NHL Best Bets for Tuesday (11/19)
Kenneth Le
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 the DVOA system says that the Chiefs way outplayed the Bills. That’s what happens when one team averages 7.7 yards per play and the other team averages 4.7 yards per play. Remember, DVOA is an efficiency stat — a rate stat, so it’s not interested in the fact that the Bills had 31 more plays and therefore 7 more yards than the Chiefs. It’s looking at value per play and also considering that the Bills recovered both their fumbles while the Chiefs lost one of theirs (through the end zone, of course).
Both teams get strong opponent adjustments for playing each other, so the Chiefs end up with 76% DVOA and the Bills with -41% DVOA. The Chiefs had a 98% Post-Game Win Expectancy despite the final score. By DVOA, this was the strongest single game of the year for the Chiefs and two of their four games over 50% this year have come in the playoffs. Yes, the Chiefs have finally gotten hot.
Are they possibly hot enough to take out the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore? The Ravens are absurdly hot right now. Basically, they are the hottest team DVOA has ever tracked at this point in the season. Baltimore’s 34-10 win over Houston gets 52% DVOA which is the Ravens’ seventh game over 50% for the season. Four of those games have come in the last six, which means that weighted DVOA — which gives more weight to recent games — absolutely loves the Ravens right now even without adjusting for the fact that they sat starters in Week 18.
Right now, Baltimore has 55.2% weighted DVOA. The Ravens are the first team to ever be above 50% after the Divisional Round. Here’s a look at the highest weighted DVOA ratings ever through the Divisional Round, counting only teams that were still alive for the conference championships:
| Best Weighted DVOA thru Divisional Round, 1981-2023 | |||
| Year | Team | WEI DVOA | Result |
| 2023 | BAL | 55.2% | — |
| 1985 | CHI | 49.4% | Won SB |
| 1996 | GB | 45.8% | Won SB |
| 1991 | WAS | 45.6% | Won SB |
| 2020 | BUF | 44.6% | Lost CCG |
| 1989 | SF | 44.4% | Won SB |
| 2007 | NE | 43.9% | Lost SB |
| 1997 | GB | 43.8% | Lost SB |
| 1992 | DAL | 43.6% | Won SB |
| 1994 | SF | 43.5% | Won SB |
| 2012 | NE | 43.4% | Lost CCG |
| 2019 | KC | 42.4% | Won SB |
| 2013 | SEA | 39.4% | Won SB |
| 1986 | NYG | 39.1% | Won SB |
| 2004 | NE | 38.4% | Won SB |
The Ravens have opened up a big weighted DVOA lead over San Francisco because the 49ers did not play very well against the Packers. The 49ers had the higher VOA but a lower DVOA after opponent adjustments are applied. The 49ers only had a 56.5% Post-Game Win Expectancy.
Our playoff odds report gives both teams about the same chance to move on to Super Bowl LVIII. The Ravens are better right now but the 49ers have the easier draw against the Lions. And, as I jokingly wrote on the playoff odds page, I didn’t include any sort of special variable for Patrick Mahomes magic. You’ll notice that one of the highest teams on the table above was the 2020 Buffalo Bills, and they lost the AFC Championship to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, even though the Chiefs had a lower DVOA.
As always, the following rules apply for postseason DVOA ratings:
- All 32 teams are ranked, whether they made the playoffs or not.
- Teams are ranked in order of weighted DVOA, not total season DVOA. Since weighted DVOA is meant to lower the strength of older games, these ratings do not include Weeks 1-5, and Weeks 6-13 are somewhat discounted.
- The ratings listed do not include the adjustments for sitting starters in Week 18 which are used in the ratings for our playoff odds report.
- Only weighted DVOA is listed for offense, defense, and special teams. Total DVOA is also listed, but adding 10 games to a 272-game sample won’t change things very much from the end of the season.
- Teams are treated as having a bye week in any week where they did not play. Since most teams haven’t played in two weeks, that means some of the ratings for non-playoff teams can start getting a little unreliable. Really, this is only to be used for playoff teams, the other teams are just there for ranking comparison purposes.
- DVOA, as always, takes a long-term view of an NFL team’s performance. That means that the games of the last two weeks are just two games among many, so teams may be listed below other teams that they have beaten in the playoffs.
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If you are new to our website, you can read the explanation of how DVOA is figured here. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.
Teams in blue are still alive in the playoffs. Teams in gray lost this past weekend.
