by Aaron Schatz

The time has come for our annual preseason DVOA projections, updated from the projections that gave us the season forecasts in Football Outsiders Almanac 2012. Get out your Desmond Howard jerseys, because there's a very strong chance of a Patriots-Packers Super Bowl. Not only do New England and Green Bay have the two highest DVOA projections, they also have two of the three easiest schedules based on average projected DVOA of opponent.

We must start with the requisite link to an explanation of DVOA. For anyone new to our site, DVOA stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average and measures a team's performance on every play of the season compared to league average in the same situation, adjusted for opponent. I know a lot of people may be coming here from various message boards and this is just going to look like a jumble of pointless numbers. Trust me, there is a method to the madness, and over the past dozen seasons past DVOA ratings -- as well as these multivariable-based DVOA projections -- have been a far more accurate predictor of future performance than wins or points.

Offense, defense, and special teams DVOA are all projected separately using a system based on looking at trends for teams over the past decade. The equations include a number of variables based on performance over the past two seasons in different splits (by down, passing vs. rushing, red zone vs. whole field) plus variables based on recent draft history, injury history, offensive and defensive pace, coaching experience, quarterback experience, and even weather. Strength of schedule was then figured based on the average projected total DVOA of all 16 opponents for 2012. This year, most of the projection changes between the book and the opening of the season have to do with upheaval on various offensive lines (especially in the AFC North).

There are two places where we have made manual changes to the projections this season. First, we've given a small penalty to New Orleans on both offense and defense in order to try to account for the upheaval that has gone on around that team this offseason, the interim head coach situation, and the lack of the general manager for the next few weeks. (The player suspensions actually wouldn't make much difference, as some of those players are no longer on the Saints, and the team signed free agents specifically to account for a suspension to Jonathan Vilma.) The other manual changes are slight improvements to the projections for Houston, New England, and the New York Giants based on research we've done on predictive value of playoff performance. We talk about that research a bit in this video from the (now-cancelled) Sabermetrics Video Network. This year we had to account for that with manual changes; next year we'll have it automatically incorporated into the system. This boost does move the Giants ahead of the Eagles as the most likely champion of the NFC East.

Other than those changes, the numbers we are presenting here are exactly what the projection system spit out. As we say every year: "A few of them will look strange to you. A few of them look strange to us." By far our most controversial projection for this season, San Francisco coming out with a mean projection below 8-8, is addressed in this video. If you are looking for subjective projections, later today we'll be running our usual staff predictions article where we all talk about where we think the numbers are wrong.

As always, the offensive projections come out in a wider range than defensive projections because offense performance tends to be easier to predict (and more consistent from year to year) than defensive performance. You should also understand that the projections represent the center in a range of possibilities, not a forecast of the exact difference between teams. You'll notice that one team, New England, is far ahead of the rest of the league, while another team, St. Louis, is far behind the rest of the league. This doesn't mean that we think the season will end with the Patriots far superior to everyone else, and the Rams far worse. It means that the odds of the Patriots being among the league's best teams are stronger than similar odds for the Steelers or Packers; the odds of the Rams being among the league's worst teams are stronger than similar odds for the Cardinals and Browns. When we do simulations, that comes out as a higher (or lower) DVOA projection. The same concept applies to the offense and defense projections. We're not saying that three defenses are going to be far superior to the other 29; we're saying that Steelers, Bears, and Jets are very, very likely to be top defenses. The Ravens and Seahawks are more likely than not to be good defenses, but their odds of being below average are stronger than the odds for those three previously mentioned teams.

Schedule strength really plays an important role in this year's forecast, something I've mentioned in pretty much every media interview I've done in the last month. In 2012, with a schedule including the NFC West and AFC South, the AFC North sent three teams to the playoffs. This year, both the AFC East and the NFC North play that same schedule. That's how the Bills end up as one of our predicted playoff teams despite ranking 16th in projected DVOA, and it's a big reason why the Patriots and Packers are such clear favorites this season.

The first postseason odds report of the 2012 season is also online, and I've added the playoff odds and Super Bowl championship odds to the table below. The mean wins forecast produced by our season simulation seems very conservative, as every team has a mean projection between 5-11 and 12-4. However, this kind of conservative forecast generally leads to smaller errors than a forecast that looks more like a real set of final standings with the best team around 14-2 and the worst team around 2-14. Obviously, the best team in the league will likely have more than 12 wins, and the worst team will have more than 11 losses.

Projected division champions are colored in light yellow. Projected wild card teams are colored in light blue. We're coloring Denver in yellow as a projected division champion, but the gap between the Broncos and Kansas City is very thin.



TEAM TOTAL

DVOA TOTAL

RANK MEAN

WINS OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK SPECIAL

DVOA S.T.

