The unexpected team in the top ten is still the Miami Dolphins, whose DVOA stays roughly the same despite a 27-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Bear with me a moment, because I'm sort of obsessed with the Dolphins and why our ratings differ from conventional wisdom right now.
First, let's look at why our ratings thought the Dolphins had a better game than the Bengals. On offense/defense, the two teams came out basically the same. Cincinnati gained more yards per play, 5.7 to 5.0, but Miami had a better success rate on offense, 45 percent to 37 percent. That leaves special teams, where the Dolphins came out much better than the Bengals thanks to Jakeem Grant's 71-yard punt return, three Grant kick returns averaging 29.7 yards, and four Matt Haack punts that ended inside the 20. Miami's 24.1% special teams DVOA this week keeps the Dolphins stable in the DVOA ratings. The Dolphins lost the game in large part thanks to two turnovers returned for touchdowns, and the length of turnover returns is not really predictive for future performance.
That brings us back to why the Dolphins were so high going into this week. Most of the value is in their Week 2 and Week 3 wins, for completely different reasons. Week 2 is primarily about the defense, which held the Jets to a 33 percent success rate and forced two interceptions and three fumbles. Week 3 is about big plays on offense, as the Dolphins had just a 38 percent success rate but averaged 9.8 yards per play, the second-highest of any team in any game this year (behind the Rams against the Vikings in Week 4).
The Dolphins are doing different things well each week, except for Week 4 against the Patriots when they did nothing well. Somehow, the mix of plays has turned the Miami DVOA rating into something that's more than the sum of its parts.
Despite Miami's high rating, this week's strong New England performance helped sanity to reestablish itself. The Patriots are now tied with the Dolphins in the standings, and they once again have the higher DAVE rating. So it was a shock when I ran this week's
playoff simulation and... we still came out with Miami as a slight favorite to win the AFC East. This time, the culprit is the remaining schedule for each team. Miami's remaining schedule ranks 28th with six games at home. New England's remaining schedule ranks 18th with five games at home.
Overall, I'm still left with a pretty complicated opinion on the Dolphins and how our ratings are treating them.
I absolutely think that DVOA is overrating the Dolphins, and that in turn is leading to them being overrated in the playoff odds. (The playoff odds also don't know about New England's recent pattern of overcoming September struggles.)
At the same time, I think DVOA is pointing something out that other people might be missing, that the Dolphins are not complete frauds. The defense, in particular, is better than we ever would have expected coming into this season, fifth in DVOA and sixth in success rate allowed.
