Week 14 DVOA: 49ers Now an All-Time Top-5 Team

The San Francisco 49ers continued their winning ways this week, dominating DVOA and every other advanced NFL metric across the Internet.

The 49ers are now up to 45.3% DVOA and 47.9% weighted DVOA. They are No. 1 on offense by a ton but also No. 4 on defense. Their special teams are below average, ranked 26th, but they don’t lose a lot of value on that. San Francisco now ranks as the fifth-best team ever tracked by DVOA through 13 games and the best team since the 2007 Patriots. The Baltimore Ravens dropped in DVOA because of a close win over the Los Angeles Rams but a lot of other historically great teams also struggled in their 13th game, so the Ravens still make our list of the top dozen teams through 13 games since 1981:

Best Total DVOA Thru 13 Games, 1981-2023
Year	Team	W-L	DVOA	Off	Rk	Def	Rk	ST	Rk
2007	NE	13-0	59.2%	42.1%	1	-11.3%	4	5.8%	5
1991	WAS	12-1	50.5%	21.5%	2	-20.0%	3	9.0%	1
1985	CHI	12-1	47.1%	14.2%	4	-29.6%	1	3.3%	7
1998	DEN	13-0	46.0%	36.4%	1	-7.0%	9	2.6%	8
2023	SF	10-3	45.3%	35.3%	1	-11.8%	4	-1.9%	26
2012	NE	10-3	42.7%	31.6%	1	-5.1%	9	6.0%	3
1995	DAL	10-3	42.3%	32.8%	1	-5.5%	12	4.0%	4
1995	SF	9-4	41.6%	14.5%	4	-30.5%	1	-3.4%	27
1987	SF*	10-2	41.5%	19.6%	3	-20.6%	1	1.3%	9
2004	NE	12-1	40.6%	22.5%	4	-16.3%	4	1.8%	13
2023	BAL	10-3	39.9%	17.2%	5	-19.6%	2	3.1%	5
2002	TB	10-3	39.8%	-4.8%	23	-40.9%	1	3.7%	8
1999	STL	11-2	39.5%	19.0%	3	-17.4%	2	3.2%	7
*includes only 12 non-strikebreaker games

San Francisco now has five straight games with single-game DVOA above 50%, making them only the seventh team to accomplish this feat including the postseason. The other six:

1989 San Francisco 49ers in Weeks 15-20
1996 Green Bay Packers in Weeks 14-21 (seven games)
2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Weeks 2-6
2007 New England Patriots in Weeks 1-5
2010 New England Patriots in Weeks 10-17. That’s eight games and a reminder that the 49ers are not guaranteed a Super Bowl title despite how good they’ve been playing. The 2010 Patriots entered the postseason with an absurd weighted DVOA of 56.4% and then lost their first playoff game 28-21 to a New York Jets team they had just beaten a few weeks earlier by 42 points.
2020 Buffalo Bills in Weeks 12-17 (six games). This one is also a little weird because the Bills didn’t win those first couple games by a lot but they had great DVOA ratings. Then they dominated their last three games, winning each by four touchdowns, but they lost the AFC Championship to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kansas City moves up slightly and stays in third place this week. The Chiefs had a higher DVOA (36.9%) than the Buffalo Bills (16.2%) in this week’s loss and both teams go up a little bit. (The Bills move up because of changes in opponent adjustments.)

The Dallas Cowboys are up one spot to No. 4. They also rank third in weighted DVOA, which gives more strength to recent games, as their offense has made a massive turnaround in the second half of this year. The Cowboys ranked 16th in offensive DVOA through Week 7 (-2.7%) but are second in Weeks 8-14 (24.8%) behind only the 49ers.

Buffalo stays sixth with the Detroit Lions still in seventh but falling significantly — seven percentage points from 18.5% to 11.5% even though they stay in the same place. The Lions defense is really struggling over the last few weeks, going from third in Weeks 1-6 (-16.6%) to 31st in Weeks 7-14 (12.9%) ahead of only the Washington Commanders.

