Hi guys, as you might know I like the Football Outsiders stats, and the new DVOA ratings are up.
For those unfamiliar: they take into consideration every play of the game and assign Value Over Average (VOA) to units, players, etc, towards the goals of first down and TD. If the average for a RB in 3rd and 3 is 2.5 yards, for instance, a 1 yarder is less successful than a 2 yarder, but both are way less successful than a 3 yarder. A 20 yarder in that situation isn't much more valuable than the 3 yarder, because both achieve the same result and a 20 yarder is statistically non predictable (random).
Anyway, the Dolphins are ranked 28th, above St Louis, Indy, KC and Pitt (lowest so far). Their numbers see this as somewhat of an aberration (they predict, based on the preseason and last week, that we'll end up 13th) but what jumped at me was the defensive ranking.
Their numbers for offense work so that bigger positive numbers are better. Defense is the opposite: bigger negative numbers are better. A 0 in both cases in a average performance. So for defenses, a -50% is very good, a 50% is awful.
The Dolphins had a 54% defensive VOA, the worst in the league. Only New Orleans had a comparable outing, with a 53.9% DVOA. The third worst, KC, goes back to 40%. One important thing to note is that until week 4 they do not use opponent adjustments (hence why I refer to VOA instead of DVOA, which does) so this performance is bound to improve if the Patriots offense continues to be good.
Incredibly, the Patriots did not have the best performance of the week. That honor goes to the Green Bay Packers. But they did rank #2.
Just something interesting to chew on.
-- For the curious, the offense ranked 12 with a 18% VOA, (notably) behind Detroit, Tennessee, Washington, Buffalo and Carolina. Houston, our next opponent, was 10th in offense and a whopping 8th in defense. We also ranked 23rd in special teams.
For those unfamiliar: they take into consideration every play of the game and assign Value Over Average (VOA) to units, players, etc, towards the goals of first down and TD. If the average for a RB in 3rd and 3 is 2.5 yards, for instance, a 1 yarder is less successful than a 2 yarder, but both are way less successful than a 3 yarder. A 20 yarder in that situation isn't much more valuable than the 3 yarder, because both achieve the same result and a 20 yarder is statistically non predictable (random).
Anyway, the Dolphins are ranked 28th, above St Louis, Indy, KC and Pitt (lowest so far). Their numbers see this as somewhat of an aberration (they predict, based on the preseason and last week, that we'll end up 13th) but what jumped at me was the defensive ranking.
Their numbers for offense work so that bigger positive numbers are better. Defense is the opposite: bigger negative numbers are better. A 0 in both cases in a average performance. So for defenses, a -50% is very good, a 50% is awful.
The Dolphins had a 54% defensive VOA, the worst in the league. Only New Orleans had a comparable outing, with a 53.9% DVOA. The third worst, KC, goes back to 40%. One important thing to note is that until week 4 they do not use opponent adjustments (hence why I refer to VOA instead of DVOA, which does) so this performance is bound to improve if the Patriots offense continues to be good.
Incredibly, the Patriots did not have the best performance of the week. That honor goes to the Green Bay Packers. But they did rank #2.
Just something interesting to chew on.
-- For the curious, the offense ranked 12 with a 18% VOA, (notably) behind Detroit, Tennessee, Washington, Buffalo and Carolina. Houston, our next opponent, was 10th in offense and a whopping 8th in defense. We also ranked 23rd in special teams.