MLB Best Bets – Free (Wednesday 5/15)
Josh Gross
Now updated with Monday games!
The Green Bay Packers had a huge victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, much larger than the 48-32 final score. DVOA downweights the Dallas scores in the fourth quarter because they came with such a huge gap between the teams. As a result, Green Bay finished the game with 97% DVOA. That’s the sixth-highest single game of the 2023 season behind four Baltimore games and the Week 4 Buffalo win over Miami.
This fantastic performance combined with Green Bay’s offensive surge in the second half of the season moves the Packers up to fourth in weighted DVOA, which gives more strength to games from the past couple months. Only Baltimore, San Francisco, and Buffalo are now higher than the Packers in weighted DVOA. The Packers are ninth in total DVOA if we include this week’s playoff games.
The Packers put up 190% team pass offense DVOA in this game. That’s the best passing performance in Packers history, which is remarkable considering the quarterbacks that have played for the Packers. In fact, the previous record for highest team passing DVOA came with Lynn Dickey at quarterback, not Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre. Here’s a list of the top 10 Packers passing games since 1981. Remember, this is DVOA rather than DYAR, so it is value per play rather than total value. It’s team passing DVOA, so in some cases it includes multiple quarterbacks.
| Top Team Pass DVOA Games by Green Bay Packers, 1981-2023 | |||||||||||||
| Year | Week | Score | DVOA | Opp | Pass D Rk |
Main QB | Cmp | Att | Yds | Yd/At | TD | Int | Sk |
| 2023 | WC | 48-32 | 189.9% | DAL | 7 | Love | 16 | 21 | 272 | 13.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 1982 | WC | 41-16 | 155.2% | STLC | 22 | Dickey | 19 | 26 | 286 | 11.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 2003 | 16 | 41-7 | 142.3% | OAK | 30 | Favre | 22 | 30 | 399 | 13.3 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| 1995 | DIV | 27-17 | 136.4% | SF | 1 | Favre | 21 | 28 | 299 | 10.7 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 2004 | 17 | 31-14 | 131.1% | CHI | 13 | Favre/Nall | 16 | 26 | 327 | 12.6 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 1983 | 2 | 21-25 | 130.1% | PIT | 5 | Dickey | 15 | 21 | 305 | 14.5 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| 1983 | 7 | 48-47 | 128.2% | WAS | 8 | Dickey | 23 | 32 | 422 | 13.2 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| 2020 | 4 | 30-16 | 124.9% | ATL | 22 | Rodgers | 27 | 33 | 327 | 9.9 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| 1992 | 4 | 17-3 | 120.2% | PIT | 9 | Favre | 14 | 19 | 210 | 11.1 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 1992 | 14 | 38-10 | 120.0% | DET | 14 | Favre | 15 | 19 | 214 | 11.3 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
Houston also jumps up from 18th to 11th in weighted DVOA. They would be higher if we removed their offensive rating from the two games missed by C.J. Stroud in Weeks 15-16.
As for Monday’s games, the big story was the collapse of the Philadelphia Eagles. Remember that after Week 12, the Eagles were 10-1 but only ninth in DVOA. That suggested they were not as good as their win-loss record, but they ended up a lot worse than that. Once we add in the loss to the Buccaneers, the Eagles drop to 18th in total DVOA including the playoffs and an amazing 25th in weighted DVOA. Both the Bills and the Buccaneers moved up a little bit in weighted DVOA with big wins.
As always, the following rules apply for postseason DVOA ratings:
- All 32 teams are ranked, whether they made the playoffs or not.
- Teams are ranked in order of weighted DVOA, not total season DVOA. Since weighted DVOA is meant to lower the strength of older games, these ratings do not include Weeks 1-4, and Weeks 5-12 are somewhat discounted.
- The ratings listed do not include the adjustments used in the ratings for our playoff odds report, which include adjustments for sitting starters in Week 18 and adjusting Houston for games missed by C.J. Stroud.
