Football Outsiders DVOA Ratings

[Coach Tuesday]

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2020/week-3-dvoa-ratings
 

The Bills are a very weird, unexpected team so far this year. They have essentially been the exact opposite of what we expected. In Football Outsiders Almanac 2020, we wrote that the Bills might have the best roster in the league outside of the quarterback position. Their defense had our No. 1 projection for the preseason. So what has happened instead? Josh Allen has had a spectacular breakout, currently ranking second behind Russell Wilson in passing YAR. But the Bills rank 28th running the ball and a very surprising 24th on defense. They've scored a ton of points but keep letting opponents back into games. It's not just the blown 28-3 lead against the Rams; Miami was beating Buffalo until 6:03 of the fourth quarter last weekend. The rest of the team is not living up to what Josh Allen is doing so far.

[TH3]

Ok...I actually read most of that....I...for the life of me....cannot understand what the point of that chart and all the text that accompanied it is supposed to mean.....Seems like a there is an entire industry that exists to explain why W and L is an inadequate force rank of who is best...

[Warcodered]

That is kind of funny.

 

Last year: "This team is incredible Josh Allen needs to stop letting it down."

This Year: "Josh Allen is incredible this team needs to stop letting him down."

[Shaw66]

I like the Football Outsiders rating system, in the second half of the season.  They need data for their system to work, and in the beginning of the season, they don't have data.  

 

Their written analysis, however, is pretty bad.  They are so data driven that they look at nothing but the rear view mirror.  Their analysis of where teams are today is not based on actual observation of the team and how it's playing.   

[hondo in seattle]

The chart of worst DVOA of 3-0 teams (1985-2020) toward the beginning of the article cracks me up.   It lists teams with crappy DVOAs that - nonetheless - start the season with three consecutive wins.  Then the chart shows their final season W-L record.

If DVOA was a meaningful statistic, you'd expect these teams with crap DVOAs to finish the season poorly.  Yet most of them do the opposite and finish with a good season record.  So what's the point of DVOA if it doesn't tell us which teams will win and which won't.  At the end of the day, Win-Loss record is the only stat that means anything.  

 

Later, Shatz writes this gem of a paragraph:

 

"One more thing on the subject of the Bills, since I enjoy picking fights with their fans so much. There's absolutely no denying that Josh Allen has been fantastic this season. He even has a positive (3.7%) completion rate over expectation according to NFL Next Gen Stats! We're told that we should have known that Allen was ready to take the leap this season. I certainly didn't hear that expectation from any film experts this offseason, but the numbers especially don't suggest that a huge leap forward was coming."

 

 

That's the thing with statistics.  They describe the past, not the future.  And football is played by people, not numbers.  Throw in the human element and sometimes wonderful things happen.  Allen is coached well and is dedicated to his craft.  Most Bills fans expected Allen to take a step/leap forward this year because we could see the progress in his trade that the number crunchers couldn't encapsulate.   And not just Bills fans, if Schatz didn't hear optimism from the film experts this offseason, he didn't listen to many.  

[Warcodered]

3 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

That's the thing with statistics.  They describe the past, not the future.  And football is played by people, not numbers.  Throw in the human element and sometimes wonderful things happen.  Allen is coached well and is dedicated to his craft.  Most Bills fans expected Allen to take a step/leap forward this year because we could see the progress in his trade that the number crunchers couldn't encapsulate.   And not just Bills fans, if Schatz didn't hear optimism from the film experts this offseason, he didn't listen to many.  

I mean that's not completely true and is another reason why the guy is wrong. Allen got better from the beginning of his 1st year to it's end and was improved at the start of year 2 as well. He did same thing in year 2 getting better as the year went on. While that's not much data to go on if his data shows him trending up the longer he plays then you have every reason to think he'll be better going into year 3.

[ProcessTruster]

3 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

They are basically wondering why our defense sucks so bad to start the year and if Allen and the offense can keep this up.... I didn't realize how often we've started out 3-0/2-1. When was the last time this team started 4-0? 2008?