RANK SCHED SCHED

RANK PLAYOFF

ODDS S.B. WIN

ODDS NE 37.9% 1 11.9 31.6% 1 -1.1% 11 5.2% 2 -5.9% 30 92.8% 25.2% GB 23.9% 2 11.0 28.2% 2 3.4% 22 -0.9% 24 -6.4% 32 85.7% 15.1% ATL 21.6% 3 9.9 18.4% 4 -3.0% 8 0.2% 15 1.4% 15 68.6% 9.9% PIT 20.5% 4 10.1 3.9% 11 -15.3% 1 1.3% 7 -0.7% 20 75.1% 9.4% NO 15.2% 5 9.0 25.3% 3 8.2% 32 -1.9% 27 4.8% 1 49.8% 4.5% CHI 14.7% 6 10.1 -6.0% 22 -14.3% 2 6.3% 1 -6.0% 31 71.9% 7.0% BAL 10.4% 7 8.8 5.9% 8 -4.1% 4 0.4% 13 2.7% 8 48.5% 3.4% NYJ 9.3% 8 9.4 -3.9% 20 -10.2% 3 3.0% 5 -2.3% 22 54.4% 2.9% NYG 8.2% 9 8.5 4.4% 10 -3.1% 7 0.7% 9 4.4% 4 45.7% 3.0% CAR 7.9% 10 8.3 13.9% 5 5.1% 27 -0.9% 25 4.6% 2 36.1% 2.1% DEN 5.8% 11 8.4 8.2% 6 0.2% 19 -2.2% 28 4.5% 3 45.6% 2.4% PHI 4.8% 12 8.3 3.7% 13 0.9% 21 2.1% 6 2.2% 9 40.9% 2.0% HOU 4.6% 13 8.4 6.7% 7 -0.6% 15 -2.7% 29 1.0% 17 52.2% 2.3% DAL 3.6% 14 7.8 4.5% 9 0.2% 18 -0.6% 21 3.9% 5 30.8% 1.4% KC 3.4% 15 8.4 3.5% 14 0.7% 20 0.5% 12 1.5% 14 44.6% 1.8% BUF 2.7% 16 8.9 2.7% 17 -0.7% 13 -0.8% 23 -3.7% 27 43.5% 1.5% TEAM TOTAL

DVOA TOTAL

RANK MEAN

WINS OFFENSE

DVOA OFF.

RANK DEFENSE

DVOA DEF.

RANK SPECIAL

DVOA S.T.

RANK SCHED SCHED

RANK PLAYOFF

ODDS S.B. WIN

ODDS TEN -1.2% 17 7.6 -0.8% 19 -0.2% 17 -0.6% 20 1.8% 12 34.1% 1.0% CIN -2.9% 18 7.7 -4.6% 21 -1.1% 12 0.6% 11 0.2% 19 25.8% 0.7% SD -3.8% 19 7.0 2.8% 16 4.8% 25 -1.8% 26 3.6% 6 19.9% 0.5% WAS -4.3% 20 7.3 -7.4% 25 -3.8% 6 -0.8% 22 0.9% 18 21.4% 0.7% DET -4.5% 21 7.7 -0.5% 18 4.0% 23 0.0% 18 -2.7% 24 21.9% 0.5% TB -5.1% 22 7.1 2.9% 15 8.0% 31 0.0% 19 2.2% 10 15.2% 0.5% SF -6.9% 23 7.5 -12.0% 26 -1.2% 10 3.8% 3 -5.4% 29 45.0% 0.8% OAK -7.0% 24 7.0 3.7% 12 4.9% 26 -5.9% 31 2.0% 11 19.4% 0.4% MIA -11.5% 25 6.9 -12.3% 27 -0.7% 14 0.1% 16 -1.4% 21 10.3% 0.1% JAC -12.4% 26 6.5 -17.1% 29 -1.4% 9 3.2% 4 1.5% 13 15.8% 0.2% IND -13.5% 27 6.4 -6.4% 23 7.1% 29 0.0% 17 1.1% 16 14.3% 0.1% SEA -15.1% 28 7.0 -19.5% 30 -4.1% 5 0.3% 14 -5.1% 28 35.8% 0.4% MIN -17.6% 29 6.3 -6.8% 24 4.6% 24 -6.1% 32 -3.3% 25 6.8% 0.1% ARI -19.9% 30 6.1 -15.2% 28 5.2% 28 0.6% 10 -3.6% 26 18.6% 0.1% CLE -22.7% 31 5.5 -24.1% 31 -0.3% 16 1.1% 8 3.5% 7 3.8% 0.0% STL -47.0% 32 5.0 -33.8% 32 7.9% 30 -5.3% 30 -2.5% 23 5.8% 0.0%

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Finally, a couple of housekeeping notes. When we introduced the new DVOA v7.0 numbers online a month ago, I promised a series of articles giving updated lists of the best and worst DVOA and DYAR seasons. Unfortunately, I only got to the best teams and the worst teams before work to prepare for the 2012 season took over. My apologies. I promise to get to lots of fun historical "best and worst of DVOA" articles after the season is over. I also said I would try to address some of the questions that were asked by readers in the comment threads of those DVOA v7.0 articles, and I will try to do that with Tuesday's DVOA ratings commentary, since there isn't much to say about one week of ratings.

However, we've fully updated all the ratings pages online -- or at least, will have everything updated within the next hour -- with the new normalized ratings. The problem with VOA receiving ratings from 1992-1998 has been fixed. We've re-done the stats pages so that player names properly link to the player pages that give career numbers. We've also finally solved a longtime problem where we were inconsistent about how we counted Defensive Pass Interference. It was counted in Passes and Yards on the passing lists, but not the receiving lists. That's fixed now, so that the Passes and Yards totals do not include DPI. DPI is still integrated into the DVOA ratings, of course, and you'll now find separate columns with DPI numbers for all quarterbacks, wide receivers, and tight ends going back to 1991. You can use these numbers to learn that, for example, Brad Johnson laps the field with 464 yards off Defensive Pass Interference in 1999. No other quarterback has a season above 322 yards. You also see that Michael Irvin had 10 DPI plays in 1995, tied for the most of any receiver in any one year. That's one of the reasons why his 1995 season ranks as the best all-time according to DYAR.