Football Outsiders: Seahawks now rank top 5 in all 3 phases

YES! We were 6th in one of them (Offense, I think?) last week, and top 5 in the other two. Now, we're #5 offense, #2 defense, and #2 special teams.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-r ... oa-ratings

Guys, this is nuts. Before any negative nancies/cbooms/mikeaks start whining about how it means nothing because the Cardinals are horrible, read that article, and then remember that Football Outsiders accounts for how good or bad the opponent is, and either pads your rankings if you faced a good opponent, or lowers them if you faced a bad one. Despite that, we moved up. This is awesome news.

:179422:

We are so primed to own in the play-offs.

Booya! Paying good ball when it matters most!

...ps: There is NO accounting for how bad the cards were on Bloody Sunday haha

sturg78":32f2v7to said:

...ps: There is NO accounting for how bad the cards were on Bloody Sunday haha

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Football Outsiders would argue you on this.

It is so key to get hot at the end of the season... Seems like the latest SB teams have all been somewhat good/mediocre and then gotten hot at the end of the year... NYG, AZ are 2 I can think of off the top of my head. We'll see what happens in Toronto on Sunday, but this is good! I'm getting fired up.

TriC, there's actually an article on that somewhere on the Football Outsiders website; I read it yesterday. It talked about how most of the winners in the past decade of the Super Bowl have been teams that got hot towards the end, and not teams that had better records that were better for the whole year. Hell, look at the Giants; their last two Super Bowl trophies, they had a semi-decent 11-5 record on the first one, and 9-7 wild card on the second one. (I might have that reversed.)

Also, I Tweeted Doug Farrar a question, (he's the one I saw the article in this thread from, on Twitter) and he replied; looks like he's a believer, assuming we have Sherman.

James Barr ‏@RageFury100
@SC_DougFarrar Think the #seahawks are poised to make some major noise in the play-offs?

SC_DougFarrar ‏@SC_DougFarrar
@RageFury100 Depends on the Sherman suspension. They lose maybe the NFL's best CB, it's a major problem. Otherwise, really solid.

Can you say "BALANCED"!

I really like how everything is meshing together for the last stretch of the season.

We are definitely peaking at the right time...

I'm a bit of an advanced stats geek I enjoy them. One thing that I like about DVOAs and what they do at Footballoutsiders is they are transparent in they way they go about it, they explain everything, show how it's calculated and will admit where there are problems. Unlike, say QBR which they claim things like win probability or clutch index but never actually explain how those are calculated they're just...assigned.

Anyways cool to see us up this high, consider this, last year after week 14 our DVOA ranks were:

Overall: 20th
Offense: 24th
Defense: 10th
Special Teams: 14th

We've really come a long way this year especially considering how tough our schedule has been. The offense has really come along as well.

Funny, but everyone says the Cardinals are a very bad team. Here's the thing (and it's a point concerning so many other things...Flynn's performance against Detroit, Pats blowing people out, etc.):

I didn't see anyone else beating the Cards 58-0. Sure, they're bad, but that was a historical beat down. It's only happened a few other times since freakin 1940. So, while some claim it's a bad Cards team, it was also a good Seahawks team, defending their own turf, and doing everything right.

I hope this and the CHI win gives us confidence and momentum to go in and just thrash the Bills. Then we're riding an avalanche of momentum for the NFC West championship game in Seattle.

For the record, our defense was #6.

And man! Top 5 units all around. our DVOA rocks! (as Techworlds might say )

I will say the DVOA stuff seems kinda flawed. I realize we're a good, yet underrated team.

But to say we're one of the top teams in the last 15 years ? I just can't see it. Our offense was poor early, now it's getting good. Our defense was elite early, not it's just merely good.

All I know is it's usually better to be ranked top 5 of a ranking system rather then 32nd, lol!! Go Hawks!!

Nice

Our DVOA is better than everyone's LMNOP.

It's bigger, too.

I think I crapped myself a little when I read this line from the article:

The Patriots and Seahawks have now pulled ahead with two of the best total DVOA ratings of the last 20 years.

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Remember the "Seahawks are mediocre" threads and blog posts that were everywhere? Just 3 weeks ago? What a strange and wonderful season this has been.

kearly":3txdyaih said:

I think I crapped myself a little when I read this line from the article:

The Patriots and Seahawks have now pulled ahead with two of the best total DVOA ratings of the last 20 years.

Click to expand...

Remember the "Seahawks are mediocre" threads and blog posts that were everywhere? Just 3 weeks ago? What a strange and wonderful season this has been.

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DVOA be damn. Until we get out of the 7,8,9 win range we will be mediocre.

10 wins is the goal for me. Unless we make a playoff win streak with less.

Sorry tech, but I couldn't disagree more. I wouldn't trade this roster for the Texans, the Falcons, or the Colts- all of whom currently have more wins than we do. Using wins to evaluate how good a team is completely misses the mark.

kearly":3uczmksd said:

Sorry tech, but I couldn't disagree more. I wouldn't trade this roster for the Texans, the Falcons, or the Colts- all of whom currently have more wins than we do. Using wins to evaluate how good a team is completely misses the mark.

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It is rather difficult to polish your DVOA trophy, though. The Lombardi shine up rather nicely, on the other hand.