| RK | TEAM | WEI. DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
W-L | WEI OFF DVOA |
RK | WEI DEF DVOA |
RK | WEI S.T. DVOA |
RK | TOTAL DVOA |
RK |
| 1 | BAL | 55.2% | 1 | 14-4 | 25.2% | 3 | -24.8% | 1 | 5.2% | 2 | 45.7% | 1 |
| 2 | SF | 33.4% | 2 | 13-5 | 29.6% | 1 | -7.0% | 8 | -3.3% | 29 | 37.6% | 2 |
| 3 | BUF | 20.2% | 3 | 12-7 | 18.0% | 5 | -1.8% | 15 | 0.4% | 20 | 22.7% | 3 |
| 4 | KC | 19.6% | 5 | 13-6 | 7.4% | 10 | -9.1% | 5 | 3.1% | 6 | 21.7% | 4 |
| 5 | GB | 17.2% | 4 | 10-9 | 26.3% | 2 | 6.9% | 27 | -2.3% | 24 | 7.8% | 8 |
| 6 | DAL | 12.7% | 8 | 12-6 | 8.7% | 8 | -2.2% | 13 | 1.8% | 11 | 14.0% | 7 |
| 7 | DET | 12.4% | 7 | 14-5 | 14.8% | 6 | 3.7% | 22 | 1.3% | 14 | 17.2% | 5 |
| 8 | LV | 11.1% | 9 | 8-9 | -2.7% | 20 | -12.5% | 4 | 1.3% | 15 | -5.3% | 21 |
| 9 | MIA | 10.2% | 6 | 11-7 | 7.9% | 9 | -1.9% | 14 | 0.4% | 19 | 15.2% | 6 |
| 10 | CIN | 9.1% | 10 | 9-8 | 11.7% | 7 | 6.6% | 26 | 4.0% | 5 | 4.3% | 13 |
| 11 | CHI | 8.4% | 13 | 7-10 | -1.0% | 18 | -7.8% | 6 | 1.6% | 12 | -7.1% | 22 |
| 12 | HOU | 7.7% | 11 | 11-8 | -0.1% | 16 | -2.8% | 12 | 5.0% | 3 | 6.2% | 10 |
| 13 | PIT | 7.1% | 12 | 10-8 | 2.7% | 13 | -4.0% | 11 | 0.3% | 21 | 6.8% | 9 |
| 14 | TB | 6.1% | 14 | 10-9 | -0.4% | 17 | -4.1% | 10 | 2.4% | 10 | 0.9% | 16 |
| 15 | LAR | 4.8% | 15 | 10-8 | 20.6% | 4 | 5.8% | 25 | -10.0% | 32 | 1.1% | 14 |
| 16 | NO | 3.1% | 16 | 9-8 | 4.2% | 12 | 1.9% | 19 | 0.8% | 18 | 1.0% | 15 |
| RK | TEAM | WEI. DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
W-L | WEI OFF DVOA |
RK | WEI DEF DVOA |
RK | WEI S.T. DVOA |
RK | TOTAL DVOA |
RK |
| 17 | CLE | 1.1% | 17 | 11-7 | -11.7% | 25 | -13.0% | 3 | -0.1% | 22 | 5.4% | 11 |
| 18 | JAX | -3.4% | 18 | 9-8 | -3.8% | 21 | 0.9% | 18 | 1.2% | 16 | 4.4% | 12 |
| 19 | SEA | -3.8% | 19 | 9-8 | 7.3% | 11 | 14.0% | 29 | 2.8% | 8 | -0.1% | 17 |
| 20 | DEN | -5.4% | 20 | 8-9 | -4.4% | 22 | 2.2% | 20 | 1.1% | 17 | -11.9% | 24 |
| 21 | IND | -8.7% | 21 | 9-8 | 1.5% | 14 | 5.5% | 24 | -4.6% | 31 | -3.8% | 20 |
| 22 | NYJ | -9.5% | 23 | 7-10 | -31.8% | 32 | -19.5% | 2 | 2.7% | 9 | -12.5% | 25 |
| 23 | NYG | -10.1% | 26 | 6-11 | -11.9% | 26 | -0.3% | 16 | 1.4% | 13 | -26.6% | 30 |
| 24 | LAC | -10.3% | 22 | 5-12 | -9.7% | 24 | 7.5% | 28 | 6.9% | 1 | -3.2% | 19 |
| 25 | MIN | -12.4% | 24 | 7-10 | -13.6% | 29 | -4.3% | 9 | -3.0% | 27 | -7.2% | 23 |
| 26 | PHI | -12.8% | 25 | 11-7 | 0.4% | 15 | 17.4% | 30 | 4.3% | 4 | -0.6% | 18 |
| 27 | NE | -13.5% | 28 | 4-13 | -20.3% | 30 | -7.1% | 7 | -0.3% | 23 | -15.9% | 27 |
| 28 | TEN | -16.1% | 27 | 6-11 | -12.1% | 27 | 0.5% | 17 | -3.5% | 30 | -13.4% | 26 |
| 29 | ATL | -17.3% | 29 | 7-10 | -9.2% | 23 | 5.1% | 23 | -3.0% | 25 | -18.6% | 28 |
| 30 | ARI | -19.4% | 30 | 4-13 | -2.1% | 19 | 20.4% | 31 | 3.1% | 7 | -20.4% | 29 |
| 31 | CAR | -33.8% | 31 | 2-15 | -28.4% | 31 | 2.3% | 21 | -3.1% | 28 | -35.3% | 32 |
| 32 | WAS | -36.1% | 32 | 4-13 | -12.3% | 28 | 20.7% | 32 | -3.0% | 26 | -28.5% | 31 |
Here are the single-game DVOA ratings for the Divisional Round. Subscribers can download all the 2023 playoff stats from the DVOA Historical Archive.
| DVOA (with opponent adjustments) | ||||
| TEAM | TOT | OFF | DEF | ST |
| HOU | -9% | -21% | 5% | 18% |
| BAL | 52% | 29% | -31% | -9% |
| GB | 22% | 18% | -1% | 2% |
| SF | 10% | 21% | 2% | -9% |
| TB | 6% | 18% | 7% | -5% |
| DET | 24% | 23% | 4% | 5% |
| KC | 76% | 71% | 0% | 5% |
| BUF | -41% | 21% | 55% | -7% |
| VOA (no opponent adjustments) | ||||
| TEAM | TOT | OFF | DEF | ST |
| HOU | -56% | -47% | 26% | 18% |
| BAL | 45% | 27% | -26% | -9% |
| GB | -16% | 9% | 27% | 2% |
| SF | 7% | 28% | 12% | -9% |
| TB | -8% | 16% | 19% | -5% |
| DET | 28% | 23% | 0% | 5% |
| KC | 58% | 68% | 16% | 5% |
| BUF | -51% | 17% | 61% | -7% |
