Does it really work? – Football Outsiders

Yes! The goal of DVOA is to balance two things:

The correlation of the opponent-adjusted statistics from year-to-year, representing the intrinsic quality of a team regardless of luck and random chance, and
The correlation of the non-opponent-adjusted statistics to wins.

DVOA -- at least, the team version -- does these things better than any other statistic available. Here are some correlation coefficients to demonstrate:

Correlation of various stats to wins in same year, 2000-2014
Stat	Offense	Defense	Total (Off - Def)
Points scored/allowed	.74	-.68	.92
VOA (not adjusted for opponent)	.72	-.55	.86
DVOA	.70	-.50	.84
Yards gained/allowed	.54	-.40	.68
Yards gained/allowed per play	.54	-.35	.72

Correlation of various stats from year to year, 2000-2014
Stat	Correlation with wins Y+1	Correlation with same stat Y+1
DVOA	.38	.52
VOA (not adjusted for opponent)	.35	.44
Points scored - points allowed	.34	.39
Wins	.30	.30
Yards gained - yards allowed	.29	.47

(For those unfamiliar with statistical terms, correlation coefficients are explained here.)

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