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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Fantasy Football Week 3 NFL Pace & Efficiency Preview (2023)
Teams Projected for High Week 3 Snap Counts
Minnesota and Los Angeles Chargers
I suspect MIN/LAC stacks will be among the most owned in DFS this week, and for good reason. Both teams have good pace and efficiency, and both teams have poor defenses. Los Angeles is probably the favorite to run more plays since they’re the underdog, but I could easily see Minnesota running a similar- if not higher- amount of plays. This game profiles as a shootout with both teams running a high number of plays.
Houston
I was close to highlighting them last week but couldn’t bring myself to do so. Usually, this section is dedicated to good teams and good offenses because those are the teams that tend to have better pace and efficiency. However, Houston has been an outlier. They rank 3rd in plays/60 minutes and 7th in neutral seconds/snap. They’re often behind, and they’re running so many plays that even a 10.7 CER is not entirely concerning. Just last week, they had three wide receivers with 13 or more DraftKings points and two with 20 or more DraftKings points. I’m optimistic that this will continue as they play Jacksonville, who plays a fair pace but has been somewhat inefficient thus far. I expect Houston to, once again, be playing from behind and running a ton of plays.
Teams Projected for Low Week 3 Snap Counts
New York Jets
It’s rinse and repeat for the New York Jets. I listed them here last week, and they proceeded to run just 46 plays in a blowout loss to the Cowboys. It seems unbelievable that this can occur, but we’re seeing the true floor of a Jets offense with Zach Wilson at the helm. You’ll notice that my matchup score somewhat likes them, but this is why you can’t take numbers at face value. The Jets have run an absurd pace, the fastest in the league by more than 3 seconds, but it just doesn’t matter because they cannot move the ball. The Patriots are a fast team who have run a ton of plays, albeit they’ve trailed a ton. I have no faith in the Jets to produce enough volume to make any of their players fantasy relevant on a weekly basis.
Arizona
My matchup score has them with one of the worst outlooks, and I tend to agree. They’re slow, inefficient, and have a middling defense. On the other hand, Dallas has excellent defense, good efficiency, and decent pace. There’s a case that Arizona could end up playing catchup and get some garbage time plays late, but I think Dallas’ defense is so good that this won’t happen. A blowout is incoming. Avoid Cardinal players this week.
Tennessee
Tennesse hasn’t produced many fantasy studs thus far, and there’s a reason: they’re exceptionally slow. They rank 32nd in neutral situation seconds/snap by a wide margin and have averaged just 58.6 plays/60 minutes. Their CER of 30.7 is also on the lower side. They have a playing style that has produced a lot of wins in previous seasons, but it’s a style that’s simply not conducive to scoring fantasy points. I’ll be avoiding Titans players this week in DFS.
Notes and Trends
- I still want to point out that two games is a small sample size. While we've already learned a ton, there's too much variance to take every statistic for what it is. Context is our best tool, especially early in the season. The Bengals have a good offense. It's quite unlikely they end the season with a CER at or around 7.7. We need to be patient.
- I changed the seconds/per snap to reflect neutral situation play. This gives us a better idea of what a team will do on average, ignoring massive game script outliers.
*Data from the table comes from Pro Football Reference, FTNfantasy Pace Tool, FTNfantasy DVOA, rbsdm, TeamRankings Minutes Played and TeamRankings Yards Per Play
**Composite Efficiency Score is a statistic I created using regression analysis of the efficiency metrics on the table.
*** Matchup score is a weighted metric that accounts for a team's pace, efficiency, and defense, as well as their opponent's, to show which matchup is most conducive for running a high number of plays
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