Seattle remains on top of the DVOA ratings after this week’s big 44-22 win over Arizona. Surprisingly, the Seahawks drop a little bit despite the big win. They had two strip-sack touchdowns, and DVOA only looks at the fumble and does not account for the recovery and the return, both of which are mostly random. Seattle is now the No. 9 team in DVOA through nine games since 1978.

Best Teams by DVOA Through 9 Games, 1978-2025

Year
Team
W-L
DVOA
Off
Rk
Def
Rk
ST
Rk

2007
NE
9-0
71.4%
40.3%
1
-22.8%
2
8.3%
4

1991
WAS
9-0
51.7%
19.0%
3
-20.4%
3
12.2%
1

2023
BAL
7-2
49.0%
19.1%
4
-28.8%
2
1.1%
14

2018
KC
8-1
47.9%
40.3%
1
0.7%
17
8.2%
1

1996
GB
8-1
47.8%
16.7%
4
-26.7%
1
4.4%
6

1985
CHI
9-0
47.7%
21.2%
3
-20.5%
1
6.0%
1

2003
KC
9-0
47.6%
26.8%
1
-7.3%
8
13.5%
1

1995
DAL
8-1
45.9%
35.6%
1
-7.5%
9
2.8%
7

2025
SEA
7-2
45.9%
20.0%
4
-16.4%
3
9.4%
2

1994
DAL
8-1
45.5%
26.0%
1
-16.2%
3
3.3%
6

1992
DAL
8-1
45.3%
29.5%
1
-15.8%
4
0.0%
14

1998
DEN
9-0
44.5%
34.5%
1
-9.3%
6
0.7%
12

1990
NYG
9-0
44.3%
15.3%
3
-21.1%
4
7.8%
1

The Los Angeles Rams also had a big win, 42-26 over the 49ers, and they move ahead of the Indianapolis Colts as our No. 2 team. This sets up the DVOA BOWL between our top two teams this Sunday! This game will be the 26th DVOA Bowl since 1978 where the top two teams meet in the regular season. There have also been 17 meetings between the top two teams in the playoffs. Rams-Seahawks is the fourth DVOA Bowl in the last three seasons. Here’s a list of all the DVOA Bowl games since the year 2000:

DVOA Bowl: No. 1 vs. No. 2 in Regular Season Since 2000

Year
Week
Team
W-L
DVOA
Rk
Team
W-L
DVOA
Rk
Home
Score

2007
9
NE
8-0
71.9%
1
IND
7-0
48.3%
2
IND
NE, 24-20

2008
10
NYG
7-1
35.7%
1
PHI
5-3
31.4%
2
PHI
NYG, 36-31

2008
14
NYG
11-1
35.7%
1
PHI
6-5-1
26.6%
2
NYG
PHI, 20-14

2009
6
NO
4-0
53.5%
1
NYG
5-0
48.9%
2
NO
NO, 48-22

2015
17
ARI
13-2
36.9%
1
SEA
9-6
29.5%
2
ARI
SEA, 36-6

2017
11
LAR
7-2
32.1%
1
MIN
7-2
31.8%
2
MIN
MIN, 24-7

2017
14
PHI
10-2
31.5%
1
LAR
9-3
31.5%
2
LAR
PHI, 43-35

2018
11
KC
9-1
47.3%
1
LAR
9-1
29.6%
2
LAR
LAR, 54-51

2020
15
KC
12-1
27.9%
1
NO
10-3
27.3%
2
NO
KC, 32-29

2023
4
BUF
2-1
55.5%
1
MIA
3-0
50.1%
2
BUF
BUF, 48-20

2023
16
SF
11-3
46.7%
1
BAL
11-3
38.8%
2
SF
BAL, 33-19

2024
7
MIN
5-0
41.0%
1
DET
4-1
34.2%
2
MIN
DET, 31-29

2025
11
SEA
7-2
45.9%
1
LAR
7-2
35.2%
2
LAR

Note that a lot of these games have been won by the No. 2 team and the Rams are the home team Sunday, so don’t be surprised if the Seahawks go down and don’t be surprised if they are still No. 1 next week despite a loss.

