NFL DFS Pace of Play & Stacks for Thanksgiving Slate (Fantasy Football)
Thanksgiving 2025 gives us a B-E-A-utiful 3-game slate. In fact, we’ve never been served 3 games sitting at 48+ points in the last decade of playing DFS.
In the past, we were willing to get different knowing that searching ceiling outcomes in a 3-game slate is very different than a menu of 10+ games. 2025 is completely bonkers when we look at the offenses on display.
Team totals for Thursday's 3-game slate
1. Ravens – 29.3
2. Chiefs – 28.0
3. Lions – 25.5
4. Cowboys – 24.5
5. Packers – 23.0
6. Bengals – 22.3— Matthew Betz (@TheFantasyPT) November 25, 2025
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.
Each week I’ll highlight my favorite game environments factoring in their pace metrics and stacks to consider for tournaments.
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 Week 13, I’ve sorted by all 32 team implied totals while focusing on seconds per play and pass rate over expectation (PROE), and Expected Points Added per play (EPA) ranks.
For those that would like a CSV version of the above chart, you can download the Week 13 Pace of Play CSV.
Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions
A tradition unlike any other… your uncle explaining to your weirdo cousin why the Lions are on the TV for yet another year. “You see, that’s the way it’s always been!”, he says as he goes back for thirds and falls asleep after half-time. Yes, DFS and the Lions go hand-in-hand together and it gives me another opportunity to bring up guys like Brock Wright as “dudes who could be the skeleton key” of this slate. These two teams played way back in Week 1 when the Packers laid a beat down in Lambeau winning 27-13. The final score wasn’t really that close as an Isaac TeSlaa TD with 55(!) seconds left at least made it look better than how the game played out. Despite having the ball for 35+ minutes, Detroit squandered their scoring opportunities and the running game never really got going. Detroit went 22-for-46 on the ground and they totaled their fewest total yards (246) of the season. However, while that game back in September provides some insight into what happened, a Ford Field environment paints a much different picture moving forward. Detroit ranks 2nd in points per game, 1st in average margin of victory, and their home games are averaging 52.4 combined points per game. It is an atmosphere for scoring considering Lions opponents have hit their implied team total in 8 of their 11 games.
Both teams play a bit slower than you’d like choosing to win with efficiency over sheer volume. The Packers rank 8th in neutral rush rate and 2nd in 2nd half rush rate (50%) preferring to milk the clock in games with a lead. The Lions offense has to be split into a before-and-after the play-calling changes:
Lions in 8 games with John Morton calling plays:
53.3% pass rate
51.3% neutral pass rate
-6% pass rate over expectedIn 3 games with Dan Campbell calling plays:
61.7% pass rate
63.7% neutral pass rate
+1% pass rate over expected— Jared Smola (@SmolaDS) November 24, 2025
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