Prime-Time First TD Bets — Monday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
We thought Week 6 was Upset Week in the NFL, but Week 7 really was Upset Week. Last week’s top four teams in DVOA all lost this weekend: San Francisco, Detroit, Buffalo, and Miami. Baltimore’s victory over Detroit was so gigantic that the Ravens leaped up 15 percentage points of DVOA and now hold the No. 1 spot, followed by San Francisco and Kansas City. The Chiefs are No. 1 in DAVE (which incorporates preseason projections) and our Super Bowl odds.
How rare is it for the top four teams in DVOA to all lose in the same week? I went back into history to look and it has only happened once before. Going into Week 13 of the 1991 season, the top four teams in DVOA were Washington (11-0), Kansas City (7-4), New Orleans (9-2), and the Houston Oilers (9-2). Then in Week 13:
- Washington lost its first game of the season to No. 17 Dallas, 24-21, even though Troy Aikman went down with a right knee sprain in the third quarter and Steve Beuerlein had to play the second half. It was Washington’s only loss all year where they played their starters all game.
- Kansas City lost to No. 16 Cleveland, 20-15, in a game where Steve DeBerg had 50 pass attempts.
- New Orleans fell to No. 10 Atlanta, 23-20 in overtime.
- Houston lost to No. 20 Pittsburgh, 26-14, with five interceptions from Warren Moon.
The teams ranked seventh (Buffalo), ninth (Chicago), and 11th (Minnesota) in DVOA also lost that week to lower-ranked teams. Now that was an upset week!
Baltimore had 127.0% DVOA for their 38-6 win over Detroit, which is now the best game of the season and the No. 14 best single-game DVOA ever since 1981. This is the best single Baltimore Ravens performance in DVOA history, although that may change as opponent adjustments develop over the course of the season. Meanwhile, Detroit suffered one of the biggest losses ever for a team that had been in the DVOA top three the week before.
(DVOA is slightly different in the tweets below because of changes in opponent adjustments due to Monday Night Football.)
The San Francisco 49ers fell almost nine percentage points of DVOA with their loss to Minnesota last night and are now in second place, just ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs who move up two spots into third place. The Chiefs are currently in the top five for all three phases of the game, which puts them in rare company. The Chiefs are the first team to be in the top five for all three phases after Week 7 since 1999!
| Top 5 in All Three Phases as of Week 7, 1981-2023 | ||||||||||
| Year | Team | W-L | DVOA | Rk | Off | Rk | Def | Rk | ST | Rk |
| 1984 | WAS | 5-2 | 35.0% | 3 | 16.0% | 4 | -14.2% | 4 | 4.8% | 4 |
| 1985 | CHI | 7-0 | 47.6% | 1 | 21.6% | 2 | -19.9% | 2 | 6.1% | 3 |
| 1990 | NYG | 6-0 | 40.5% | 1 | 16.3% | 5 | -17.3% | 2 | 6.9% | 1 |
| 1991 | WAS | 7-0 | 56.3% | 1 | 18.6% | 4 | -23.5% | 3 | 14.3% | 1 |
| 1996 | GB | 6-1 | 49.4% | 1 | 14.2% | 5 | -29.0% | 1 | 6.2% | 5 |
| 1999 | STL | 6-0 | 55.3% | 1 | 25.4% | 2 | -18.6% | 1 | 11.3% | 1 |
| 2023 | KC | 6-1 | 35.0% | 3 | 20.3% | 4 | -10.4% | 5 | 4.2% | 2 |
The Buffalo Bills are still at No. 4 in DVOA but falling. Their offense is surprisingly still No. 3, mostly riding on that awesome stretch from Week 2 to Week 4 and a performance in Week 5’s loss to Jacksonville that was better than people realize. The defense is down to 13th and really hurting from injuries to players such as Matt Milano, Tre’Davious White, and DaQuan Jones.
Detroit falls three spots to No. 5 and Miami falls two spots to No. 6. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the week is that Philadelphia stays in the same place, No. 7, despite a comfortable victory over the Dolphins. Philadelphia’s DVOA rating went from 17.8% to 19.3% but that wasn’t enough to pass another team in the rankings. The Eagles have a single-game DVOA of 42.5% for the victory, which is excellent but not one of the top games of the year . Their offense went down a little bit, counterbalanced by a good improvement for their defense. A couple of turnovers for Jalen Hurts didn’t help. I agree that it “feels” like the Eagles should be ranked higher than this, but they still haven’t won a game by more than two touchdowns. The simple rating system at PFR, for example, has the Eagles way down at 11th. ESPN has the Eagles also seventh in their FPI.
Jacksonville, Seattle, and Dallas round out the top 10, with Cleveland dropping two spots to No. 11 despite a slim victory over Indianapolis. According to Post-Game Win Expectancy, a team with the Browns’ stats should have only beaten the Colts 12% of the time. In fact, the Colts leap up six spots from 18th to 12th this week despite the loss.
On the bottom of the league, the Panthers replace the Giants as our last-place team, and here’s your weekly look at the Broncos defense, which is still one of the worst of all time despite giving up only 17 points to Green Bay this week.
| Worst Defensive DVOA Thru 7 Games, 1981-2023 | |||
| Year | Team | W-L | DVOA |
| 1998 | CIN* | 2-5 | 34.1% |
| 2023 | DEN | 2-5 | 29.3% |
| 2001 | ARI* | 2-5 | 28.8% |
| 1992 | ATL | 2-5 | 28.6% |
| 2019 | MIA* | 0-7 | 28.0% |
| 1989 | GB | 3-4 | 27.6% |
| 2007 | MIA | 0-7 | 27.4% |
| 2000 | ARI* | 2-5 | 26.8% |
| 1983 | HOIL | 0-7 | 25.7% |
| 2007 | NYJ | 1-6 | 25.6% |
| 2000 | SF | 2-5 | 25.4% |
| 2012 | IND* | 4-3 | 25.1% |
* * * *
These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through seven 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.) Opponent adjustments are currently at 70% strength.
