Prime-Time First TD Bets — Monday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
The Buffalo Bills take over as the No. 1 team in both our DVOA and DAVE ratings following their commanding victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday night. The Bills currently rank first on offense and sixth on defense, although their special teams are below average.
The New Orleans Saints fall significantly after losing to Philadelphia but still rank second, a little bit behind Buffalo and nearly tied with Seattle. The Saints rank in the top five for all three phases of the game right now, while Seattle is sixth on offense and second on defense. Both of these teams will likely fall a bit when we start to incorporate opponent adjustments in a week. The Bills may fall a bit too, although at least they’ve beaten one team that is currently above average in DVOA (Arizona, 11th).
The New York Jets are this week’s big riser, going from 20th last week to 10th this week after demolishing the Patriots on Thursday night. The big faller is Houston, down from fifth to 14th after a big loss to Minnesota. The Vikings are currently fourth with the No. 1 defense in the NFL so far.
Last week, my hook for the DVOA commentary was that the Saints and Panthers were among the historically best and worst teams through two games. There’s no such hook this week. In fact, what’s most interesting about this year so far may be the lack of extremes, especially when you look at this year’s best and worst teams compared to the now 45-year history of DVOA. There’s one exception, and that’s the Washington Commanders defense. Remember how bad the Broncos defense was last year, historically bad? The Washington Commanders have been almost as bad when we adjust for the fact that scoring is down around the league this year. The Commanders are just 26th in total DVOA despite being 2-1, and a big reason is the horrible defense. Washington has a top 10 offense but their defense is way, way behind everyone else. Here’s a list of the worst defenses ever through three games. Remember that defense is worse when it is higher, because that means more scoring.
| Worst Defensive DVOA Through 3 Games, 1979-2024 | |||
| YEAR | TEAM | W-L | DVOA |
| 2006 | HOU | 0-3 | 49.3% |
| 2008 | DET | 0-3 | 44.4% |
| 2002 | KC | 1-2 | 40.7% |
| 1979 | NO | 0-3 | 39.9% |
| 2023 | DEN | 0-3 | 39.8% |
| 1985 | CIN | 0-3 | 38.5% |
| 2008 | STL | 0-3 | 37.8% |
| 2024 | WAS | 2-1 | 37.5% |
| 2000 | SF | 0-3 | 37.3% |
| 2013 | WAS | 0-3 | 37.2% |
| 1990 | SEA | 0-3 | 36.0% |
| 1979 | CIN | 0-3 | 35.0% |
Most of these teams didn’t actually finish out too bad. Yes, the 2008 Lions were winless at 0-16, but the 2002 Chiefs, 1979 Saints, 2023 Broncos, and 1985 Bengals all won at least seven games. To make the playoffs with a defense this bad, however, you really need to have a legendary quarterback. The only teams to start out with a defense worse than 30% through three games and still make the playoffs were the 2021 Chiefs (Mahomes), the 2017 Patriots (Brady), and the 2013 Chargers (Rivers). Jayden Daniels looks pretty good so far, but I don’t know if he’s going to be that good!
Here’s where the rest of this year’s extreme teams stand among the historical rankings going back to 1979. The most remarkable stat here is that the Miami Dolphins, this year’s worst team so far, are better than 84 different teams of the past 45 years. Thanks to the quality of the Washington offense to go with that defense, we really don’t have any absolutely horrible teams so far.
| Historical Ranks of 2024’s Best and Worst Teams (Through 3 Games) | |||
| Stat | Team | DVOA | Hist Rank |
| Total DVOA | BUF | 55.7% | 26 |
| Worst Total DVOA | MIA | -43.0% | 85 |
| Off DVOA | BUF | 38.9% | 22 |
| Worst Off DVOA | CHI | -36.0% | 55 |
| Def DVOA | MIN | -38.2% | 24 |
| Worst Def DVOA | WAS | 37.5% | 8 |
| ST DVOA | DAL | 15.1% | 19 |
| Worst ST DVOA | TEN | -13.0% | 61 |
* * * * *
These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through three 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 78% preseason forecast and 22% 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.
