After letting a win slip away last week, the 2008 Rams continued their ignominious descent into history.
The Rams, the current incarnation, are making the case for the worst team ever, according to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric. Last week, we commented on their race with Detroit to catch the 2005 49ers as the team with the worst DVOA.
Detroit turned in a solid effort against the Colts last week, which left the Rams alone at the bottom, or top, depending on how you look at it. The Rams now have an overall DVOA of -49.0%; the winless Lions' DVOA sits at -44.0%. Now, if you squint hard enough, you can see that the Rams DVOA took a slight uptick, up from -50.2%, based on some better play in last week's game. Check this out:
In retrospect, the Rams' 34-14 win over Dallas in Week 7 is just incredible, Brad Johnson or no Brad Johnson. The Rams' DVOA in that game is 64%. Their 19-17 win over Washington was a bit lucky, and the Dallas win is the only time all year St. Louis has put up a DVOA over -10%.
To clarify, in every game this season, except for the Dallas game, the Rams play has been, down for down, more than ten percent below average, and that's a figure adjusted for quality of opponents.The Rams stand alone among bad teams this season.
The gap between Oakland (30th) and St. Louis (32nd) is equivalent to the gap between, for example, Pittsburgh (5th) and the Jets (17th). Detroit may be the team that finishes 0-16, but according to DVOA, the Rams are worse -- now the second-worst team in DVOA history.