FootballOutsiders week 15 rankings

[www.footballoutsiders.com]

After a dominating victory over their division rivals in Seattle, the Los Angeles Rams have now opened up a wide lead in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. The Rams are up to 38.0% DVOA, which ranks them among the top dozen teams we've ever tracked through Week 15. (You'll find that table in this week's Any Given Sunday column.) The Rams actually dropped one spot in offensive DVOA, so they no longer qualify as ranking in the top five for all three phases of the game, but their defense and special teams ratings both improved and more than make up for that small drop.

The Rams rate even better in weighted DVOA than they do in full-season DVOA, since seven of their last nine games (going back to Week 6) had a single-game rating over 50%. Since Week 6, there have only been 24 other games where a team recorded a single-game DVOA of 50% or more, or less than one per team. The Rams have seven. The only other teams with more than two of these games during the same period? The Philadelphia Eagles have three, and the Baltimore Ravens -- who narrowly climbed ahead of Pittsburgh this week to rank as the top AFC team in DVOA -- have a surprising five similarly dominant games since Week 6.

As has been covered in numerous other places, the Rams are currently undergoing one of the greatest turnaround seasons in NFL history. Barring some sort of unexpected collapse in the final two weeks, the Rams will set a new record for the biggest year-to-year improvement in total DVOA. That record is currently held by the 2013 Kansas City Chiefs, who added Andy Reid and Alex Smith and went from -40.1% DVOA (dead last) and a 2-14 record to 17.5% DVOA (sixth) and a playoff spot. Not bad for a team that didn't even get much help from their No. 1 pick, since they got to lead off one of the worst first rounds in NFL draft history.

The good news for the Rams is that a lot of the teams on this list went on to have several strong years of playoff contention: the recent Seahawks and Chiefs, the Peyton Manning Broncos, the Jon Gruden Raiders. The 1999 Rams won the Super Bowl, and the 2004 Steelers won the Super Bowl a year later. That Gruden team needs a little extra explanation, by the way. The 1999 Raiders went from 27th in DVOA to third in DVOA in Gruden's second year as head coach and managed to improve their record from 8-8 all the way to... 8-8. The 1998 Raiders were 5-1 in games decided by a field goal or less. The 1999 Raiders were 1-4 in games decided by a field goal or less, and didn't lose a game by more than a touchdown. The Raiders finally put luck and strong play together in 2000 and improved to 12-4.

Los Angeles Rams
Overall Rank: 1st
Offense: 6th
Defense: 3rd
Special Teams: 2nd

Passing offense: 3rd
Rushing offense: 9th

Pass Defense: 3rd
Run Defense: 19th

Special Teams
FG/XP: 2nd
Kick coverage: t-14th
Kick return: 1st
Punt coverage: 3rd
Punt return: 4th

Offensive Line
Run blocking: 3rd
Pass protection: 9th

Defensive Line
Run defense: 21st
Pass rush: 3rd

Player Rankings
QB Jared Goff: 7th among 35 ranked QBs
RB Todd Gurley: 1st among 39 ranked RBs rushing; 3rd among 57 RBs receiving
WR Robert Woods: 19th among 77 ranked WRs
WR Cooper Kupp: 13th among 77 ranked WRs
WR Sammy Watkins- 12th among 77 ranked WRs
TE Tyler Higbee; 36th among 47 ranked TEs
TE Gerald Everett: 22nd among 47 ranked TEs