Detroit and Kansas City stay in the fourth and fifth spots this week. Green Bay actually moves up a spot to No. 6 because of other teams dropping, namely the Buffalo Bills who are down from sixth to 11th. The Philadelphia Eagles climbed to seventh after their Monday night win against the Packers. Houston is eighth, Denver is ninth, and then a big surprise, Tampa Bay moving up to 10th after a 28-23 loss to the Patriots. Meanwhile, the surprising 8-2 Patriots are somehow down to 17th in DVOA despite the win.

I discussed the Tampa Bay-New England game with guest Bryan Knowles on Monday’s Schatz and Tanier NFL Podcast, which you can watch on YouTube here. The Patriots had a Post-Game Win Expectancy of just 4.5% because they were so heavily dependent on three explosive plays: a 72-yard pass touchdown from Drake Maye to Kyle Williams, a 55-yard touchdown run by TreVeyon Henderson, and a 69-yard touchdown run by Henderson. Overall, the Tampa Bay offense had a 52% success rate compared to just 33% for the Patriots, and the Buccaneers were also ahead in the turnover margin. Explosive plays are important, but success rate tends to be more predictive of future success, which is why keeping the chains moving will be weighted a little stronger in DVOA than the added yards from big plays.

Overall for the season, the Patriots are now ninth in offensive DVOA despite being 15th in success rate. Things are different on the other side, where the Patriots are just 29th in DVOA despite being 14th in success rate allowed, but this is where we really see New England’s easy schedule come into play. Without a schedule adjustment, the Patriots defense would rank 18th in VOA. The average offense faced by the Patriots has an offensive DVOA of -11.8%. The Colts have the next-easiest schedule on defense at -8.2%. (Tennessee has had the toughest schedule on defense at 6.0%.)

The Patriots are only the second 8-2 team to ever have a negative DVOA. They are way ahead of the other one, which was the completely insane 2022 Minnesota Vikings at -12.1%. The good news for the Patriots is that their record means a lot more than their DVOA when it comes to the playoff chase, and they still have one of the league’s easiest remaining schedules. So we have the Patriots now making the playoffs in 94% of our simulations and they win the division 69% of the time over Buffalo. The Patriots have a 1.5-game lead on the Bills plus the head-to-head tiebreaker with the second game between the two teams coming in Foxborough in Week 15.

(Flex alert: Sunday night is currently the 4-5 Vikings at the 3-5-1 Cowboys that week. Would NBC actually move the Cowboys out of prime time? That week is actually filled with great Sunday afternoon games that could move including the second Chargers-Chiefs game, the Colts at the Seahawks, and the Lions at the Rams.)

* * * * *

Week 10 is also a good time to split the season in two and look back on which teams have been improving or declining over the last few weeks. There are some really big gaps between DVOA in the first five weeks compared to the last five weeks, and some of them are rather shocking, in particular the Cincinnati offense. How good has Joe Flacco been since coming to Cincinnati? The Bengals are No. 1 in offensive DVOA since Week 6! They were 29th in Weeks 1-5 with Joe Burrow and Jake Browning.

Here’s a look at more of the biggest changes.

Offensive improvement since Week 6

Cincinnati from -22.1% (29) to 32.8% (1)
New York Giants from -21.7% (28) to 11.3% (12)

Offensive decline since Week 6

Washington from 13.8% (8) to -17.4% (26)
Tampa Bay from 11.3% (10) to -10.8% (23)
Houston from 1.8% (15) to -11.6% (24)

Defensive improvement since Week 6

Tampa Bay from 2.7% (21) to -28.8% (1)
Miami from 24.4% (32) to -11.6% (7)
Baltimore from 14.0% (27) to -11.2% (8)
Los Angeles Chargers from -1.0% (19) to -10.2% (9)

Defensive decline since Week 6

Atlanta from -12.4% (3) to -3.8% (14)
Green Bay from -12.2% (4) to -4.5% (13)
Philadelphia from -10.2% (7) to 2.0% (20)
Washington from -6.3% (13) to 22.9% (31)

The defensive decline for Green Bay and Philadelphia over the last five weeks is surprising to see given how well those teams played last night on defense, so it’s obviously more about Weeks 6-9 rather than Week 10.

* * * * *

These are the FTN DVOA and DAVE ratings through 10 weeks 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.) Beginning this week, opponent adjustments are now at full strength.

