. There’s also the sense that certain players aren’t really giving their all until we get to the postseason. Then we get to […]

Welcome to Week 21 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]

The Kansas City Chiefs had the biggest win of the Divisional Round, despite the final score. But the Baltimore Ravens are by far the hottest team as we are down to four remaining in the conference championships. The Chiefs-Bills game may have come down to a missed field goal with a 27-24 final score, but […]

Lamar Jackson had one of the best rushing games in DYAR history against the Houston Texans this weekend. He had 11 carries for 100 yards and two touchdowns against one of the top run defenses in the NFL this year. That’s worth 60 DYAR, the sixth-best rushing game by a quarterback. That’s good because frankly, […]

The problem is that the Baltimore Ravens are just that good. The Baltimore Ravens finished the 2023 regular season with the No. 5 highest DVOA ever. Their season stood out for the huge victories over other good teams. They beat San Francisco 33-19 and it wasn’t that close. They beat Miami 56-19. They beat Detroit […]

Welcome to Week 20 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]

Aggressiveness Index is a stat we introduced at our old site that measures how often NFL head coaches go for it on fourth down. We compare this not to when coaches should go for it based on EPA modeling but rather when coaches actually do go for it based on NFL history. Our current AI […]

Now updated with Monday games! The Green Bay Packers had a huge victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, much larger than the 48-32 final score. DVOA downweights the Dallas scores in the fourth quarter because they came with such a huge gap between the teams. As a result, Green Bay finished the game with […]

Here’s Quick Reads for Wild-Card Weekend, now updated with the two Monday games! Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Sacks TotalDYAR PassDYAR RushDYAR Opp 1. Jordan Love GB 16/21 272 3 0 0 224 224 0 DAL As noted in today’s DVOA commentary, this was the best passing DVOA game ever for the […]

Our DVOA ratings have been down on the Philadelphia Eagles for much of the 2023 season, at least compared to their win-loss record. As the Eagles escaped the early season with some close wins over unimpressive opponents (25-20 over the Patriots, 38-31 over the Commanders, etc.), the DVOA ratings kept the Eagles around ninth or […]

Welcome to Week 19 of our DVOA-based picks. It’s Wild-Card Weekend! Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in […]

This was my fourth year as an official Associated Press voter for both the All-Pro team and the end-of-season awards. Each year, after the All-Pro team is officially announced, I write an article listing who I voted for at each position and giving some reasoning where appropriate. I’m going to do the same thing this […]

When it comes to offense in the National Football League, 2023 was the season of the San Francisco 49ers. In our annual countdown of the best and worst players of the year by FTN’s advanced DYAR and DVOA metrics, 49ers players top the lists at every position. That’s fitting since the 49ers had the ninth-best […]

The Baltimore Ravens finish the 2023 season on top of the FTN DVOA ratings, followed by the San Francisco 49ers. Both teams dropped a little in Week 18 as they sat many starters, but they still both rank among the top 10 teams ever ranked by DVOA. The Ravens were third before sitting starters and […]

Here are your Quick Reads with the best and worst players of Week 18 by DYAR! As is tradition from the old site, there’s no commentary on the Week 18 results, but we’ll have an article later this week running down the best and worst players for the entire year. Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT […]

Welcome to Week 18 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]

What more is there to say about the Baltimore Ravens? They destroyed the Miami Dolphins yesterday, 56-19, putting up 126% DVOA for the game. Last week, I noted that the Ravens were the first team to ever have three single games in the same season with DVOA over 100%. They are now the first team […]

Happy New Year! Once again there’s no Quick Reads commentary because of this week’s holiday, although there will be DVOA ratings and commentary later today. Here are the best and worst players of Week 17 by DYAR: Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Sacks TotalDYAR PassDYAR RushDYAR Opp 1. Lamar Jackson BAL 18/21 […]

Welcome to Week 17 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]

The Baltimore Ravens won the Christmas DVOA Bowl decisively and are now back into first place in our DVOA ratings. However, the 49ers didn’t fall back as much as you might expect, in part because of opponent adjustments for playing a great Ravens team, and they also still rank among the top teams in DVOA […]

Merry Christmas, everyone who celebrates! No commentary this week because of the holiday, except to note that Amari Cooper does not finish No. 1 in DYAR among wide receivers because of a very heavy opponent adjustment. Also, George Pickens did not make our list of the top five wide receivers because he had a fumble […]

Welcome to Week 16 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]

Last season, we had two units challenging historical sack records. The 2022 Eagles came close to the best sack rate for any defense in modern NFL history. The 2022 Bears came close to the worst sack rate for any offense in NFL history. Both teams fell short. There’s no defense this year that can come […]