Thorman’s Snaps and Pace: Week 4

Welcome to the Week 4 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 main-slate matchups will — and which will not — be played on fertile fantasy soil. For a primer on why this is important, click here.

After the Week 2 sugar high brought on by wall-to-wall scoring, we suffered an inevitable crash. 90 fewer points were tallied despite the Dolphins hanging 70 on Sean Payton’s grill. Fortunately, Miami going nuclear at least allowed Mike McDaniel to be the one person with more Sunday screen time than Taylor Swift.

We don’t have many main-slate matchups featuring two up-tempo teams this week. Well, outside of the Patriots/Cowboys game — and we’re not going there. However, a few favored fast offenses stand a strong chance of speeding up ponderously-paced opponents — 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. The average play-clock seconds remaining are also based on neutral game script and are provided by our machine, Mike Leone.

Up In Pace

Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles Chargers

The Raiders have yet to hit 20 points in any game, have only beaten the broken Broncos, average an anemic 53.7 plays, their coach can’t count to eight, and the quarterback began the week in concussion protocol. Other than that, things are going swimmingly. Las Vegas scores about as often as someone in a Mark Davis wig, but at least they’re moving the ball. Currently 12th in yards per snap and fifth in explosive play rate, the Raiders have simply failed to close — ranking 29th in scoring. They’ve found far more success through the air — 12th in EPA per dropback — than on the ground (32nd) and have appropriately deployed the 11th-highest situation-neutral pass rate (61%). Las Vegas averaged the eighth-most play-clock seconds remaining at the snap when their Week 3 game was close, while the Raiders’ defense juices game environments by allowing the eighth-most points and ranking 29th by EPA on a per-play basis. Their scant snap volume isn’t ideal but is somewhat mitigated by an ultra-tight touch distribution — which would be supercharged by a spike in plays.

Coming off of games against stout defenses from Buffalo and Pittsburgh, the Raiders now get the Chargers. Los Angeles offers a fantasy-friendly cocktail of Swiss-cheese defense and high-flying offense. During neutral situations, they rank first in pass rate over two games without Austin Ekeler — whose Week 4 availability remains in serious doubt. Their up-tempo offense is eighth in average play-clock seconds remaining. Like the Raiders, the Chargers have been relatively explosive (11th in rate of 15+ yard plays). On a per-snap basis, they’ve put up the seventh-most points and third-most yards, while opponents rank fifth in scoring and second in yards. We can parrot tired narratives about the overall talent in Los Angeles, but the bottom line is the defense stinks. It’s 28th in EPA allowed, 31st in PFF grade, and is surrendering the second-highest explosive play rate (14.1%). The impotent Titans somehow scored 27 while pumping out 341 yards on them. Chargers contests produce the fifth-most combined snaps and fourth-most total points — and another dome game is on tap.

Minnesota Vikings at Carolina Panthers

As in the Raiders-Chargers matchup, we can project the favored team to push the pace in Carolina. The Vikings profile similarly to the Chargers, with a formidable offense and forgiving defense. Minnesota continues to operate quickly, ranking eighth in situation-neutral pace and third in no-huddle rate. Only two offenses top their 70% pass rate while games remain close, and Vikings contests average the second-most combined snaps as a result (134.3). Their offense ranks third in both PFF grade and explosive play rate (12.8%), and second in yards per snap. The defense, on the other hand, ranks 24th in yards per snap surrendered, and 26th in both EPA per play and points per game allowed. It doesn’t take Shanahanian intellect to realize why Vikings games yield the sixth-most total points (50.3).

With Bryce Young nursing an ankle injury, Andy Dalton stepped in and sped up the offense in Seattle. They weren’t blazing, but the tortoisian tempo we suffered through during the first two weeks vanished. Their average play-clock seconds during neutral situations leaped to 10.3 after spending the first two weeks at 8.0 and 7.7 seconds. The Panthers pumped out 75 snaps and turned in the third-fastest situation-neutral pace of Week 3 — along with its most voluminous non-overtime game (146 combined snaps). It helped to have a veteran battle the unrelenting Seattle din, as Carolina cranked the pass rate from 56% under Young (23rd) up to 74% — third highest of the week. The Panthers jumped from a pathetic 3.8 yards per play through two weeks (31st) to a more respectable 4.8 average. The defense, a middling 16th in EPA through two weeks, has wilted under the weight of devastating injuries. Carolina is down top corner Jaycee Horn, starting linebackers and team captains Shaq Thompson and Frankie Luvu — and they also lost starting safety Xavier Woods and corner C.J. Henderson. If, as expected, Young sits out a second week — we could be in for another Red Rifle shootout.

Los Angeles Rams at Indianapolis Colts