 

Allen isn't Fitzpatrick though but I don't think the offense will continue to be this dynamic all the way through so the defense better figure ***** out. 

 Defenses will catch up in a few weeks once film is studied.  Offenses can be defeated.  Takes time.   Bills defense included. 

[JohnNord]

Here’s why I don’t like Aaron Schatz and the crew at PFF.  
 

 

This is a clear dig at Bills fans who are slamming Schatz and FO for been completely incorrect on their projection.  It’s also an attempt by FO to qualify their initial projection to connect Allen to Fizpatrick.

[HappyDays]

DVOA is pretty iffy the first few weeks of the season, and they'd be the first to admit it. Right now there aren't any opponent adjustments which is probably why the Colts defense is ranked #1 after playing bad Kirk Cousins and normal Sam Darnold in consecutive weeks. Starting next week opponent adjustments will weigh in at 40%, then increase by 10% each week after that. The data starts to be really meaningful around week 8.

[HappyDays]

5 minutes ago, JohnNord said:

Here’s why I don’t like Aaron Schatz and the crew at PFF.  
 

 

This is a clear dig at Bills fans who are slamming Schatz and FO for been completely incorrect on their projection.  It’s also an attempt by FO to qualify their initial projection to connect Allen to Fizpatrick.

 

Schatz (what a horrid last name) has basically admitted he was wrong about Allen. Like Shaw said above, their written analysis is so-so but they do stand by their data.

 

Fitzpatrick is an anomaly on his own. He had two incredible starts followed by a massive decline for Tampa Bay in 2018 and Buffalo in 2011. He might be doing the same thing right now with Miami. I've never seen a QB who exclusively plays well in the first 3-4 weeks of a season.

[TwistofFate]

5 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2020/week-3-dvoa-ratings
 

The Bills are a very weird, unexpected team so far this year. They have essentially been the exact opposite of what we expected. In Football Outsiders Almanac 2020, we wrote that the Bills might have the best roster in the league outside of the quarterback position. Their defense had our No. 1 projection for the preseason. So what has happened instead? Josh Allen has had a spectacular breakout, currently ranking second behind Russell Wilson in passing YAR. But the Bills rank 28th running the ball and a very surprising 24th on defense. They've scored a ton of points but keep letting opponents back into games. It's not just the blown 28-3 lead against the Rams; Miami was beating Buffalo until 6:03 of the fourth quarter last weekend. The rest of the team is not living up to what Josh Allen is doing so far.

True

[HappyDays]

3 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

The chart of worst DVOA of 3-0 teams (1985-2020) toward the beginning of the article cracks me up.   It lists teams with crappy DVOAs that - nonetheless - start the season with three consecutive wins.  Then the chart shows their final season W-L record.

If DVOA was a meaningful statistic, you'd expect these teams with crap DVOAs to finish the season poorly.  Yet most of them do the opposite and finish with a good season record.  So what's the point of DVOA if it doesn't tell us which teams will win and which won't.  At the end of the day, Win-Loss record is the only stat that means anything.  

 

A couple points on this:

 

1) Historically 75% of 3-0 teams have made the playoffs (based on a chart I found that used data from 1990-2013). Of the ten 3-0 teams they measured as the worst, six made the playoffs, so 60%. Without checking DVOA you would have assumed 7 or 8 of those teams would have made the playoffs. It's a small sample size but the data is somewhat predictive there.

 

2) Weeks 1 through 3 don't account for opponent at all in DVOA. The Texans and the Colts have played polar opposite schedules this year. The difference in their DVOA right now is not entirely accurate. Even the guys that wrote the algorithm wouldn't call DVOA predictive at this point in the season.

[Dkollidas]

I think the thing a lot of the prognosticators and statistics guys didn’t even get wrong, but just missed, is how much more raw and behind in his development Allen was than QB’s like Mayfield. 
 

