Thorman’s Snaps and Pace: Week 14

Welcome to the Week 14 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.

We have four main-slate games that project to be high-scoring, and the rest appear quite the opposite. One of the high-scoring matchups stands a strong chance of hurting for play volume, while the others should be up in pace. We also get an interesting array of Week 14 primetime games, so let’s dive right 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

Buffalo Bills at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Bills will seesaw from an opponent who ran at a 98% situation-neutral rate, to one who attempts more passes than Rob Gronkowski at a Hooters. Fortunately the weather shapes up a bit better in Tampa Bay than last Monday night in Buffalo. The Bills entered their Week 13 snow globe with a 65% situation-neutral pass rate (third highest) and still threw at a 50% clip despite Hoth-like weather conditions. They will once again be chucking it against a Buccaneers defense facing the highest opponent pass rate (72%). Bills games are averaging 51.7 total points over the last month when Monday night’s fiasco is removed — which would rank fourth highest. Buffalo operates at the eighth-fastest situation-neutral pace and ranks eighth in scoring on a per-snap basis. While they’re allowing only the second-fewest points per snap, we’ve seen the few quality offenses they’ve faced have success.