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Aaron Schatz, ESPN Writer
Early in the NFL season, there are lots of mentions of players on pace to put up huge numbers. “Ja’Marr Chase is on pace for 1,600 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns,” that sort of thing. But most of the time, no one has any idea of which teams and players were on pace for similar things in the past.
Over time, performance usually regresses toward the mean. Teams and players that started super hot will slow down. Teams and players that were terrible early will get better. It’s not useful to compare a performance after five games to what other teams have done in full 16- and 17-game seasons. It’s better to compare that performance to what other teams have done in the same number of games.
I do that with DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) stats, explained further here. I went back and re-ran every season since 1979 to see what DVOA would have looked like as of a certain week in the past. Teams are rated solely based on what they did through five games, and opponent adjustments are based only on opponents through five games.
I’ve picked out seven early trends from the 2024 season below, taking a look at the Ravens, Saints and Bengals (three historically good teams given their unimpressive win-loss records), the Vikings’ great defense, the Browns’ terrible offense and the strong starts for rookies Jayden Daniels and Brock Bowers.
Let’s go through to see where those teams and players compare to history and then look at what happened in the past to get an idea of what might happen over the final three months of the season.
Jump to a section:
Minnesota’s stellar defense
Cleveland’s porous offense
Where Jayden Daniels’ start ranks
How Baltimore’s 3-2 start stacks up
Will 2-3 New Orleans bounce back?
Does 1-4 Cincy have a postseason shot?
This tight end might be underrated
