DVOA Week 2: More New Orleans Magic

The New Orleans Saints continue to dominate the early-season DVOA ratings after winning their first two games by a combined score of 91-29. No, we haven’t incorporated opponent adjustments yet, and there’s a good chance the Panthers will come out as one of the weakest teams this year. But there’s also a pretty good chance that the Dallas Cowboys will come out as an above-average team, which would adjust the Saints’ rating for this week up.

The Saints now rank as the fourth-highest team in DVOA ever measured through Week 2. Again, no opponent adjustments, but opponent adjustments don’t apply to any of the teams on this table.

There have been 36 teams with a DVOA of at least 60% through two games, including this year’s Saints. Twenty-eight of the previous 35 teams made the postseason. Six others finished 8-8 or 9-7 but missed the playoffs. Only one team out of the 35, the 2003 Buffalo Bills, finished with a losing record… and they are the last team out of the 35 with 60.2% DVOA through Week 2. If you bet the Saints over 7.5 in the preseason, congratulations.

Our playoff odds now have the Saints second behind the Texans as the Super Bowl favorites, winning the championship 14.0% of the time. That may seem insane, and it probably is. Our DAVE ratings, even using 85% preseason projections, are getting overwhelmed by how good the Saints have been through two games. On the other hand, most of the top NFC contenders lost this week, and we know that it is going to be easier to get through the NFC playoffs than the AFC playoffs. The idea that the Saints are now among the NFC favorites may not be as crazy it sounds, even if they should not be listed as the favorite. (Note also that we are not giving the Saints any kind of home-field advantage when we play out the Super Bowl in our simulations.)

Struggles in Carolina

The flip side of the Saints would be the Carolina Panthers, the team the Saints beat up on in Week 1. Just as the Saints went out in Week 2 and played another dominant game, the Panthers went out and were beyond impotent for a second straight week, losing to the Chargers 26-3. Just as the Saints rank among the best teams we’ve ever tracked through Week 2, the Panthers rank among the worst teams we’ve ever tracked.

The Panthers look even worse if we only look at their offense. That ranks seventh worst out of all the teams through Week 2 since 1979. The other teams with bad offenses are mostly the same teams that appear above, plus the 2002 Texans, 2006 Raiders, and 2013 Jaguars who at least had reasonable defenses.

Of course, the Panthers have already made a move by benching Bryce Young and turning to veteran Andy Dalton as their new starting quarterback. And what’s remarkable about these terrible starts is how many of these teams rebounded to at least have mediocre seasons. The 1989 Steelers even made it to the playoffs after losing their first two games by a combined score of 92-10, although they are the only team with DVOA below -55% through two games to ever make it to the playoffs. However, a lot of these teams went 7-9 or 8-8. It’s totally not out of the realm of possibility that the Panthers might do the same thing if Dalton can provide above-replacement level quarterback play.

How Is Seattle at No. 2?

Another big surprise on the DVOA ratings below is Seattle ranking No. 2 behind New Orleans. Yes, the Seahawks are 2-0, but those are two close wins: 26-20 over Denver and then 23-20 over New England in overtime. Even acknowledging that we aren’t adjusting for opponent strength yet, what on earth are they doing so high?

The Seahawks, it turns out, far outplayed both opponents according to DVOA. They had a 70.9% DVOA in Week 1’s victory over the Broncos and then a 30.0% for Week 2’s win over the Patriots. The Denver win really stands out, as the Seahawks had 5.1 net yards per play compared to just 3.3 for the Broncos and won the turnover margin as well. They even commited less penalties, giving them a 99.8% Post-Game Win Expectancy (PGWE) for that game. The gap was smaller in the Patriots game, but by the time overtime was finished, the Seahawks had 5.4 net yards per play compared to 4.7 for the Patriots. Neither team had a turnover, although the Patriots did fumble once and recover it themselves. The Seahawks had a PGWE of 86.9% for that game.

Seattle is currently sixth on offense and fifth on defense, so they’re getting it done on both sides of the ball. The offense is middle of the pack in yards per play but ninth in success rate with just one turnover. The defense is second in yards allowed per play behind only the Tennessee Titans (!) and third in success rate allowed behind the Chargers and the Bears.

Why is Kansas City So Low?

The Chiefs are the flip side of the Seahawks so far this season. Somehow, the defending champions are the lowest of the 2-0 team, with a slightly negative DVOA ranked 18th overall. Again, this is a team that has enjoyed a couple of close victories, beating the Ravens by a touchdown and then the Bengals by a single point. Again, it matters that we’re not including opponent adjustments yet, as we’re projecting the Ravens and Bengals to both rank among the best teams in the league. That makes these victories more impressive than the stats show without the adjustment. Still, it feels like the Chiefs should be higher than this.

Kansas City currently ranks 12th on offense and 22nd on defense. The offense is second in success rate behind only New Orleans, which is really impressive, but they are only 10th in yards per play and have committed some bad turnovers. On defense, the Chiefs are 24th in yards allowed per play and 30th in success rate allowed. Their success rate allowed on defense (51.1%) is basically the same as their great success rate on offense (51.3%).

Of course, we all expect the Chiefs will get better than this. I expect they’ll get better, and our DAVE ratings expect that they’ll get better. Meanwhile, they’ve banked two wins against tough conference opponents. Not bad for a couple of mediocre performances by the numbers.

Reverse PGWE Games of Week 2

Week 2 had a number of games with “reverse PGWE,” which should help explain some of the other unexpected DVOA rankings below. A reminder, Post-Game Win Expectancy (PGWE) is a formula that takes each team’s performance by DVOA as well as total plays and total penalties to tell us: based on performance in this game, how often would we expect each team to have won the game? It’s not based at all on stats going into the game, just performance in the game itself. Here is a list of the games with reverse PGWE, where the team with a stronger PGWE lost the game:

• Tampa Bay 20, Detroit 16 (Lions 96.0%)
• Las Vegas 26, Baltimore 23 (Ravens 94.6%)
• Kansas City 26, Cincinnati 25 (Bengals 74.3%)
• Washington 21, New York Giants 18 (Giants 71.2%)
• Cleveland 18, Jacksonville 13 (Jaguars 58.8%)

The Lions loss is the seventh-largest “surprise” by PGWE since 2010.

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These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through two weeks of 2024. 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.) Please note that there are no opponent adjustments in DVOA until after Week 4.

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 85% preseason forecast and 15% actual performance. DAVE ratings for the Carolina Panthers are adjusted for Andy Dalton taking over at quarterback. DAVE ratings for Green Bay and Miami do not reflect injuries to quarterbacks Jordan Love and Tua Tagovailoa, but we do have an adjustment for those injuries in our playoff odds report.