- Only weighted DVOA is listed for offense, defense, and special teams. Total DVOA is also listed, but one game doesn’t change much in an 18-game sample so these ratings will be similar to those from the end of the season.
- Teams which did not play in the wild-card round are treated as if they had a bye week. (That includes the 18 non-playoff teams, the two teams with byes, and the four teams that have not played yet as of Monday morning.)
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If you are new to our website, you can read the explanation of how DVOA is figured here. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.
We will also adjust these ratings with an article after Monday’s games.
Teams in blue are still alive in the playoffs. Teams in grey lost this past weekend.
| RK | TEAM | WEI. DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
W-L | WEI OFF DVOA |
RK | WEI DEF DVOA |
RK | WEI S.T. DVOA |
RK | TOTAL DVOA |
RK |
| 1 | BAL | 53.2% | 1 | 13-4 | 22.7% | 3 | -23.8% | 1 | 6.6% | 2 | 45.5% | 1 |
| 2 | SF | 37.5% | 2 | 12-5 | 30.8% | 1 | -9.2% | 6 | -2.5% | 25 | 39.4% | 2 |
| 3 | BUF | 24.1% | 3 | 12-6 | 17.9% | 5 | -5.3% | 9 | 0.9% | 16 | 25.6% | 3 |
| 4 | GB | 16.4% | 12 | 10-8 | 26.3% | 2 | 7.5% | 28 | -2.4% | 24 | 7.1% | 8 |
| 5 | KC | 15.8% | 6 | 12-6 | 3.5% | 12 | -9.6% | 5 | 2.7% | 9 | 19.7% | 4 |
| 6 | MIA | 13.3% | 5 | 11-7 | 9.5% | 8 | -3.1% | 13 | 0.7% | 18 | 15.2% | 6 |
| 7 | DET | 12.2% | 7 | 13-5 | 14.2% | 6 | 2.5% | 21 | 0.6% | 20 | 16.7% | 5 |
| 8 | DAL | 11.8% | 4 | 12-6 | 8.2% | 9 | -1.8% | 15 | 1.8% | 11 | 14.0% | 7 |
| 9 | LV | 10.9% | 10 | 8-9 | -2.3% | 19 | -12.4% | 4 | 0.8% | 17 | -5.3% | 21 |
| 10 | CIN | 9.8% | 9 | 9-8 | 11.8% | 7 | 6.0% | 26 | 4.0% | 4 | 4.3% | 13 |
| 11 | HOU | 7.8% | 18 | 11-7 | 1.5% | 15 | -3.0% | 14 | 3.3% | 5 | 6.6% | 10 |
| 12 | PIT | 7.0% | 8 | 10-8 | 2.6% | 13 | -4.5% | 12 | -0.1% | 22 | 6.8% | 9 |
| 13 | CHI | 6.7% | 11 | 7-10 | -2.0% | 18 | -7.3% | 7 | 1.4% | 12 | -7.1% | 22 |
| 14 | TB | 5.9% | 15 | 10-8 | -1.9% | 17 | -4.8% | 11 | 3.0% | 6 | 0.9% | 16 |
| 15 | LAR | 4.6% | 16 | 10-8 | 19.6% | 4 | 5.4% | 25 | -9.6% | 32 | 1.1% | 14 |
| 16 | NO | 4.2% | 14 | 9-8 | 4.8% | 11 | 1.3% | 19 | 0.6% | 19 | 1.0% | 15 |
| RK | TEAM | WEI. DVOA |
LAST WEEK |
W-L | WEI OFF DVOA |
RK | WEI DEF DVOA |
RK | WEI S.T. DVOA |
RK | TOTAL DVOA |
RK |
| 17 | CLE | 1.0% | 13 | 11-7 | -12.2% | 27 | -13.2% | 3 | 0.0% | 21 | 5.4% | 11 |
