The Washington Commanders begin the 2025 season on top of our DVOA ratings after a big win over the New York Giants. The Colts, Packers, Jaguars and Broncos finish out the top five. But the most interesting result has to do with the team that ranks sixth, as the Baltimore Ravens had an excellent 36.9% DVOA despite losing to the Buffalo Bills Sunday night, 41-40.

We don’t include opponent adjustments until after Week 4, so that rating is not juiced by an adjustment because the Bills are a really good opponent.

The result makes some sense when you look at the underlying stats. The Bills did manage a higher success rate, 56% to 50% over the Ravens. However, the Ravens were incredibly efficient at gaining yardage, with 8.6 yards per play compared to just 6.8 yards per play for the Bills. And of course, usually something like the Derrick Henry fumble is only going to be recovered by the defense about half the time.

The DVOA ratings suggest that the Ravens’ success Sunday night is more sustainable than the Bills’ success. Of course, it was just one game, and both teams are going to be very good in the long run. Also, obviously the Ravens have quite a history of being very good in DVOA and then losing in the postseason, so I guess you have to take this all with a grain of salt. Still, our Post-Game Win Expectancy (PGWE) formula says that based on the stats of the Sunday night game, we would only expect the team with the Bills’ stats to win that game 5.5% of the time.

The other game that stands out in DVOA is the Steelers’ win over the Jets, as the Jets rank 10th in DVOA with a better success rate and more yards per play than the Steelers.

The Ravens and Jets both come out on a list of the best teams in DVOA that didn’t win in Week 1. These ratings do not include opponent adjustments.

Best DVOA for 0-1 or 0-0-1 Team, 1978-2025

Year
Team
W-L
DVOA
Final
W-L

1999
WAS
0-1
44.8%
10-6

1979
WAS
0-1
44.4%
10-6

1991
LARM
0-1
40.8%
3-13

2025
BAL
0-1
36.9%
—

1986
LARD
0-1
32.3%
8-8

1995
DET
0-1
25.8%
10-6

1983
PIT
0-1
24.7%
10-6

2019
DET
0-0-1
24.4%
3-12-1

2010
DAL
0-1
24.3%
6-10

2025
NYJ
0-1
24.0%
—

2018
CHI
0-1
23.4%
12-4

2022
ATL
0-1
22.6%
7-10

Of course, we could try to apply opponent adjustments based on our preseason projections or based on last year’s ratings. Out of curiosity, I went to look at what the DVOA ratings would be if we used last year’s opponent adjustments. Green Bay would be No. 1 by a mile because the Lions rated so well on both sides of the ball last year. The Bills would move from 26th to 13th because the Ravens had such strong opponent adjustments. Here’s a look at the top 10 with and without last year’s opponent adjustments:

DVOA with no
Adjustments 
DVOA with 2024
Adjustments

1
WAS
1
GB

2
IND
2
BAL

3
GB
3
IND

4
JAX
4
WAS

5
DEN
5
LAR

6
BAL
6
LAC

7
LV
7
NYJ

8
LAR
8
DAL

9
PHI
9
DEN

10
NYJ
10
JAX

One more note about the ratings below. I’m going to be using new coefficients this year for DAVE, the rating that combines regular-season performance with preseason projections to get a better idea of how good teams will be going forward. Some research I’ve done suggests that current offensive performance is more “real” in the long term than defensive performance, so we need to use more of this year’s offense and less of this year’s defense when we put together DAVE. The new coefficients will filter out the preseason projections quicker for offense than defense, and we’ll be using DAVE for defense and special teams through 15 games.

* * * * *

These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through one week of 2025. Our Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system breaks down every single play and compares a team’s performance to the league average based on situation in order to determine value over average. (Explained further here.) Please note that there are no opponent adjustments in DVOA until after Week 4.

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted for performance indoors and consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver) and week of season. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

DAVE is a formula which combines our preseason forecast with current DVOA to get a more accurate projection of how a team will play the rest of the season. DAVE is currently 83% preseason forecast for offense and 98% preseason forecast for defense and special teams.

