Welcome to FantasyPros’ weekly pace and efficiency report. Each week of the season we’ll survey trends in snap count totals while examining pace and efficiency data. Opportunity is king in fantasy football, and teams that run more plays have more opportunities to score fantasy points. Snap counts are the product of pace and efficiency, so examining each factor provides insight into future game environments, changes in coaching philosophy, and offensive growth or decline throughout the season.

Teams projected for high Week 5 snap counts

Buffalo Bills

After starting the season sluggish in plays/60 minutes, the Bills have really picked up the pace. They now rank top 10 in both plays/60 minutes and seconds/snap while holding an impressive 90.0 CER. They play the Steelers this week, who will be starting Kenny Pickett for the first time. The Bills’ second-ranked defense in defensive EPA/play will likely torment Pickett all game long, making an already slow team play even slower.

New York Jets

The Jets have been ranked either first or second in plays/60 minutes after every week this season, a trend that will continue going into Week 5. I neglected to include them in this section last week out of fear second-year QB Zach Wilson would torpedo this offense’s pace, but that did not happen on Sunday. The Jets still ran 67 plays, a number that was top three last year on a per-game basis. There isn’t much of an obstacle to running a fast pace this week because their opponent, the Dolphins, ranks 27th in defensive EPA/play and has run just 56.8 plays/60 minutes.

Los Angeles Chargers

The Chargers will look to build on their strong offensive performance against the Texans when they travel to Cleveland and face the Browns’ 27th-ranked defense in EPA/play. Both of these teams have good pace and efficiency, but I’m giving the edge in plays run to the Chargers because of Cleveland’s poor defense. Jacoby Brissett‘s magic has to run out soon, too, right?

Teams projected for low Week 5 snap counts

Panthers

The Panthers have somehow managed to average just 53.5 plays/60 minutes, despite ranking third in seconds/snap. They also have a 4.7 CER this season, which is unexplainable for an offense with Christian McCaffrey and DJ Moore. In addition to all of this, they will battle against the 49ers, the owner of the best defense in EPA/play in the NFL. This game is set up to give us a historically low snap count from the Panthers.

Cardinals

Like Carolina, the Cardinals are a team with a lot of offensive firepower on paper, but they can’t seem to turn that into good pace or efficiency. Although Arizona is averaging 71.2 plays/60 minutes, they are bottom 10 in seconds/snap. Only one team in the top 10 in plays/60 minutes in 2021 ran a pace as slow as the Cardinals, meaning that this discrepancy between pace and plays run probably won’t continue. They also will have a tough matchup, seeing as they play the Eagles, a team that is efficient, plays fast and has a great defense. All of this points towards a conclusion that the Cardinals will see their plays run plummet this week.

Falcons

After coming out of the gate hot on offense, Atlanta has seen their plays/60 minutes decrease after every week this year. They are now down to just 59 plays/60 minutes to go along with essentially a league-average pace. Their efficiency is still quite high, but it has oscillated a good bit week-over-week. Unfortunately, all of these numbers will probably continue to trend downward since they will square off against Tampa Bay’s fifth-ranked defense in EPA/play.

Noteworthy Trends

• It would be completely arbitrary to say "Now we can start taking these numbers more seriously," but given how the standard deviations of these metrics on the table (besides plays) are almost identical to the standard deviations of these metrics at the end of the 2021 season, that statement might hold water. We're a month into the season now, and while teams will naturally improve or get worse throughout the next few months, we should have a good feel for who is good and who isn't. The same can be said for which teams will run more plays, which teams are more efficient, etc.

• At this point, it's hard to ignore the team that ranks second in CER. Somehow, a Russell Wilson-less Seahawks team has one of the best offenses in the league. Their defense is atrocious, which puts them into game scripts where they need to score, but by that logic, we would expect them to be running lots of play and/or a fast pace, but neither of these is true. Maybe Seattle has had an easy schedule, or maybe Geno Smith has just been hitting the nuts and is due for regression, but we can't ignore the truth: Seattle is good on offense (for now).

• Washington is really, really bad on offense. Maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise. Nobody thought Carson Wentz was going to be their savior. Likewise, no one is claiming Ron Rivera to be an offensive genius. Either way, the Commanders have delivered some solid fantasy performances over the first month of football. This is mostly due to the absurd amount of plays run, a trend I don't see continuing due to their crappy offense and pace. Sell high on Washington fantasy assets while you can.

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