Fantasy Football Week 13 NFL Pace & Efficiency Preview (2023)

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.

• Waiver Wire Picks
• Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
• Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
• Fantasy Football Trade Tools

Fantasy Football Week 13 NFL Pace & Efficiency Preview (2023)

Teams Projected for High Week 13 Snap Counts

Atlanta Falcons

It’s always uncomfortable for me to highlight the Falcons as a team that could run a high number of plays, given they ran one of the lowest play totals in the NFL last year. However, in 2023, they’ve rocketed up to 65.9 plays/60 minutes to go along with a solid pace of 26.4 seconds/snap in neutral situations. They have arguably the easiest matchups of the week against a Jets team that has somehow gotten worse now with Tim Boyle at QB. Atlanta should run away with the game and the play count.

Dallas Cowboys

Dallas’s offense has been humming recently, and their CER now sits at 87.8, the fourth-highest of any team in the NFL. Their defense has also been shutting down opponents and ranks as the third-best defense in DVOA, trailing only Baltimore and Cleveland. Their opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, doesn’t impress in pace, efficiency or defensive prowess, so I see this being another high-scoring game where Dallas runs a ton of plays.

Cleveland Browns

It’s hard to say with any confidence how valuable the opportunities that the Browns’ skill players will get are, but we can project those players for a ton of them. Cleveland is keeping up their absurd play count average, with an astonishing 71.9 plays/60 minutes. For context, through the first 12 weeks of the 2022 NFL season, the highest total was only 68. Combine this with their elite defense, and you get an offense that will dominate the time of possession and plays run every week, regardless of their opponent.

Teams Projected for Low Week 13 Snap Counts

Cincinnati Bengals

I think it’s likely the Bengals end up in this section for the rest of the season. They predictably struggled in the absence of Joe Burrow, running an impossibly low 41 plays and scoring just 10 points. It won’t get any easier this week as they play a Jacksonville team that is getting hot. Avoid all Bengals in fantasy this week, if possible.

Tennessee Titans

Rinse and repeat for Tennessee. They again sputtered on offense, running just 53 plays in a victory over the Carolina Panthers. If the Titans can’t manage to run even 60 plays against the worst team in the NFL, will they ever?

Denver Broncos

Even in an offensive “ceiling game,” the Broncos ran just 62 plays, a tad above their season-long average of 58 plays/60 minutes. They feel capped at this number. Their weekly downside is running plays in the low 50’s, though. Something will have to change this week if they want to keep up with Houston’s high-octane offense led by rookie phenom C.J. Stroud.

Notes and Trends

• The biggest riser in CER this week is the Los Angeles Rams. I've given up trying to decipher this team. Depending on the week, they're either a playoff contender or a tire fire. On a positive note, it was good to see Kyren Williams balling out in his first game off of IR.
• The biggest faller in CER this week is the Los Angeles Chargers. It just feels like something has gotta give. Most likely, the first domino is the firing of Brandon Staley. This team should be doing so much better, regardless of injuries.

*Data from the table comes from Pro Football Reference, FTNfantasy Pace Tool, FTNfantasy DVOA, rbsdm, TeamRankings Minutes Played and TeamRankings Yards Per Play

**Composite Efficiency Score is a statistic I created using regression analysis of the efficiency metrics on the table.

*** Matchup score is a weighted metric that accounts for a team's pace, efficiency, and defense, as well as their opponent's, to show which matchup is most conducive for running a high number of plays