American Football

Weighted DVOA Favors Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII

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Weighted DVOA Favors Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII
Aaron Schatz
30 Jan 2023, 11:50am

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and TE Travis Kelce

As usual after the conference championship games, we’re not going to bother with the full 32-team table of weighted DVOA ratings, since there are only two teams left and most teams haven’t played for three weeks. We’ll just take a quick look at both teams.

I’m sure people will ask, so I’ll run the Philadelphia numbers with and without the Gardner Minshew offense (Weeks 16-17). What’s interesting about the Minshew games is that Philadelphia actually has a better passing offense if you consider Minshew’s performance. He was pretty good in Week 16! With the Minshew games, Philadelphia’s weighted pass offense is 15.5% and their weighted run offense is 20.7%. Take out the Minshew games, and Philadelphia’s weighted pass offense drops to 13.0% but weighted run offense rises to 29.9%. There are similar changes if you look at total DVOA for all 21 weeks, without weighting for recent games, except the changes are smaller.

  TOT Rk OFF Rk DEF Rk ST Rk
KC weighted 34.4% 2 26.7% 1 -6.0% 13 1.7% 17
PHI weighted 28.9% 5 12.6% 6 -12.3% 4 4.0% 8
PHI weighted (no Minshew) 33.7% 3 17.2% 4 -12.3% 4 4.0% 8
KC total 24.7% 4 24.9% 1 0.5% 17 0.3% 16
PHI total 29.5% 2 16.2% 3 -12.5% 3 0.9% 14
PHI total (no Minshew) 31.9% 2 18.6% 2 -12.5% 3 0.9% 14

That’s very close! You can see how the Kansas City defense has improved over the course of the season.

For the playoff odds simulation and the FO picks against the spread, I used the numbers without Minshew but also considered what the Eagles defense did against a 49ers offense that essentially did not have a quarterback. The Eagles had -6.9% defensive DVOA in the first half of yesterday’s game and then -97.0% DVOA in the second half. I don’t think the numbers after Josh Johnson left the game tell you much about how good the Eagles defense is going to be against Patrick Mahomes in two weeks.

With that adjustment, the playoff odds simulation gives the Chiefs a roughly 53% chance of winning the Super Bowl. The FO picks formula, which accounts for the spread, is even closer. This is a very close Super Bowl.

In case you are curious: San Francisco is still technically the No. 1 team in weighted DVOA through the playoffs, followed by Kansas City with Buffalo third and Cincinnati fourth.

Next, here are one-game ratings for the conference championships.

DVOA (with opponent adjustments)
TEAM TOT OFF DEF ST
SF -23% -45% -14% 8%
PHI 72% 24% -49% -1%
CIN 14% -9% -24% -2%
KC 49% 13% -20% 17%
VOA (no opponent adjustments)
TEAM TOT OFF DEF ST
SF -48% -51% 5% 8%
PHI 46% 7% -40% -1%
CIN -9% -9% -1% -2%
KC 31% 6% -8% 17%

Kansas City may have won by just a field goal — and needed that big 15-yard penalty to get into field goal range on the final drive — but DVOA does believe they outplayed the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game. The Chiefs ended up with a 90% Post-Game Win Expectancy, as they not only had the higher DVOA but specifically had the higher DVOA passing the ball, which usually matters more than rushing. The Chiefs also ran more plays and had fewer penalties.

In other important news: Voting for the 20th annual Football Outsiders reader awards should start later this week, so look for that announcement on our front page and make sure to get in your votes!

#1
by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 30, 2023 – 11:54am

What kind of trophy do you give out for that Weighted DVOA title?

Points: -1

#2
by ammek // Jan 30, 2023 – 12:02pm

So the difference in VOA between the Chiefs and Bengals was essentially special teams. Where was that concentrated? I remember the Chiefs had a couple solid punt returns and I suppose Butker was 5/5, just about. Was that it?

Points: 0

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