As Joe Marino pointed out last week, there were some scouts who believed Allen literally had thrown 10,000 less passes than Mayfield. If that’s anywhere near true (practice, games etc etc), then Allen was able to get that development time as a pro QB under a stable organization with good coaching and solid talent all around (minus the offense in 2018), and a solid defense that didn’t require too much out of him in order to put wins on the board. 

[billsfan89]

In Miami the defense despite having two key LB's out only have up 21 points (7 points in garbage time) it was Josh and the offense stalling at 17 points that led to the deficit. The Rams were held in check in the first half and first half of the third quarter. 

 

And the Rams (who have a top 7 offense) big 29 point rally was aided by 2 turnovers from the offense (one bogus but still.) So while I am concerned about the defense I am not writing them off just yet. 

Edited September 30, 2020 by billsfan89

[Reader]

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

A couple points on this:

 

1) Historically 75% of 3-0 teams have made the playoffs (based on a chart I found that used data from 1990-2013). Of the ten 3-0 teams they measured as the worst, six made the playoffs, so 60%. Without checking DVOA you would have assumed 7 or 8 of those teams would have made the playoffs. It's a small sample size but the data is somewhat predictive there.

 

I don't think anyone here needs to go digging, but I wonder what that percentage would be if the 7th spot was included now that we have seven teams go to the playoffs instead of six.

[Warcodered]

3 minutes ago, Reader said:

 

I don't think anyone here needs to go digging, but I wonder what that percentage would be if the 7th spot was included now that we have seven teams go to the playoffs instead of six.

I mean there isn't any real digging to be done this is the first year but I'd say it's probably higher.

[Thurman#1]

"Because Allen is playing so well, it feels like this is the best Buffalo start to the season in quite a long time. It's not. It's really not. Buffalo started 3-0 just one year ago! But it's more than that: Buffalo has made a habit of doing this for years now. For the last decade, no team in the NFL has made a habit of starting strong and then stalling out quite like the Buffalo Bills. This is the seventh season in the last ten where the Bills started the season either 3-0 or 2-1."

 

Hunh. I did not have that sense at all.

 

Very interesting.

 

Thanks for posting it, Coach Tuesday. Interesting and thoughtful.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

8 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

The chart of worst DVOA of 3-0 teams (1985-2020) toward the beginning of the article cracks me up.   It lists teams with crappy DVOAs that - nonetheless - start the season with three consecutive wins.  Then the chart shows their final season W-L record.

If DVOA was a meaningful statistic, you'd expect these teams with crap DVOAs to finish the season poorly.  Yet most of them do the opposite and finish with a good season record.  So what's the point of DVOA if it doesn't tell us which teams will win and which won't.  At the end of the day, Win-Loss record is the only stat that means anything.  

 

Later, Shatz writes this gem of a paragraph:

 

"One more thing on the subject of the Bills, since I enjoy picking fights with their fans so much. There's absolutely no denying that Josh Allen has been fantastic this season. He even has a positive (3.7%) completion rate over expectation according to NFL Next Gen Stats! We're told that we should have known that Allen was ready to take the leap this season. I certainly didn't hear that expectation from any film experts this offseason, but the numbers especially don't suggest that a huge leap forward was coming."

 

 

That's the thing with statistics.  They describe the past, not the future.  And football is played by people, not numbers.  Throw in the human element and sometimes wonderful things happen.  Allen is coached well and is dedicated to his craft.  Most Bills fans expected Allen to take a step/leap forward this year because we could see the progress in his trade that the number crunchers couldn't encapsulate.   And not just Bills fans, if Schatz didn't hear optimism from the film experts this offseason, he didn't listen to many.  

 

 

Stats do indeed describe the past, not the future. So does the eye test. So does every possible form of intelligent looking at data and projection.

 

Predictions, forecasting, foretelling, prognostications and intelligent guesswork ... all of them share the problem that they can't look into the future and see what will happen before they predict it. So yeah, stats have the problem that they can only look at the past ... but they share that with every known form of data gathering. It's not a problem of stats, so much as a problem with the physics that prevent us from managing to travel in time.