Other big movers this week in the rankings: Cleveland Browns are up three spots to No. 9, Denver Broncos move up four spots to No. 18, Houston Texans are down three spots to No. 14, and Indianapolis Colts are down four spots to No. 20.

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Teams on the Rise and Fall

To look at more teams that have been on the rise or fall over the course of the season, I put together numbers splitting the season in half. How have teams and units done when we compare Weeks 1-7 to Weeks 8-14? That’s an arbitary split, of course, but here we go…

Offenses on the Rise

As noted above, the Cowboys have gone from 16th to second in offensive DVOA since Week 8.

The Cincinnati Bengals have gone from -9.1% (21st) in Weeks 1-7 to 18.3% (fourth) in Weeks 8-14.

The Green Bay Packers, even including last night’s loss, have gone from -3.0% (17th) in Weeks 1-7 to 12.7% (sixth) in Weeks 8-14.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, even including Thursday night’s loss, have gone from -7.9% (19th) in Weeks 1-7 to 5.3% (12th) in Weeks 8-14.

Offenses on the Decline

The Los Angeles Chargers went from 13.6% (seventh) in Weeks 1-7 to -3.8% (21st) in Weeks 8-14.

The Indianapolis Colts went from 2.5% (12th) in Weeks 1-7 to -7.2% (24th) in Weeks 8-14.

The Minnesota Vikings went from 0.6% (14th) in Weeks 1-7 to -11.7% (26th) in Weeks 8-14.

The Arizona Cardinals have dropped significantly since Week 7 but that’s mostly because of a shutout by Cleveland in Week 9. If you split things by the return of Kyler Murray, then the Cardinals have gone from -13.3% offensive DVOA (27th) in Weeks 1-9 to -6.8% offensive DVOA (22nd) in Weeks 10-14.

Defenses on the Rise

We’ve got a lot of these.

The Denver Broncos have improved to an absurd extent because of how bad they were in Weeks 1-5. Through Week 7, the Broncos were still last in the NFL with 30.0% defensive DVOA. In Weeks 8-14, the Broncos have -16.1% defensive DVOA (fourth).

The Chicago Bears have gone from 10.5% DVOA (28th) in Weeks 1-7 to -7.0% DVOA (ninth) in Weeks 8-14.

The Miami Dolphins, even including last night’s loss, have gone from 9.0% DVOA (27th) in Weeks 1-7 to -14.4% DVOA (sixth) in Weeks 8-14.

The Minnesota Vikings have gone from -3.3% DVOA (13th) in Weeks 1-7 to -17.3% (second behind only the New York Jets) in Weeks 8-14.

The Carolina Panthers and Los Angeles Chargers also saw improvement from poor defenses to average in the last few weeks.

Defenses on the Decline

I noted the decline of the Detroit Lions above.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have gone from -12.3% DVOA (third) in Weeks 1-7 to 3.7% DVOA (17th) in Weeks 8-14.

The New Orleans Saints have gone from -7.0% DVOA (10th) in Weeks 1-7 to 7.7% DVOA (26th) in Weeks 8-14.

The Philadelphia Eagles have gone from -2.0% DVOA (15th) in Weeks 1-7 to 8.7% DVOA (29th) in Weeks 8-14.

The Seattle Seahawks have gone from 0.5% DVOA (18th) in Weeks 1-7 to 10.2% DVOA (31st) in Weeks 8-14.

The Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Indianapolis Colts have also seen some defensive decline in recent weeks.

* * * * *

These are the FTN DVOA ratings through 14 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.)

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.

WEIGHTED DVOA gives more weight to recent games and less weight to early-season games to get a better idea of how teams are playing now.

