Pace of play gives the prospective DFS player an opportunity to consider not just Vegas totals but how the game will be played out in a given week. 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 factoring in their pace metrics, stacks to consider for tournaments, and five dart throws to shoot for the moon with.
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 9, I’ve sorted by all 32 team implied totals while focusing on seconds per play and pass rate over expectation (PROE), and Expected Points Added per play (EPA) ranks from the first eight weeks.
For those that would like a CSV version of the above chart, you can download the Week 9 Pace of Play CSV.
Let’s just get the big daddy out of the way. While this game received just a 3.5/5 in our GPS score, the attention from both the media and fantasy managers does often jump the shark. In DFS, we are concerned with pricing, game flow, and the opportunity cost of playing/not playing certain games. Both teams play very, very slow but that happens when you have a lead. Chiefs games have combined for just 42.5 points on average (25th in the NFL) while the Bills rank dead last in seconds per play and 27th in neutral pass rate.
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