Thorman’s Snaps and Pace: Week 8

Up In Pace | Slow-Paced Slogs | No-Huddle Notes

Welcome to the Week 8 edition of Snaps & Pace — back-to-back winner of the FSWA’s Best Football Series — where we examine trends in play volume and game pace. It is meant to be a 30,000-foot view of upcoming contests, while identifying main-slate matchups that will — and will not — be played on fertile fantasy soil. For a primer on why this is important, click here.

Welcome to the halfway point of the fantasy regular season — or, as one intrepid NFL analyst now calls it, the 50% mark.

Around this point, we typically witness breathless assertions about this being the worst injury season ever, or the worst officiated season ever, or Kyler Murray is the worst quarterback ever.

Contrary to what a gaggle of Minnesota meatheads in your mentions might say, none of these are true and are primarily driven by recency bias — which is, of course, the best bias ever.

What is true about this season is it’s the worst no-huddle year in at least a decade. Since 2016, we’ve never sniffed a hurry-up rate as meager as the current 6.5% clip. Over the previous 10 years, it was 9.7% — and 10.1% over the previous five seasons.

The plunge can’t entirely be chalked up to Kliff Kingsbury not having his turbo-tempoed tentacles on an offense, as even without his Commanders factored into last year’s league-wide rate, it was still 8.2%. The Titans, this year’s top no-huddle offense, are at 16.1% of snaps. They wouldn’t crack the top four last year (Eagles; 19%). Offenses simply aren’t as into the no-huddle as they used to be, at least for now.

Yet even as we remember the fast times and stare longingly at our Chip Kelly photo, we must dive in.

“Situation neutral” is meant to provide context and refers to plays while the game is within seven points during the first three quarters (minus the final two minutes of the first half). Neutral Pace (average play-clock seconds used), Neutral Pace Over Expected (POE), and Pass Rate Over Expected (PROE) are based on neutral game script and are provided by our data science team.

Up In Pace

Arizona Cardinals at Dallas Cowboys

The Cardinals are about as bad as last year, but they’ve been somewhat less fun. There’s less to sift through in Arizona’s frantic late-game garbage, and it mainly comes down to pass volume. After finishing first in neutral pass rate last year (63%), Arizona ranks 14th (58%). The PROE is down from +4% (third) to only +1% (10th). The good news is that Cardinals contests average nearly the same number of plays as when they led the league a year ago (126.4) and an identical 50 total points (eighth). Cardinals games are no longer a three-ring circus, but they still offer some wild fantasy scripts. Arizona is actually playing faster than a year ago, ranking just outside the top 12 in play-clock seconds and pace over expected during neutral situations. The pregnable defense is again doing its part and might be even worse than last season. It’s allowed the most points and second-most yards per play, as well as the eighth-highest opponent explosive play rate (11.6%).

With the Cowboys’ defense giving up chunk gains on 11.3% of snaps, this indoor matchup should get pretty loose. Dallas dispenses the fourth-most yards and third-most EPA per play. Coming off dates with the Rams and Broncos — both top six in EPA per play surrendered — a trip to Texas will feel like a warm breeze for Jacoby Brissett. The Cowboys’ offense, ranked second in neutral pass rate heading into Week 7 (65%), bludgeoned the Eagles’ front seven for over 200 rushing yards (5.4 per carry). The 53% neutral pass rate was easily their lowest of the season, and we should not anticipate as much chucking from Dak Prescott after Dallas’ 38-21 win in Philadelphia. Still, the Cowboys rank seventh in neutral pace over expected, first in neutral play-clock seconds, and their contests are top 10 in both combined snaps and total points. Even against a supposedly strong defense on Monday night, the game produced an above-average 127 plays and plenty of scoring. Expect the same this Sunday.