The Path to the (other) Title: Week 4 DVOA Report

After the first quarter of the season, the Seahawks sit near the top of the DVOA rankings despite their offense ranking in the bottom half of the NFL.

Whew. Breathe. It’s the bye week and Seattle is still in the top three in Football Outsiders DVOA and DAVE rankings. Even better, Seattle is 3-1 and is really starting to click on offense. Second half of 2015 Russell Wilson appears to be here to stay. Doug Baldwin is proving last year wasn’t a fluke. Christine Michael has awoken. Oh, and don’t forget Jimmy Graham…JIMMY FREAKIN’ GRAHAM!

Anyway, after week 4 there aren’t any new teams in the top ten, but there was a lot of shuffling. The Eagles and Seahawks are still sitting pretty at the top. The Steelers, Broncos, and Vikings jumped into the top five after big victories. On the other side, the Patriots, Cardinals, and Chiefs all tumbled and have a fairly significant disparity between their “DAVE” ranking and DVOA ranking, indicating they are the furthest off from preseason expectations. Of those teams, the Patriots are in the best shape with Tom Brady coming back.

Week 4 Recap

I almost nailed my final score projection again, if not for that fluky fumble scoop touchdown. As I mentioned earlier, the offense has steadily improved the past two weeks and looks very good. Just think how scary the offense will be when Wilson is a legitimate threat to run again and Tyler Lockett is fully healthy.

After four weeks, the passing offense still looks far better than the rush offense but I’m optimistic that the run game will catch up as the season progresses. This first quarter of the season has seen Seattle face two teams with top five rush defenses while working through their annual early season offensive line issues. The injuries to Russell Wilson are also likely holding back the run game. Hopefully he’s back to full strength after the bye.

Defensively, the team continues to limit opponents to less than 20 points per game, although I’m not sure how much that means considering the opponents so far. My biggest takeaway from last Sunday is that Brandon Marshall is still a beast. I know Sherm came out of the game with a couple of interceptions, but those looked more like Ryan Fitzpatrick buffoonery than Marshall getting worked by Sherm. If the Jets had a better quarterback, Sherman’s stat line may have looked considerably worse.

Sherman will probably shadow Julio Jones next week, but I think that matchup is better for Sherman than this past game. Brandon Marshall is a rare combination of size, strength, and technical precision. Julio is a fantastic wide receiver, but he beats people more with superior athletic traits then technical skill. Sherman can generally account for that.

Despite a little success from Brandon Marshall, the Seahawks defense remains among the best in the league. The only thing preventing Seattle from top 2 ranking in every defensive category is the garbage time performance from Carlos Hyde in the San Francisco game.

Special teams are again a strength this season as Seattle ranks sixth in DVOA and fourth in special teams DAVE. And that’s without Tyler Lockett contributing to the return game the past two and a half weeks.

Week 5 Outlook

Get healthy. I’ll save my prediction for the Falcons game until next week’s article.