 

You can guess about the future. That's actually all you can do about the future. You can make your guesswork as intelligent as possible, and that will absolutely mean looking at the past, including stats, trends, etc.

 

DVOA has proven itself as a good way of predicting. There is no perfect way of predicting and DVOA doesn't pretend to be one. And as Hapless pointed out, DVOA doesn't work as well early in the season (nor does any method of predicting, by the way), but it still has some predictive value from looking at preseason DVOA, which includes the last few games of the previous year, as they do. Put more specifically, it's their other stat, DAVE, which they use early in the season that has significant predictive value early. Like DVOA (and everything else), it's less predictive early than late. But it still has some value.

 

DVOA absolutely is a meaningful statistic, more meaningful than most. But it's far from perfect, and they're totally up front about that. The fact that they're willing to look back at times when DVOA has predicted more poorly reflects well on the openness of their minds and their unwillingness to be blinded by confirmation bias.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by Thurman#1

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said:

"Because Allen is playing so well, it feels like this is the best Buffalo start to the season in quite a long time. It's not. It's really not. Buffalo started 3-0 just one year ago! But it's more than that: Buffalo has made a habit of doing this for years now. For the last decade, no team in the NFL has made a habit of starting strong and then stalling out quite like the Buffalo Bills. This is the seventh season in the last ten where the Bills started the season either 3-0 or 2-1."

 

Hunh. I did not have that sense at all.

 

Very interesting.

 

Thanks for posting it, Coach Tuesday. Interesting and thoughtful.

 

See I did I have pretty much got used to us getting off to starts in the last decade or so. The first Marrone year and the second Rex year the exceptions. Our problems have generally come in the meat of the schedule in the middle where we couldn't get out of our way.....

[Doc Brown]

10 hours ago, Warcodered said:

That is kind of funny.

 

Last year: "This team is incredible Josh Allen needs to stop letting it down."

This Year: "Josh Allen is incredible this team needs to stop letting him down."

It's very odd to see our offense carrying our defense.  Maybe Bledsoe's first season here is the last you could make that claim.

[mannc]

28 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

It's very odd to see our offense carrying our defense.  Maybe Bledsoe's first season here is the last you could make that claim.

It was true when Rex was here, too.

[CSBill]

Did I just get lost in stats class again? .... You know those dreams where you're back in high school and can't find your locker, or you didn't do your homework, etc., I'm having one.

[GunnerBill]

39 minutes ago, mannc said:

It was true when Rex was here, too.

 

Was. Especially year two.

[machine gun kelly]

Coach, thanks for sharing, but I have to tell you I had to get some Tylenol after reading all of those charts and stats.  Gave me a headache, and was for the most part jibberish.  What I do appreciate is you trying to find new content for us to review and volunteering it to the group.

[eball]

8 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

Fans forget this because they hate Tyrod for some strange reason. 

 

Nah, they forget because the offense was rarely exciting and the Bills were basically a running team.  And if we got behind we knew we weren't coming back. 

 

Nobody reminisces about the Rex Ryan Bills and says "wow, what a great offense that was."

 

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by eball

[dave mcbride]

14 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2020/week-3-dvoa-ratings
 

The Bills are a very weird, unexpected team so far this year. They have essentially been the exact opposite of what we expected. In Football Outsiders Almanac 2020, we wrote that the Bills might have the best roster in the league outside of the quarterback position. Their defense had our No. 1 projection for the preseason. So what has happened instead? Josh Allen has had a spectacular breakout, currently ranking second behind Russell Wilson in passing YAR. But the Bills rank 28th running the ball and a very surprising 24th on defense. They've scored a ton of points but keep letting opponents back into games. It's not just the blown 28-3 lead against the Rams; Miami was beating Buffalo until 6:03 of the fourth quarter last weekend. The rest of the team is not living up to what Josh Allen is doing so far.

Great, informative piece. Thanks for posting.

[eball]

37 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

That's revisionist history though because they got behind plenty. 

 

What's revisionist?  They scored a lot of points against bad teams and struggled vs. the good ones.  You really look back upon those years and yearn for that offense?

