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Week 14 DVOA: Lions Hold Their Lead

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The Detroit Lions fell three percentage points in DVOA but remain our No. 1 team after Week 14 of the 2024 season. The Lions are still in the top four teams for offense, defense, and special teams. However, they took a hit from the close win over Green Bay, where the Packers had the much higher DVOA for the game. In fact, the Packers climb two spots to No. 3 off Thursday’s performance. The Packers had 60.7% DVOA to just 2.9% for the Lions.

Here’s where the Lions now stand among the best teams in DVOA history. This table omits the 1987 49ers because they only played 12 real games (I don’t count the strikebreaker games).

Best Total DVOA Through 13 Games, 1979-2024
YEAR TEAM W-L DVOA
2007 NE 13-0 59.2%
1991 WAS 12-1 50.5%
1985 CHI 12-1 47.1%
1998 DEN 13-0 46.0%
2023 SF 10-3 45.3%
2012 NE 10-3 42.7%
1995 DAL 10-3 42.3%
1995 SF 9-4 41.6%
2004 NE 12-1 40.6%
2024 DET 12-1 40.0%
2023 BAL 10-3 39.9%
2002 TB 10-3 39.8%

Teams in that top dozen won six of nine possible Super Bowls. (It’s nine Super Bowls because we haven’t had this year’s game yet and because it was only possible for one team to win in 1995 or 2023.) The next few teams on the list include the 1999 Rams and 1997 Broncos but also some teams that didn’t make it such as the 2010 Patriots and 1994 Cowboys.

The Lions-Packers game on Thursday was the one close game this week where the team that won had a lower DVOA. It’s somewhat surprising that in a couple of the other close games, the winning team had a much higher DVOA rather than the teams being close.

The Los Angeles Rams had 30.0% DVOA with the Bills at -7.3% for the Rams’ 44-42 victory. The Rams climbed three percentage points in DVOA but actually drop one spot in the rankings because they got passed by the Seahawks after Seattle’s comfortable win over Arizona. (That loss also dropped Arizona six spots, from seventh to 13th.)

The Kansas City Chiefs had 39.7% DVOA with the Chargers at 7.4% for the Chiefs’ 19-17 victory. The Chiefs moved up to No. 8 in DVOA, as the teams from seven to 14 are fairly close together. However, the Chiefs are now clearly the “worst” 12-1 team ever measured by DVOA. This table shows the lowest DVOA ratings for teams at either 12-1 or 13-0. Also worth mentioning here are two pre-DVOA teams with a low point differential at 12-1, the 1976 Raiders and the 1977 Broncos.

Worst DVOA at 12-1 or 13-0, 1979-2024
YEAR TEAM W-L DVOA RANK
2024 KC 12-1 13.1% 8
1990 SF 12-1 21.4% 3
2008 TEN 12-1 23.8% 4
2015 CAR 13-0 24.8% 6
2009 IND 13-0 27.4% 3
2011 GB 13-0 27.8% 2
2020 KC 12-1 27.9% 1
1998 MIN 12-1 29.4% 3
1984 MIA 12-1 30.7% 2
2009 NO 13-0 32.4% 1
1996 DEN 12-1 32.6% 2
2022 PHI 12-1 33.2% 2

There are a lot of people who believe that the Chiefs will raise their game in the playoffs. Honestly, I’m one of those people. But at this point, they’ve fallen enough that raising their game probably puts them even with the Bills and Ravens, not better than the Bills or Ravens. Note that only one team on that table won a Super Bowl, although I mentioned the 1976 Raiders and they also won the Super Bowl.

If we included 11-2 teams on that table as well, the Chiefs would be fifth lowest behind the 2012 Falcons, 2000 Vikings, 1984 Broncos, and 1998 Falcons. A couple of the lower-rated 11-2 teams won Super Bowls, however, including the 2003 Patriots (14.3% at 11-2) and 1986 Giants (16.1% at 11-2).