RK
TEAM
TOTAL
DVOA
TOTAL
DAVE
RK
W-L
OFF.
DVOA
OFF.
RK
DEF.
DVOA
DEF.
RK
S.T.
DVOA
S.T.
RK

1
WAS
81.5%
18.1%
3
1-0
36.4%
2
-45.6%
3
-0.5%
19

2
IND
70.8%
-9.5%
25
1-0
18.7%
10
-52.2%
2
-0.1%
15

3
GB
61.7%
12.3%
6
1-0
19.7%
9
-36.4%
4
5.6%
10

4
JAX
47.5%
1.3%
15
1-0
5.8%
15
-35.5%
5
6.2%
9

5
DEN
38.1%
2.4%
13
1-0
-19.8%
26
-65.7%
1
-7.9%
27

6
BAL
36.9%
30.3%
1
0-1
56.9%
1
21.8%
26
1.8%
12

7
LV
27.3%
1.4%
14
1-0
20.7%
8
-11.6%
11
-5.0%
24

8
LAR
27.0%
5.8%
9
1-0
1.1%
17
-18.1%
6
7.8%
6

9
PHI
24.2%
17.1%
4
1-0
31.7%
4
19.9%
25
12.5%
1

10
NYJ
24.0%
-9.6%
26
0-1
25.8%
5
11.0%
22
9.3%
4

11
LAC
18.6%
1.1%
17
1-0
34.4%
3
13.4%
23
-2.4%
20

12
MIN
18.2%
4.2%
10
1-0
10.6%
12
-1.2%
14
6.3%
8

13
TB
0.0%
3.3%
11
1-0
4.6%
16
4.3%
17
-0.3%
16

14
DAL
-0.4%
-0.9%
18
0-1
25.0%
6
26.4%
28
1.0%
14

15
SF
-1.2%
11.9%
7
1-0
7.3%
14
-15.0%
9
-23.5%
32

16
CIN
-2.3%
2.7%
12
1-0
-13.9%
24
-11.9%
10
-0.4%
17

RK
TEAM
TOTAL
DVOA
TOTAL
DAVE
RK
W-L
OFF.
DVOA
OFF.
RK
DEF.
DVOA
DEF.
RK
S.T.
DVOA
S.T.
RK

17
ARI
-4.7%
1.2%
16
1-0
-4.7%
20
-7.2%
12
-7.2%
26

18
NO
-6.8%
-13.2%
27
0-1
-2.8%
18
-1.2%
15
-5.2%
25

19
PIT
-8.5%
-2.2%
20
1-0
9.1%
13
27.5%
29
9.9%
3

20
CLE
-10.8%
-13.4%
28
0-1
-14.4%
25
-16.6%
7
-13.0%
31

21
SEA
-12.9%
-5.8%
23
0-1
-12.5%
23
8.2%
20
7.7%
7

22
ATL
-13.3%
-5.2%
22
0-1
-2.9%
19
0.4%
16
-9.9%
30

23
CHI
-13.3%
-0.9%
19
0-1
-7.9%
21
-3.4%
13
-8.8%
29

24
KC
-16.5%
14.8%
5
0-1
11.8%
11
36.5%
30
8.2%
5

25
HOU
-33.2%
-4.2%
21
0-1
-25.7%
27
8.6%
21
1.0%
13

26
BUF
-38.5%
19.4%
2
1-0
23.5%
7
58.8%
32
-3.2%
23

27
NE
-40.0%
-9.0%
24
0-1
-9.0%
22
22.8%
27
-8.2%
28

28
TEN
-42.2%
-26.5%
32
0-1
-68.9%
32
-16.2%
8
10.5%
2

29
CAR
-47.9%
-26.1%
31
0-1
-37.1%
29
8.2%
19
-2.7%
21

30
DET
-54.5%
9.1%
8
0-1
-36.7%
28
14.6%
24
-3.2%
22

31
MIA
-57.1%
-13.8%
29
0-1
-52.1%
31
8.0%
18
3.0%
11

32
NYG
-86.3%
-17.2%
30
0-1
-47.8%
30
38.0%
31
-0.4%
18