[Doc Brown]

7 hours ago, mannc said:

It was true when Rex was here, too.

The problem was we were screwed if we were behind and the opponent forced us to be one dimensional.  Roman's system and Tyrod's conservative style made it difficult to come back.

[hondo in seattle]

9 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Stats do indeed describe the past, not the future. So does the eye test. So does every possible form of intelligent looking at data and projection.

 

Predictions, forecasting, foretelling, prognostications and intelligent guesswork ... all of them share the problem that they can't look into the future and see what will happen before they predict it. So yeah, stats have the problem that they can only look at the past ... but they share that with every known form of data gathering. It's not a problem of stats, so much as a problem with the physics that prevent us from managing to travel in time.

 

You can guess about the future. That's actually all you can do about the future. You can make your guesswork as intelligent as possible, and that will absolutely mean looking at the past, including stats, trends, etc.

 

DVOA has proven itself as a good way of predicting. There is no perfect way of predicting and DVOA doesn't pretend to be one. And as Hapless pointed out, DVOA doesn't work as well early in the season (nor does any method of predicting, by the way), but it still has some predictive value from looking at preseason DVOA, which includes the last few games of the previous year, as they do. Put more specifically, it's their other stat, DAVE, which they use early in the season that has significant predictive value early. Like DVOA (and everything else), it's less predictive early than late. But it still has some value.

 

DVOA absolutely is a meaningful statistic, more meaningful than most. But it's far from perfect, and they're totally up front about that. The fact that they're willing to look back at times when DVOA has predicted more poorly reflects well on the openness of their minds and their unwillingness to be blinded by confirmation bias.

 

 

 

Thurman, you're an intelligent poster so let me ask...

 

Imagine that the top 50 posters at TBD predict the W-L record for every team and their results are combined.  

 

And then the statistical geeks at FO predicted the W-L record for every team.

 

Who would more accurately predict the season?  Personally, I think it would be roughly a toss-up.  But if I had to bet, I'd bet on TBD.  I think the TBD posters better appreciate the human element in the NFL.  Team X has a new offensive coordinator whose skill set matches the squad.  Team Y fired their lousy HC and replaced him with someone much more capable.  The Bills signed Stephon Diggs who was the missing piece for Allen & Daboll and creates mismatches that Allen can take advantage of.  

 

You say DVOA is meaningful but far from perfect.  DVOA can predict the outcome of games/seasons with some degree of accuracy that's better than chance.  But so can you and I - and everyone else here.    Given its imperfections, I'm not sure what DVOA brings to the table.  

 

Trivia.  Did you know that a 4 yard run on 1st and 10 is scored as a failure by FO while a 4 yard run on 2nd and 6 is scored as a success for DVOA purposes?  I'm not sure how many OCs would agree with this. 

 

Here's another scenario.  Your team is down by 2 points.   It's 3rd and 32 and time is running out.  You need 20 yards to get into FG position.  Things seem hopeless.  Then your QB fires a perfect 31 yard pass to a toe-tapping receiver.  Clock is stopped with plenty of time for the winning kick.  That pass is scored as a failure because by FO rules, any 3rd or 4th down play that doesn't pick up a first down is a failure  ("on third or fourth down, only gaining a new first down is considered success").

 

You say the FO folks are open-minded about their mistakes.  Maybe as they fine-tune their scoring system and algorithms, they'll get better at this.  

 

 

[Coach Tuesday]

38 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

Thurman, you're an intelligent poster so let me ask...

 

Imagine that the top 50 posters at TBD predict the W-L record for every team and their results are combined.  

 

And then the statistical geeks at FO predicted the W-L record for every team.

 

Who would more accurately predict the season?  Personally, I think it would be roughly a toss-up.  But if I had to bet, I'd bet on TBD.  I think the TBD posters better appreciate the human element in the NFL.  Team X has a new offensive coordinator whose skill set matches the squad.  Team Y fired their lousy HC and replaced him with someone much more capable.  The Bills signed Stephon Diggs who was the missing piece for Allen & Daboll and creates mismatches that Allen can take advantage of.  