Full DVOA Table Through Week 14

These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through 14 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.)

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 represents an attempt to figure out how a team is playing right now, as opposed to over the season as a whole, by making recent games more important than earlier games.

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 DET 40.0% 1 41.0% 1 12-1 16.7% 4 -16.7% 3 6.6% 1
2 BAL 34.8% 2 36.0% 2 8-5 33.5% 1 -3.1% 13 -1.8% 24
3 GB 23.9% 5 24.9% 4 9-4 18.6% 3 -4.7% 11 0.6% 16
4 BUF 22.6% 3 22.0% 5 10-3 21.2% 2 -5.4% 10 -4.0% 29
5 PHI 22.4% 4 28.4% 3 11-2 7.1% 12 -14.4% 4 0.9% 13
6 MIN 22.1% 6 18.1% 6 11-2 5.3% 14 -17.4% 1 -0.7% 21
7 SF 14.9% 11 14.0% 9 6-7 11.1% 8 -9.3% 6 -5.5% 31
8 KC 13.1% 12 8.7% 14 12-1 8.9% 9 -1.6% 15 2.6% 6
9 LAC 12.9% 8 14.8% 7 8-5 2.8% 15 -8.7% 7 1.4% 12
10 DEN 12.2% 9 14.2% 8 8-5 -4.3% 20 -12.2% 5 4.3% 4
11 HOU 10.6% 10 8.9% 13 8-5 -9.0% 24 -17.1% 2 2.5% 7
12 PIT 10.6% 14 10.8% 10 10-3 -3.4% 18 -8.3% 8 5.6% 2
13 ARI 9.7% 7 10.2% 11 6-7 8.2% 10 -2.1% 14 -0.6% 20
14 WAS 9.3% 13 9.4% 12 8-5 15.6% 5 8.4% 28 2.1% 9
15 SEA 3.8% 18 1.0% 16 8-5 -2.7% 16 -6.8% 9 -0.4% 19
16 TB 3.2% 15 -0.5% 18 7-6 8.2% 11 2.0% 17 -2.9% 25
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 3.1% 16 5.8% 15 7-6 11.2% 7 5.2% 22 -2.9% 26
18 CIN 1.0% 17 -0.2% 17 5-8 13.9% 6 11.5% 29 -1.4% 23
19 ATL -5.6% 19 -10.8% 22 6-7 6.2% 13 8.0% 27 -3.8% 28
20 NO -6.3% 20 -10.7% 21 5-8 -3.2% 17 5.6% 23 2.5% 8
21 IND -6.8% 21 -7.8% 20 6-7 -7.4% 22 1.4% 16 2.0% 10
22 NYJ -11.6% 22 -11.7% 23 3-10 -6.6% 21 4.7% 19 -0.3% 18
23 MIA -12.6% 24 -5.3% 19 6-7 -8.2% 23 5.0% 20 0.7% 15
24 CHI -13.4% 23 -15.4% 25 4-9 -10.9% 25 4.6% 18 2.0% 11
25 JAX -16.5% 26 -14.4% 24 3-10 -3.8% 19 16.1% 32 3.5% 5
26 DAL -16.7% 25 -17.5% 26 5-8 -14.7% 27 6.9% 26 4.9% 3
27 NYG -21.8% 27 -24.5% 28 2-11 -12.3% 26 6.2% 24 -3.3% 27
28 LV -23.8% 28 -22.4% 27 2-11 -18.2% 29 6.2% 25 0.6% 17
29 TEN -27.8% 29 -28.0% 30 3-10 -21.6% 31 -4.4% 12 -10.6% 32
30 CAR -32.7% 30 -26.4% 29 3-10 -16.7% 28 15.0% 30 -0.9% 22
31 NE -35.5% 32 -35.1% 32 3-10 -20.2% 30 16.1% 31 0.8% 14
32 CLE -36.6% 31 -32.7% 31 3-10 -26.6% 32 5.0% 21 -4.9% 30
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