Thorman’s Snaps and Pace: Week 12

Welcome to the Week 12 edition of Snaps & Pace, where we examine trends in play volume and game pace. It is meant to be a 30,000-foot view of upcoming contests, with the goal of identifying which matchups will — and which will not — be played on fertile fantasy soil. For a primer on why this is important, click here.

This is an odd week. Like the “bye apocalypse” of Week 7, there are only 10 games on the main slate. It is particularly unique from a pace projection angle. Thanksgiving has claimed the fastest and third-fastest offenses. Bye weeks rob us of the second- and seventh-fastest offenses. Three more teams ranking in the top nine for situation-neutral pace are facing the slowest, the second-slowest, and the fourth-slowest offenses.

Typically, the leading team drives the script and dictates their preferred pace — but if predicting winners were simple, sportsbooks wouldn’t exist. It is okay to decide this is not a week where we have a confident grasp on main-slate game environments.

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” and from player correlations and leverage, to ETR’s elite projections, to Team #PlayTheBestPlays, we are fortunate that a blunter-than-usual pace tool is not the only one on our belts. There’s still plenty to examine, and we’ll hit on the Thanksgiving slate in the notes section — so let’s dive in.

As always, “situation neutral” is meant to provide context, refers to plays while the game is within seven points during the first three quarters (minus the final two minutes of the first half), and is derived via the intrepid RotoViz Pace Tool.

Up In Pace

Los Angeles Chargers at Denver Broncos