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 (weighted to give more strength to recent games) to get a more accurate projection of how a team will play the rest of the season. For teams with 10 games, DAVE is currently 18% preseason forecast for offense and 42% preseason forecast for defense and special teams. For teams with nine games, DAVE is currently 24% preseason forecast for offense and 49% preseason forecast for defense and special teams.

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

1
SEA
45.9%
1
29.0%
1
7-2
20.0%
4
-16.4%
3
9.4%
2

2
LAR
35.2%
3
25.8%
3
7-2
25.7%
2
-12.2%
6
-2.7%
23

3
IND
34.7%
2
23.0%
5
8-2
27.7%
1
-3.3%
16
3.6%
8

4
DET
32.3%
4
27.1%
2
6-3
16.6%
5
-13.4%
5
2.3%
12

5
KC
25.1%
5
24.3%
4
5-4
21.2%
3
-4.2%
14
-0.3%
15

6
GB
15.1%
7
12.4%
8
5-3-1
10.0%
10
-8.1%
8
-3.0%
25

7
PHI
14.2%
11
14.9%
6
7-2
11.3%
8
-5.0%
13
-2.0%
21

8
HOU
13.3%
9
7.7%
11
4-5
-5.0%
21
-18.8%
1
-0.6%
16

9
DEN
12.0%
8
9.2%
9
8-2
-2.4%
18
-17.2%
2
-2.8%
24

10
TB
9.0%
13
6.0%
12
6-3
1.6%
15
-12.2%
7
-4.8%
28

11
BUF
8.7%
6
14.1%
7
6-3
16.2%
6
6.4%
22
-1.1%
18

12
BAL
6.2%
12
8.1%
10
4-5
6.0%
12
3.9%
20
4.1%
5

13
PIT
4.9%
10
2.7%
13
5-4
-2.3%
17
-3.5%
15
3.7%
7

14
LAC
3.5%
18
1.7%
16
7-3
3.0%
14
-5.0%
12
-4.5%
27

15
SF
1.9%
15
2.0%
15
6-4
13.1%
7
8.7%
26
-2.5%
22

16
JAX
-2.2%
17
-2.7%
17
5-4
-5.6%
22
0.3%
18
3.7%
6

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

17
NE
-2.2%
14
2.1%
14
8-2
10.2%
9
11.7%
29
-0.7%
17

18
ATL
-2.6%
20
-5.4%
21
3-6
-4.6%
20
-7.2%
9
-5.3%
30

19
WAS
-3.2%
16
-3.2%
19
3-7
-2.8%
19
8.1%
24
7.6%
3

20
ARI
-4.1%
19
-2.8%
18
3-6
-8.3%
24
-5.5%
10
-1.3%
19

21
DAL
-10.5%
21
-4.4%
20
3-5-1
8.4%
11
21.0%
31
2.2%
13

22
MIN
-11.8%
22
-9.6%
24
4-5
-17.0%
27
-2.8%
17
2.4%
11

23
MIA
-12.0%
26
-11.3%
25
3-7
-9.4%
25
6.7%
23
4.1%
4

24
NYG
-13.3%
24
-9.3%
23
2-8
-6.3%
23
9.4%
27
2.4%
10

25
CHI
-13.8%
23
-6.6%
22
6-3
0.7%
16
10.5%
28
-3.9%
26

26
NYJ
-22.1%
29
-19.5%
28
2-7
-18.3%
29
15.4%
30
11.5%
1

27
CAR
-23.5%
25
-24.0%
30
5-5
-15.9%
26
5.7%
21
-2.0%
20

28
LV
-24.5%
27
-18.4%
27
2-7
-24.3%
30
-5.1%
11
-5.3%
29

29
CIN
-24.8%
28
-11.8%
26
3-6
4.4%
13
30.6%
32
1.4%
14

30
CLE
-26.6%
30
-24.2%
31
2-7
-31.4%
32
-14.9%
4
-10.2%
32

31
NO
-28.5%
31
-24.0%
29
2-8
-17.9%
28
1.7%
19
-8.8%
31

32
TEN
-34.9%
32
-32.0%
32
1-8
-29.9%
31
8.4%
25
3.4%
9