Fantasy Football Week 7 NFL Pace & Efficiency Preview (2022)

Welcome to FantasyPros’ weekly pace and efficiency report. Each week of the season, we’ll survey trends in snap count totals while examining pace and efficiency data. Opportunity is king in fantasy football, and teams that run more plays have more opportunities to score fantasy points. Snap counts are the product of pace and efficiency, so examining each factor provides insight into future game environments, changes in coaching philosophy, and offensive growth or decline throughout the season.

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Teams projected for high Week 1 snap counts

Dallas Cowboys

The NFL media has sung the praises of Cooper Rush for the last month or so, but we spreadsheet nerds are not impressed. Sure, he’s won many games, but Rush has led the Cowboys’ offense to a measly 19.4 CER. Now, with Dak Prescott aiming to return, Dallas should receive a welcome upgrade at the QB position. The Cowboys still boast a top-5 defense to go along with a great offensive pace (fifth in seconds/snap), and Prescott will have an easy matchup against Detriot’s 32nd-ranked defense (and by a wide margin). This game has shootout potential (48.5 O/U) but could also be a Dallas blowout (Dallas is -7). Either way, you should feel great about playing your Cowboys in Week 7.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Buccaneers will continue to get better and more efficient as their offense gets more healthy, and playing the Panthers certainly won’t hurt that quest. Carolina is dead last in CER at 0.0, and they will face Tampa’s seventh-ranked defense. On the flip side, Brady and his offense have been running the 4th fastest pace in the NFL in seconds/snap. The Bucs have seen their CER increase three weeks in a row, and I expect this trend to continue as they face arguably the worst team in the NFL.

Los Angeles Chargers

This section of the article has pretty much turned into “Here is who is playing the Lions and Seahawks,” and I have no problem with that. Los Angeles will look to get right after a less-than-stellar showing against the Broncos on Monday Night Football. The Chargers have league-average efficiency, but they lead the league in seconds/snap, and Justin Herbert is their QB. Seattle still has one of the worst defenses in the NFL, ranking 30th in defensive EPA/play. This number would be worse, but their defense ran into the only thing more inept than them, Kliff Kingsbury. Arizona only put up 9 points, and the defense saw a slight boost in EPA/play allowed this past week. Don’t get it twisted, though. This is a great situation for LA. Play all your Chargers in Week 7.

Teams projected for low Week 1 snap counts

Atlanta Falcons

In the past weeks, I’ve been bullish on the Falcons, but I’m pumping the brakes on the chokers in Week 7. Their pace hasn’t been good as of late, as they’ve watched their seconds/snap tick away, going from slightly above league average to bottom 10. Their efficiency has been quite good, but Arthur Smith has abandoned the passing game, evidenced by Marcus Mariota throwing the ball just 39 times in the last two weeks. The Falcons also play the Bengals, who own a top-10 defense and an ascending offense. This is a bad spot for Atlanta. I’m fading them, and you should too.

Chicago Bears

I could include the Bears in this section every week, so I try to pick and choose the spots where it’s more relevant to talk about them. This week, they travel to New England to play the Patriots’ 6th-ranked defense on Monday Night Football. Chicago’s offense has shown some signs of life recently, but their pace has worsened, and they still are averaging 55.8 snaps/60 minutes, the second-fewest in the NFL. On the other hand, the Patriots may have found something with Bailey Zappe. The rookie signal-caller has been a factor in the Patriots’ improving CER, which is now top 10 in the NFL. The Bears are completely drawing dead to move the ball and run plays in this contest, and more so than usual.

New York Jets

I’ll talk about the Jets again this week without many obvious low snap count spots. I didn’t like them last week because of the “slow but efficient” Packers effect, but this week, it’s for an entirely different reason. Because Russell Wilson‘s decline and Nathaniel Hackett’s incompetence have ruled the Broncos’ narrative, we’ve lost the fact that their defense is really good. Their unit currently ranks second, below only the 49ers. The Jets’ offense is no match for this test. Their offense is around league average in pace and has a lowly 30.5 CER. The Jets should continue to see their snaps/60 minutes decline yet again this week.

*Data from the table comes from as follows: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/, https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/minutes-played?date=2022-01-10, https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/pace-stats/2021, https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/yards-per-play?date=2022-01-11, https://rbsdm.com/stats/stats/

**Composite Efficiency Score is a statistic I created using regression analysis of the efficiency metrics on the table.

Noteworthy Trends

• I decided not to include the Chiefs in this article's low snap count portion, but there's reason to believe they might underperform in that category this week. As I mentioned above, San Francisco has the best defense in the NFL in EPA/play allowed. Will this be enough to slow down Kansas City's juggernaut of an offense? I'm not entirely sure, but I do feel confident this won't be a Chiefs explosion weekend. I'll be fading Chiefs' skill position players in DFS this week.

• Sometimes, a noteworthy trend can be that of consistency. We love to track how teams have improved or gotten worse over a period of time, but I think it's equally, if not more important, to track who has been even-keeled. The three teams whose CER has changed the least over the last few weeks? The Ravens, the Eagles, and the Chiefs. These are 3 of the 5 best teams in the NFL. We love a good story, an underdog, and a comeback kid. But there's a reason these teams are good. They started out playing well, and they've continued to play well. I think that's more important than teams who have heated up or flamed out.

• It's hard for me to put into words just how bad the Panthers are. I wrote a brief note last week about how nothing will likely change just because they fired their head coach, and no, it didn't. I'll give you a look into how the sausage gets made to examine what exactly a 0.0 CER means. CER is a regression-weighted composite statistic of yards/play, EPA/play, and Success Rate. A score of 0.0 means that they are dead last in every one of those categories. Usually, even the worst teams can get out of the bottom 5 of any given metric. Not the Panthers. This team is awful and might even be worse with PJ Walker playing QB. I'm officially taking my L on DJ Moore and moving on.