FootballOutsiders Week 6 DVOA Ratings

FootballOutsiders

In a statistical metric based on play-by-play analysis rather than wins and losses, sometimes a team will rate better for a close loss than another team rates for a close win. That's what happened this week in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings, and it was enough to knock the undefeated Los Angeles Rams out of the top spot. Instead, the Kansas City Chiefs ascend to No. 1 despite losing their first game to New England on Sunday night. (Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Kansas City doesn't ascend but instead stands in place while the Rams and Chicago Bears drop.)

After Week 6, neither the Chiefs nor the Rams now rank among the dozen best offenses we've ever tracked through this point of the season. The Rams really saw their passing game struggle against Denver this week. The Rams had only 2.6% offensive DVOA for the game after adjusting for Denver's defense, and the split there was -43.1% for passes and 42.8% for runs. It really was a huge ground game for Todd Gurley, even considering that the Broncos are one of the league's worst run defenses (29th in DVOA).

For Kansas City, the interesting split this week was first half vs. second half. In the first half, Kansas City had -32.3% offensive DVOA. In the second half, the Chiefs had 68.1% offensive DVOA.

There are two big differences between the Chiefs and the Rams this year. The first is schedule strength. The Rams are still higher than the Chiefs in non-adjusted VOA, although both teams saw this rating drop after Week 6. However, the Rams saw their DVOA drop as our opponent adjustments got stronger, while Kansas City's DVOA actually went up slightly. Kansas City's past schedule now ranks seventh by average DVOA of opponent, while the Rams' schedule ranks 22nd.

The second difference is special teams. I'm usually reticent to draw attention to special teams early in the season because one or two plays can have such a huge impact on special teams DVOA in just a game or two. But now that we're talking six games, I think it's a bit more safe to talk about how historically good the Kansas City special teams have been this year. Kansas City has had positive special teams value in five of six games, and the other game was -0.6%. Kansas City has more games with special teams DVOA over 25% than the entire rest of the league combined: Week 1 against the Chargers and Week 6 against the Patriots, compared to just the New York Jets in Week 1 against Detroit.

This isn't just about Tyreek Hill. Head over to our special teams ratings table (now sortable!) and you'll see that Kansas City currently ranks first or second in all five aspects of special teams that we measure. Rookie Tremon Smith had the 97-yard kickoff return on Sunday night, Dustin Colquitt leads the league in net punting average, and Harrison Butker hasn't missed a field goal or extra point yet this season. As a result, the Chiefs are on pace to rank among the best special teams we've ever tracked

Los Angeles Rams
Overall Rank: 2nd
Offense: 1st
Defense: 17th (down from 14th)
Special Teams: 15th

Passing offense: 2nd
Rushing offense: 1st

Pass Defense: 14th
Run Defense: 26th

Special Teams
FG/XP: 31st
Kick coverage: 27th
Kick return: 5th
Punt coverage: 13th
Punt return: 4th

Offensive Line
Run blocking: 1st
Pass protection: 9th

Defensive Line
Run defense: 20th
Pass rush: 26th

Player Rankings
QB Jared Goff: 3rd among 34 ranked QBs
RB Todd Gurley: 1st among 37 ranked RBs rushing; 20th among 45 RBs receiving
WR Robert Woods: 6th among 73 ranked WRs
WR Brandin Cooks: 7th among 73 ranked WRs
WR Cooper Kupp: 10th among 73 ranked WRs
TE Gerald Everett: 26th among 40 ranked TEs
TE Tyler Higbee: unranked (fewer than 12 targets)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2018 06:38PM by LMU93.