| 18 | JAX | -1.7% | 17 | 9-8 | -2.8% | 20 | 0.2% | 17 | 1.3% | 14 | 4.4% | 12 |
| 19 | SEA | -3.7% | 19 | 9-8 | 7.1% | 10 | 13.4% | 29 | 2.7% | 10 | -0.1% | 17 |
| 20 | DEN | -5.9% | 20 | 8-9 | -4.8% | 22 | 2.5% | 20 | 1.4% | 13 | -11.9% | 24 |
| 21 | IND | -8.1% | 22 | 9-8 | 1.8% | 14 | 5.4% | 24 | -4.6% | 31 | -3.8% | 20 |
| 22 | LAC | -9.1% | 23 | 5-12 | -9.5% | 24 | 6.8% | 27 | 7.2% | 1 | -3.2% | 19 |
| 23 | NYJ | -10.7% | 24 | 7-10 | -33.0% | 32 | -19.6% | 2 | 2.8% | 8 | -12.5% | 25 |
| 24 | MIN | -11.2% | 25 | 7-10 | -13.3% | 28 | -5.0% | 10 | -3.0% | 29 | -7.2% | 23 |
| 25 | PHI | -11.4% | 21 | 11-7 | 1.4% | 16 | 17.0% | 30 | 4.1% | 3 | -0.6% | 18 |
| 26 | NYG | -13.1% | 27 | 6-11 | -14.1% | 29 | 0.2% | 16 | 1.2% | 15 | -26.6% | 30 |
| 27 | TEN | -15.5% | 26 | 6-11 | -10.7% | 25 | 0.7% | 18 | -4.1% | 30 | -13.4% | 26 |
| 28 | NE | -16.4% | 29 | 4-13 | -21.6% | 30 | -6.1% | 8 | -0.9% | 23 | -15.9% | 27 |
| 29 | ATL | -16.8% | 28 | 7-10 | -9.2% | 23 | 4.8% | 23 | -2.8% | 28 | -18.6% | 28 |
| 30 | ARI | -21.0% | 30 | 4-13 | -4.2% | 21 | 19.7% | 31 | 3.0% | 7 | -20.4% | 29 |
| 31 | CAR | -33.9% | 32 | 2-15 | -28.1% | 31 | 3.0% | 22 | -2.8% | 27 | -35.3% | 32 |
| 32 | WAS | -34.2% | 31 | 4-13 | -11.5% | 26 | 20.1% | 32 | -2.6% | 26 | -28.5% | 31 |
Here are the single-game DVOA ratings, now listing all six games of Wild-Card Weekend. The Rams-Lions game was very close with the Lions winning despite 47% Post-Game Win Expectancy. Subscribers can download all the 2023 playoff stats from the DVOA Historical Archive, and those will be updated each week.
| DVOA (with opponent adjustments) | ||||
| TEAM | TOT | OFF | DEF | ST |
| CLE | -61% | -26% | 32% | -3% |
| HOU | 81% | 61% | -19% | 1% |
| MIA | -31% | -36% | -6% | -1% |
| KC | 59% | 0% | -62% | -4% |
| GB | 97% | 81% | -16% | -1% |
| DAL | -72% | -15% | 58% | 1% |
| LAR | 26% | 42% | 16% | 0% |
| DET | 13% | 29% | 26% | 9% |
| PIT | -9% | 2% | 16% | 4% |
| BUF | 50% | 44% | -14% | -8% |
| PHI | -40% | -26% | 10% | -4% |
| TB | 43% | -5% | -34% | 13% |
| VOA (no opponent adjustments) | ||||
| TEAM | TOT | OFF | DEF | ST |
| CLE | -60% | -24% | 34% | -3% |
| HOU | 73% | 43% | -29% | 1% |
| MIA | -49% | -45% | 3% | -1% |
| KC | 36% | 3% | -36% | -4% |
| GB | 81% | 70% | -11% | -1% |
| DAL | -71% | -5% | 66% | 1% |
| LAR | 9% | 39% | 29% | 0% |
| DET | 4% | 29% | 34% | 9% |
| PIT | -30% | -3% | 33% | 4% |
| BUF | 44% | 37% | -15% | -8% |
| PHI | -34% | -24% | 6% | -4% |
| TB | 42% | 6% | -23% | 13% |