 

You say DVOA is meaningful but far from perfect.  DVOA can predict the outcome of games/seasons with some degree of accuracy that's better than chance.  But so can you and I - and everyone else here.    Given its imperfections, I'm not sure what DVOA brings to the table.  

 

Trivia.  Did you know that a 4 yard run on 1st and 10 is scored as a failure by FO while a 4 yard run on 2nd and 6 is scored as a success for DVOA purposes?  I'm not sure how many OCs would agree with this. 

 

Here's another scenario.  Your team is down by 2 points.   It's 3rd and 32 and time is running out.  You need 20 yards to get into FG position.  Things seem hopeless.  Then your QB fires a perfect 31 yard pass to a toe-tapping receiver.  Clock is stopped with plenty of time for the winning kick.  That pass is scored as a failure because by FO rules, any 3rd or 4th down play that doesn't pick up a first down is a failure  ("on third or fourth down, only gaining a new first down is considered success").

 

You say the FO folks are open-minded about their mistakes.  Maybe as they fine-tune their scoring system and algorithms, they'll get better at this.  

 

 

 

I think you're misunderstanding what FO and DVOA does.  They admit that their preseason W/L predictions based on DVOA aren't very reliable, nor are the first few weeks of DVOA ratings.  This is because they don't - because they can't - take into account quality of opponent.  DVOA becomes much more accurate and useful as the season progresses, once the opponent adjustments are incorporated into the model.

 

And even then - DVOA isn't really designed to predict wins and losses.  To be sure, it projects a range of outcomes for wins and losses and is a pretty good model for doing so.  But where it's really useful is in betting and fantasy football.  It can help tell you whether to start a certain player against a certain defense, or whether a point spread is too high or low, etc.  If you use the model for those purposes you can reduce your risk and increase your odds of success.  Other than that, DVOA is good for evaluating whether a W/L record is a true measure of a team's success, for whatever that's worth.  You might have a 10 win season and would like to know, as a fan, whether it was a success.  DVOA can help you look behind the wins and losses - did you get lucky?  Should you really have won 14 games?  Etc.

[hondo in seattle]

10 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

I think you're misunderstanding what FO and DVOA does.  They admit that their preseason W/L predictions based on DVOA aren't very reliable, nor are the first few weeks of DVOA ratings.  This is because they don't - because they can't - take into account quality of opponent.  DVOA becomes much more accurate and useful as the season progresses, once the opponent adjustments are incorporated into the model.

 

And even then - DVOA isn't really designed to predict wins and losses.  To be sure, it projects a range of outcomes for wins and losses and is a pretty good model for doing so.  But where it's really useful is in betting and fantasy football.  It can help tell you whether to start a certain player against a certain defense, or whether a point spread is too high or low, etc.  If you use the model for those purposes you can reduce your risk and increase your odds of success.  Other than that, DVOA is good for evaluating whether a W/L record is a true measure of a team's success, for whatever that's worth.  You might have a 10 win season and would like to know, as a fan, whether it was a success.  DVOA can help you look behind the wins and losses - did you get lucky?  Should you really have won 14 games?  Etc.

 

Interesting point.

 

You say that as a season progresses, DVOA becomes more accurate.  But so do you and I.

 

Has their statistical modeling really surpassed the intellect of an informed fan?   

 

Maybe because I'm not into betting or fantasy football, I don't see their utility yet. 

[Coach Tuesday]

Just now, hondo in seattle said:

 

Interesting point.

 

You say that as a season progresses, DVOA becomes more accurate.  But so do you and I.

 

Has their statistical modeling really surpassed the intellect of an informed fan?   

 

Maybe because I'm not into betting or fantasy football, I don't see their utility yet. 

