NFL DFS Pace of Play & Stacks for Super WildCard Weekend (Fantasy Football)
As I detailed in the First Look article, Betz and I are approaching this Super Wild Card weekend with three different slates in mind:
- Saturday Only: 2 Games
- Sunday Only: 3 Games
- Monday Only: 1 Game
However, you can use this article as a puzzle piece in whatever slate you choose to play DFS with this weekend.
Pace of play gives the prospective DFS player an opportunity to consider not just Vegas totals but how the game will be played out in a given week. Game flow is a tricky rabbit hole to jump down when you consider the endless scenarios that can play out in a game. Stacking up-tempo offenses who can keep the ball moving is crucial to gaining an edge in DFS. Even slight differentiations of team trends matter in a world where volume is king.
I’ll highlight the playoff game environments factoring in their pace metrics, stacks to consider for tournaments, and five tournament takes to consider.
Game Pace Score
A reminder of a simple metric I introduced a couple of years ago: Game Pace Score(GPS). I liked the acronym to also give you a “compass” of how the game total and neutral pace statistics come together. These scores are ranked 1-5 with five indicating the pace of the play is everything you want for a DFS bonanza.
- 5– A back-and-forth shootout is looming. Both teams are pace-up and both sport team implied totals of 25+.
- 4– An up-tempo spot worth game stacking in DFS in multiple ways. Consider multiple game scripts in play.
- 3– This game could go either way. Often, these are onslaught spots for teams with healthy implied totals or games that hit the under because two middling offenses collide.
- 2– Strong indications of a game you want to stay away from. Usually, the pace is dragged down by one team with an absurdly slow neutral pace or a team with a team implied total so low it drags the entire game environment through the mud.
- 1– This has all the makings of a plodder. These games have totals UNDER 40 which gives you zero confidence in DFS.
For Super WildCard Weekend, I’ve sorted all 12 teams by their team-implied totals while focusing on pass rate over expectation (PROE) and factor that for a final GPS score.
Let’s dive into each of these six matchups from a Pace of Play perspective, some coverage takes and I’ll give which stacks I plan to implement this week.
Playoff defenses coverage stats/tendencies from the regular season. pic.twitter.com/b4qalagRrz
— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) January 8, 2024
Cleveland Browns @ Houston Texans
It might feel like we’ve seen this matchup before because… three weeks ago Joe Flacco put up the QB1 week in Houston and Amari Cooper destroyed souls in the fantasy semi-finals. Since Flacco took over, he’s averaging 40.8 pass attempts and the Browns are +11% pass rate over expectation on 1st downs. HC Kevin Stefanski is leaning on Flacco so it’s hard not envisioning Flacco + two CLE pass-catchers as the most popular stack on the Saturday slate with David Njoku being a TE/FLEX mainstay for the field. Expect the Cooper 200+ yard explosion narrative to carry over if you are playing the 2-game slate as Cooper’s per game averages with Daddy Flacco are insane. DeMeco Ryans’s secondary struggled mightily against outside WRs all year long and this CLE team has all but abandoned the run s the Texans morphed into a run-stopping unit. This game will carry much more roster percentage than the MIA/KC game so getting different here will come down to the RBs. Jerome Ford is seeing 3.8 targets per game with Flacco while Singletary is seeing all of the work as I detailed in the First Look article. While this is a home matchup for the Texans, Stroud’s big games this year came down to the opposing pass rush. The Browns rank 2nd in pass rate over expectation, 2nd in pressure rate, #1 in EPA per drop back and Stroud ranked 28th among all QBs in adjusted completion rate under pressure. If there is some worry, it is Stroud bottoming-out in his first playoff game against arguably the best defense on this Super WildCard weekend. The rookie magic we’ve seen from Stroud and the back-and-forth dome environment does dictate a massive amount of passing volume in this game. If you are playing the 6-game weekend slate, playing two chalky pieces from this game might not give you the leverage you want.
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