Pace of Play: Matchups & Stacks for Week 2 (Fantasy Football)
We have just one week’s worth data so we need to tread cautiously before making up our minds about who these NFL teams truly are.
Every Monday I write a Just the Stats article to give you a blitz of usage stats, scheme changes, and oddities from the previous week of the NFL. The goal is to give you a rapid fire unfiltered look at how we digest a Sunday’s-worth of action and try to start deciphering what is valuable and what is not. That is a great starting place if you need a refresher on last week’s action before diving into this pace download.
The term “pace of play” is an all-encompassing way of highlighting the game flow, specific intra-game matchups, and considerable outcomes for how an NFL game might play out. We have one-game to consider but a myriad of possibilities of what could occur. 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 for the DFS main slate (Sunday early and afternoon games) factoring in their pace metrics and stacks to consider for DFS 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 2, I’ve sorted by all 32 team implied totals while focusing on neutral pace, pass rate over expectation (PROE), and EPA ranks and factor that for a final “GPS score”. For EPA, we will look at rank per-drop back and per-rush attempt for both offense and defense.
For those that would like a CSV version of the above chart, you can download Pace of Play- Week 2.
Washington Commanders @ Dallas Cowboys
Two NFC East teams both sitting at 0-1 with defenses that historically have given up gobbles of yards. The Cowboys were ousted on Sunday night by the Giants thanks in large part to the efficient play of Jaxson Dart. How bad was it? The Cowboys’ defense allowed a 59% success rate in their Week 1 matchup with the Giants, the 2nd-highest rate allowed by a Cowboys defense in a game since at least 2018. Yep, even worse than last year on a per-play basis. This game environment is boosted due to the 50+ total but more importantly, the Cowboys ability to allow other teams to play at high-level. The over hit in each of the last 7 Cowboys games and they’ve failed to cover in each of their last 6 games. Perhaps this is the matchup Jerry’s Boys get things right?
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