RK	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	WEI. DVOA	RK	W-L	OFF. DVOA	OFF. RK	DEF. DVOA	DEF. RK	S.T. DVOA	S.T. RK
1	SF	45.3%	1	47.9%	1	10-3	35.3%	1	-11.8%	4	-1.9%	26
2	BAL	39.9%	2	41.3%	2	10-3	17.2%	5	-19.6%	2	3.1%	5
3	KC	24.5%	3	21.8%	5	8-5	17.4%	4	-4.1%	9	3.0%	6
4	DAL	24.4%	5	28.0%	3	10-3	12.3%	6	-9.5%	5	2.6%	8
5	MIA	22.5%	4	23.2%	4	9-4	22.5%	2	-0.6%	11	-0.7%	22
6	BUF	20.5%	6	18.3%	6	7-6	21.7%	3	0.6%	15	-0.6%	21
7	DET	11.5%	7	7.7%	8	9-4	11.4%	7	-0.4%	12	-0.3%	17
8	PHI	11.0%	8	9.2%	7	10-3	10.8%	8	3.5%	20	3.8%	2
9	CLE	9.5%	12	6.9%	10	8-5	-12.9%	28	-20.9%	1	1.5%	10
10	JAX	8.4%	9	7.1%	9	8-5	0.9%	16	-5.3%	8	2.3%	9
11	PIT	5.8%	10	6.7%	11	7-6	-0.5%	17	-6.9%	7	-0.6%	20
12	CIN	2.8%	14	4.9%	12	7-6	5.5%	11	5.6%	25	2.9%	7
13	LAC	1.5%	13	0.8%	14	5-8	4.2%	13	6.8%	27	4.1%	1
14	HOU	0.5%	11	0.4%	15	7-6	4.5%	12	4.1%	21	0.1%	15
15	MIN	0.0%	15	0.4%	16	7-6	-5.2%	20	-9.3%	6	-4.0%	30
16	SEA	-0.7%	18	-1.6%	17	6-7	3.7%	14	5.7%	26	1.4%	11
RK	TEAM	TOTAL DVOA	LAST WEEK	WEI. DVOA	RK	W-L	OFF. DVOA	OFF. RK	DEF. DVOA	DEF. RK	S.T. DVOA	S.T. RK
17	LAR	-2.4%	19	-4.0%	19	6-7	10.5%	9	4.7%	23	-8.3%	32
18	DEN	-3.4%	22	4.6%	13	7-6	2.2%	15	9.0%	30	3.3%	4
19	GB	-3.7%	17	-2.3%	18	6-7	5.7%	10	6.9%	28	-2.6%	28
20	IND	-4.1%	16	-6.5%	22	7-6	-1.8%	18	0.6%	14	-1.7%	25
21	NO	-4.6%	20	-6.5%	21	6-7	-4.6%	19	0.1%	13	0.1%	14
22	TB	-7.0%	21	-7.3%	23	6-7	-5.5%	21	0.9%	17	-0.6%	19
23	CHI	-11.1%	24	-5.8%	20	5-8	-7.4%	24	2.3%	18	-1.4%	23
24	TEN	-11.7%	23	-12.1%	24	5-8	-6.7%	22	3.5%	19	-1.6%	24
25	NYJ	-12.2%	28	-14.0%	26	5-8	-31.2%	32	-15.3%	3	3.6%	3
26	NE	-15.4%	26	-16.8%	28	3-10	-12.8%	27	-1.7%	10	-4.3%	31
27	ATL	-15.8%	25	-13.4%	25	6-7	-7.8%	25	5.3%	24	-2.7%	29
28	LV	-17.7%	27	-15.1%	27	5-8	-17.6%	29	0.9%	16	0.8%	13
29	WAS	-21.7%	30	-23.4%	29	4-9	-7.4%	23	14.3%	32	0.0%	16
30	ARI	-23.1%	29	-23.7%	30	3-10	-11.2%	26	13.1%	31	1.2%	12
31	NYG	-32.7%	32	-29.6%	31	5-8	-26.1%	30	4.6%	22	-1.9%	27
32	CAR	-37.9%	31	-38.5%	32	1-12	-28.7%	31	8.9%	29	-0.4%	18