It has yes.  The average fan has trouble looking behind the stats and results to determine how well or poorly a team or individual player actually performed.  Your QB threw for 359 yds and a couple of TDs - great.   But DVOA, which takes into account the opponent as well as the game situations, can tell you how that QB did compared to an average replacement-level player, based on the various down and distances and overall opponent adjustments.  Your average fan may have a vague idea about that but DVOA can tell you within a much higher degree of reliability.

[hondo in seattle]

4 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

It has yes.  The average fan has trouble looking behind the stats and results to determine how well or poorly a team or individual player actually performed.  Your QB threw for 359 yds and a couple of TDs - great.   But DVOA, which takes into account the opponent as well as the game situations, can tell you how that QB did compared to an average replacement-level player, based on the various down and distances and overall opponent adjustments.  Your average fan may have a vague idea about that but DVOA can tell you within a much higher degree of reliability.

 

I think you're providing a good defense of DVOA.  But I remain skeptical.  Scenarios like the ones I mention above still  bother me.   

 

And from what I understand, Shatz and FO don't actually break down game tape.  They rely entirely on box score data.  They take those numbers and contextualize them: down and distance, game clock, and so on.  There are advantages to that approach but issues as well.  The full context can't be quantified.  There's scheme, playcalls, officiating, full & partial injuries, momentum, leadership, and all sorts of other human variables that effect the (statistical) performance of a player and the outcome of a game.

 

While I think examining DVOA can provide some insight, I think the human brain is still more capable at evaluating the totality of a team's performance in all it's complexity.  

 

To put it another way, if I think Josh Allen has taken an important leap forward and Schatz still insists that he's a subpar QB, I'll trust my eyes before I trust Schatz's metrics.  

[gordong]

who the hell care what @Schatz thinks....he is writing for a two bit website and knows Schatz about football. 

[dubs]

Aaron Shatz is a squid. I mean, what else can you say. Why do people give these squids the time of day?

[Chandler#81]

On 9/29/2020 at 6:39 PM, Coach Tuesday said:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2020/week-3-dvoa-ratings
 

The Bills are a very weird, unexpected team so far this year. They have essentially been the exact opposite of what we expected. In Football Outsiders Almanac 2020, we wrote that the Bills might have the best roster in the league outside of the quarterback position. Their defense had our No. 1 projection for the preseason. So what has happened instead? Josh Allen has had a spectacular breakout, currently ranking second behind Russell Wilson in passing YAR. But the Bills rank 28th running the ball and a very surprising 24th on defense. They've scored a ton of points but keep letting opponents back into games. It's not just the blown 28-3 lead against the Rams; Miami was beating Buffalo until 6:03 of the fourth quarter last weekend. The rest of the team is not living up to what Josh Allen is doing so far.

Also, according to our resident Jests representative @Jimmy Spagnola, they kicked our butts after the 1st quarter. Sar1 would be proud!

[GoBills808]

8 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

I think you're misunderstanding what FO and DVOA does.  They admit that their preseason W/L predictions based on DVOA aren't very reliable, nor are the first few weeks of DVOA ratings.  This is because they don't - because they can't - take into account quality of opponent.  DVOA becomes much more accurate and useful as the season progresses, once the opponent adjustments are incorporated into the model.

 

And even then - DVOA isn't really designed to predict wins and losses.  To be sure, it projects a range of outcomes for wins and losses and is a pretty good model for doing so.  But where it's really useful is in betting and fantasy football.  It can help tell you whether to start a certain player against a certain defense, or whether a point spread is too high or low, etc.  If you use the model for those purposes you can reduce your risk and increase your odds of success.  Other than that, DVOA is good for evaluating whether a W/L record is a true measure of a team's success, for whatever that's worth.  You might have a 10 win season and would like to know, as a fan, whether it was a success.  DVOA can help you look behind the wins and losses - did you get lucky?  Should you really have won 14 games?  Etc.

I can tell you playing strictly DVOA against the spread is losing fwiw

[HappyDays]

 

 

[whatdrought]

I find it’s easier to swallow the L if you cut it in half at the joint and swallow two straight pieces, thus removing the hard to handle angle....

[GoBills808]

Troy Aikman is best case scenario?