For those of you who are familiar with the work that Football Outsiders does, I just found something pretty cool.
Through week 11, the Giants rank 1st in the NFL with a 40.9% DVOA and a 41.9% Weighted DVOA. They are clearly the best team in the NFL by these measures (Tennesee is 2nd at 30%).
Historically, the best DVOA's over a full season are:
2007 Patriots 51.8%
1999 St. Louis Rams 45.8%
1996 Green Bay Packers 40.6%
Currently, the 2008 New York Giants rate as the 3rd best team of the last dozen or so years. Obviously the year is not over, but that is still really impressive.
Top Teams by DVOA - (
New Window )
You don't think it's cool that some very robust statistical measurements think we are potentially one of the 5 best teams of the past 15 YEARS!!!!?????
Way too much info for me, although I'm sure it's relevant.
The short version: It is a ranking system for every player, unit, and team in the NFL. It is all encompassing, and works by assinging the appropriate credit (positive and negative) to each player, unit, and team for every play of every game of every season.
Hope that helps.
Link - ( New Window )
Brandon Jacobs (four), Derrick Ward (three), Plaxico Burress (one) and Ahmad Bradshaw (six) combined for 14 broken/dodged tackles -- one more than the 13 the team had against the Seahawks in Week 5. Against Seattle, the broken tackles resulted in an additional 77 yards. Against Baltimore, the Giants picked up an extra 150 yards. The difference was clearly Bradshaw's 77-yard run in the fourth quarter that included a broken tackle one yard behind the line and two more before he ran free into the secondary.
Pretty impressive.
link - ( New Window )
They're still dangerous, which is good because they still have to play the Cowboys and Redskins again, but they're a hard team to figure.
While I agree Eagles should be nowhere near #3, it's silly to dismiss an entire concept based on one anomalous result.
It does provide some interesting stuff to discuss (during or after the season). Sure, the numbers don't matter if you don't win, but that black and white approach really leave nothing to be discussed/argued.
the eagles result is obviously a little bit wacky but that happens sometimes. there are well known underlying indicators and predictors of success, such as points scored and points allowed, that usually correlate pretty well to a teams record. but in some cases, they don't and the eagles is defnitely one of those cases.
Anyhow, I like FO's stats. They wouldn't be interesting if they didn't tell us things different from what you would conclude by glancing at every team's W-L.