| RK | TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
TOTAL DAVE |
RANK | W-L | OFF. DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEF. DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
S.T. DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BUF | 55.7% | 6 | 21.5% | 1 | 3-0 | 38.9% | 1 | -20.7% | 6 | -3.8% | 26 |
| 2 | NO | 52.7% | 1 | 13.5% | 5 | 2-1 | 24.3% | 4 | -21.5% | 5 | 6.8% | 3 |
| 3 | SEA | 52.0% | 2 | 14.1% | 4 | 3-0 | 19.5% | 6 | -36.4% | 2 | -3.8% | 27 |
| 4 | MIN | 43.6% | 4 | 7.1% | 11 | 3-0 | 0.2% | 16 | -38.2% | 1 | 5.1% | 4 |
| 5 | BAL | 32.8% | 9 | 21.0% | 2 | 1-2 | 34.2% | 2 | -2.3% | 10 | -3.7% | 25 |
| 6 | PIT | 24.6% | 8 | -0.3% | 14 | 3-0 | -2.2% | 18 | -23.2% | 4 | 3.5% | 8 |
| 7 | GB | 23.8% | 11 | 10.2% | 9 | 2-1 | 25.1% | 3 | -1.8% | 12 | -3.1% | 24 |
| 8 | DET | 18.8% | 10 | 12.5% | 7 | 2-1 | 5.5% | 13 | -8.9% | 9 | 4.4% | 5 |
| 9 | LAC | 17.4% | 3 | -6.7% | 23 | 2-1 | -5.8% | 20 | -26.2% | 3 | -3.0% | 22 |
| 10 | NYJ | 9.3% | 20 | 4.3% | 13 | 2-1 | 9.2% | 12 | -2.3% | 11 | -2.2% | 21 |
| 11 | ARI | 8.4% | 7 | -6.0% | 21 | 1-2 | 14.4% | 8 | 7.5% | 23 | 1.5% | 13 |
| 12 | CIN | 8.2% | 16 | 7.4% | 10 | 0-3 | 22.7% | 5 | 9.4% | 24 | -5.2% | 28 |
| 13 | KC | 6.8% | 18 | 13.4% | 6 | 3-0 | 9.8% | 11 | 4.1% | 20 | 1.0% | 14 |
| 14 | HOU | 5.8% | 5 | 11.8% | 8 | 2-1 | -14.2% | 26 | -19.8% | 7 | 0.2% | 16 |
| 15 | SF | 5.6% | 15 | 17.3% | 3 | 1-2 | 16.4% | 7 | 3.4% | 19 | -7.5% | 30 |
| 16 | IND | 2.9% | 22 | -7.6% | 24 | 1-2 | 1.1% | 15 | 1.8% | 16 | 3.7% | 7 |
| RK | TEAM | TOTAL DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
TOTAL DAVE |
RANK | W-L | OFF. DVOA |
OFF. RANK |
DEF. DVOA |
DEF. RANK |
S.T. DVOA |
S.T. RANK |
| 17 | ATL | -2.2% | 13 | -4.4% | 20 | 1-2 | 3.4% | 14 | 6.0% | 22 | 0.4% | 15 |
| 18 | PHI | -4.1% | 21 | -1.2% | 16 | 2-1 | 10.0% | 10 | 11.0% | 25 | -3.0% | 23 |
| 19 | DEN | -9.6% | 31 | -12.5% | 27 | 1-2 | -19.8% | 28 | -0.2% | 13 | 9.9% | 2 |
| 20 | TB | -10.9% | 12 | -3.3% | 18 | 2-1 | -11.0% | 23 | 1.5% | 15 | 1.5% | 12 |
| 21 | NYG | -15.2% | 29 | -15.5% | 30 | 1-2 | -5.0% | 19 | 0.8% | 14 | -9.4% | 31 |
| 22 | DAL | -15.5% | 14 | 4.5% | 12 | 1-2 | -11.1% | 24 | 19.4% | 28 | 15.1% | 1 |
| 23 | NE | -19.9% | 17 | -11.8% | 26 | 1-2 | -8.7% | 21 | 14.0% | 26 | 2.9% | 10 |
| 24 | CHI | -21.5% | 24 | -13.0% | 28 | 1-2 | -36.0% | 32 | -11.6% | 8 | 2.9% | 9 |
| 25 | LAR | -23.6% | 28 | -1.7% | 17 | 1-2 | -1.5% | 17 | 24.1% | 31 | 2.0% | 11 |
| 26 | WAS | -26.9% | 30 | -19.1% | 32 | 2-1 | 11.3% | 9 | 37.5% | 32 | -0.7% | 18 |
| 27 | TEN | -28.3% | 23 | -11.1% | 25 | 0-3 | -13.3% | 25 | 2.1% | 17 | -13.0% | 32 |
| 28 | JAX | -34.1% | 19 | -6.3% | 22 | 0-3 | -8.8% | 22 | 19.7% | 29 | -5.6% | 29 |
| 29 | CAR | -34.2% | 32 | -17.0% | 31 | 1-2 | -27.7% | 30 | 5.6% | 21 | -0.9% | 20 |
| 30 | CLE | -35.0% | 27 | -3.5% | 19 | 1-2 | -31.6% | 31 | 3.3% | 18 | -0.1% | 17 |
| 31 | LV | -37.0% | 26 | -13.8% | 29 | 1-2 | -18.0% | 27 | 18.3% | 27 | -0.7% | 19 |
| 32 | MIA | -43.0% | 25 | -0.9% | 15 | 1-2 | -25.3% | 29 | 22.1% | 30 | 4.4% | 6 |