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 50% preseason forecast and 50% actual performance for teams with seven games and 55% forecast with 45% actual performance for teams with six games.
| 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 | BAL | 40.1% | 6 | 24.6% | 3 | 5-2 | 17.6% | 5 | -22.8% | 2 | -0.2% | 18 |
| 2 | SF | 35.9% | 1 | 24.6% | 2 | 5-2 | 27.3% | 2 | -9.2% | 6 | -0.5% | 20 |
| 3 | KC | 35.0% | 5 | 25.5% | 1 | 6-1 | 20.3% | 4 | -10.4% | 5 | 4.2% | 2 |
| 4 | BUF | 27.2% | 3 | 20.8% | 4 | 4-3 | 25.7% | 3 | -3.4% | 13 | -1.9% | 24 |
| 5 | DET | 24.1% | 2 | 15.5% | 6 | 5-2 | 14.5% | 6 | -7.6% | 9 | 1.9% | 9 |
| 6 | MIA | 23.3% | 4 | 14.1% | 7 | 5-2 | 32.3% | 1 | 5.9% | 24 | -3.2% | 29 |
| 7 | PHI | 19.3% | 7 | 15.5% | 5 | 6-1 | 11.5% | 9 | -5.1% | 10 | 2.8% | 4 |
| 8 | JAX | 19.1% | 8 | 10.9% | 9 | 5-2 | 3.5% | 13 | -13.0% | 4 | 2.5% | 7 |
| 9 | SEA | 11.2% | 10 | 5.1% | 11 | 4-2 | 7.0% | 10 | -2.6% | 16 | 1.6% | 11 |
| 10 | DAL | 9.5% | 11 | 11.5% | 8 | 4-2 | -6.4% | 18 | -15.5% | 3 | 0.4% | 15 |
| 11 | CLE | 8.9% | 9 | 5.7% | 10 | 4-2 | -16.8% | 29 | -23.2% | 1 | 2.5% | 8 |
| 12 | IND | 6.3% | 18 | -4.7% | 19 | 3-4 | 4.2% | 12 | -3.2% | 14 | -1.2% | 22 |
| 13 | LAR | 4.2% | 12 | -2.8% | 16 | 3-4 | 14.1% | 7 | 4.1% | 20 | -5.8% | 32 |
| 14 | HOU | 3.3% | 17 | -8.6% | 23 | 3-3 | 4.7% | 11 | 4.1% | 21 | 2.7% | 6 |
| 15 | NO | 1.7% | 13 | 1.8% | 14 | 3-4 | -8.2% | 19 | -8.2% | 7 | 1.8% | 10 |
| 16 | MIN | 0.6% | 16 | -4.5% | 18 | 3-4 | 0.3% | 14 | -3.0% | 15 | -2.6% | 27 |
| 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 | PIT | -1.8% | 20 | 3.0% | 13 | 4-2 | -11.1% | 26 | -8.1% | 8 | 1.2% | 12 |
| 18 | LAC | -2.4% | 14 | 3.5% | 12 | 2-4 | 12.1% | 8 | 12.8% | 29 | -1.6% | 23 |
| 19 | NYJ | -5.9% | 19 | -3.8% | 17 | 3-3 | -16.2% | 28 | -4.9% | 11 | 5.4% | 1 |
| 20 | TB | -8.7% | 15 | -9.4% | 25 | 3-3 | -10.3% | 24 | -3.8% | 12 | -2.2% | 25 |
| 21 | CIN | -8.8% | 22 | 0.9% | 15 | 3-3 | -9.8% | 23 | 1.7% | 19 | 2.7% | 5 |
| 22 | TEN | -9.2% | 23 | -8.7% | 24 | 2-4 | -9.2% | 22 | 0.3% | 18 | 0.4% | 16 |
| 23 | NE | -12.1% | 28 | -6.3% | 21 | 2-5 | -8.8% | 20 | -1.4% | 17 | -4.7% | 31 |
| 24 | ATL | -15.4% | 26 | -6.2% | 20 | 4-3 | -8.9% | 21 | 4.2% | 22 | -2.3% | 26 |
| 25 | GB | -16.1% | 21 | -6.9% | 22 | 2-4 | -3.8% | 17 | 8.5% | 27 | -3.8% | 30 |
| 26 | CHI | -21.0% | 29 | -17.9% | 29 | 2-5 | -10.5% | 25 | 11.6% | 28 | 1.1% | 13 |
| 27 | WAS | -21.7% | 24 | -11.3% | 26 | 3-4 | -14.3% | 27 | 6.9% | 26 | -0.6% | 21 |
| 28 | ARI | -21.8% | 25 | -21.9% | 31 | 1-6 | -0.9% | 16 | 20.4% | 31 | -0.4% | 19 |
| 29 | DEN | -27.1% | 30 | -14.6% | 28 | 2-5 | -0.7% | 15 | 29.3% | 32 | 2.8% | 3 |
| 30 | LV | -28.0% | 27 | -13.0% | 27 | 3-4 | -22.2% | 31 | 6.8% | 25 | 1.0% | 14 |
| 31 | NYG | -36.1% | 32 | -20.6% | 30 | 2-5 | -28.1% | 32 | 5.0% | 23 | -3.0% | 28 |
| 32 | CAR | -36.7% | 31 | -24.0% | 32 | 0-6 | -21.1% | 30 | 15.7% | 30 | 0.0% | 17 |
