Football Outsiders: Week 11 DVOA Ratings

Football Outsiders

Damn the torpedos, the conventional wisdom, and even other advanced metrics: DVOA is going to stick with the Kansas City Chiefs come hell or high water.

Last week, I noted that the No. 2 team had won the last five regular-season "DVOA Bowl" matchups pitting the top two teams in our stats against each other. The Los Angeles Rams made that six in a row with last night's win. But it was a close win. Kansas City's DVOA rating drops by less than one percentage point, and the Chiefs are still comfortably in first place.

In fact, the Chiefs finished with a higher DVOA than the Rams for the game, despite the loss. The Chiefs outgained the Rams 7.9 yards per play to 6.1 yards per play, and they had a 53 percent success rate compared to 45 percent for the Rams. That was enough to outweigh Patrick Mahomes' three interceptions, and give the Chiefs 47.4% DVOA for the game compared to 31.0% DVOA for the Rams. (Yes, that's higher than Kansas City's total DVOA for the season; the Chiefs went down insead of up overall because of changes in opponent adjustments on past games.)

It's worth noting that because of turnovers and some defensive stops late in the game, not to mention very strong opponent adjustments for playing each other, both Kansas City and the Rams ended up with better than average (i.e. negative) defensive DVOA in this game.

Los Angeles Rams

Overall Rank: 2nd
Offense: 1st
Defense: 16th
Special Teams: 16th

Passing offense: 4th
Rushing offense: 1st

Pass Defense: 11th
Run Defense: 29th

Special Teams
FG/XP: 28th
Kick coverage: 25th
Kick return: 8th
Punt coverage: 15th
Punt return: 4th

Offensive Line
Run blocking: 1st
Pass protection: 10th

Defensive Line
Run defense: 24th
Pass rush: 15th

Player Rankings
QB Jared Goff: 3rd among 32 ranked QBs
RB Todd Gurley: 1st among 34 ranked RBs rushing; 12th among 37 RBs receiving
WR Brandin Cooks: 3rd among 63 ranked WRs
WR Robert Woods: 6th among 63 ranked WRs
WR Cooper Kupp: 23rd among 63 ranked WRs
WR Josh Reynolds: unranked (fewer than 44 targets)
TE Tyler Higbee: 19th among 38 ranked TEs
TE Gerald Everett: 21st among 38 ranked TEs