NFL

Adjusted NFL Pace and Pass Rate Report: Ranking Week 14's Fastest Games

Which teams are fastest and slowest after adjusting for context, who throws the most frequently when the game is still winnable, and what does it mean for the upcoming week of games?

Pace and pass rate can tell us a lot about offensive tendencies for NFL teams, but you'll often find some flawed ways of analyzing such data.

Teams that are trailing will -- naturally -- be inclined both to play faster and throw more often than they may initially want to do.

Conversely, perhaps quick, pass-heavy teams are getting out to big leads and are then slowing things down in the fourth quarter and grinding clock.

These will affect raw outputs for team data, so I wanted to account for that.

That's why I'm presenting both pace (seconds per play) and pass rate while looking only at plays on which a team's pre-snap win probability (as designated by nflfastR's live win models) was between 20% and 80%.

Here are the results through Week 13.

Passes and Rushes
When Win
Probability is 20-80%
Seconds/
Play
Rank Pass
Rate
Rank
DAL 27.2 1 61.0% 9
LAC 28.2 2 64.1% 4
NE 28.3 3 53.2% 26
ARI 28.6 4 59.4% 15
ATL 28.6 5 60.9% 10
HOU 28.7 6 54.6% 23
SEA 28.7 7 57.0% 19
CHI 28.7 8 50.5% 31
MIN 28.7 9 59.1% 16
TB 28.8 10 68.4% 1
BUF 29.1 11 64.8% 3
KC 29.1 12 61.7% 7
WAS 29.2 13 55.1% 22
NO 29.2 14 55.4% 21
LV 29.3 15 63.8% 6
JAX 29.5 16 55.7% 20
PHI 29.5 17 51.1% 29
NYG 29.5 18 59.7% 14
LA 29.6 19 63.9% 5
MIA 29.9 20 65.5% 2
TEN 29.9 21 52.7% 27
DET 30.5 22 50.4% 32
CIN 30.7 23 60.6% 11
SF 30.7 24 51.1% 30
CAR 30.8 25 53.6% 25
NYJ 30.9 26 60.3% 12
DEN 31.1 27 58.9% 17
PIT 31.2 28 61.0% 8
BAL 31.2 29 52.2% 28
CLE 31.5 30 54.4% 24
IND 32.5 31 57.7% 18
GB 32.8 32 60.2% 13
NFL Average 29.8 58.1%

Week 14 Preview

Here's a look at next week's games in terms of average pace and pass rate. The table is initially sorted by average offensive pace, so the higher the game, the faster it should be -- and the more plays we should anticipate.

Game Avg.
Pace
Rank Avg.
Pass%
Rank Away
Pace
Home
Pace
Away
Pass%
Home
Pass%
DAL@WAS 28.2 1 58.0% 6 29.2 27.2 55.1% 61.0%
SEA@HOU 28.7 2 55.8% 10 28.7 28.7 54.6% 57.0%
NYG@LAC 28.9 3 61.9% 3 28.2 29.5 64.1% 59.7%
BUF@TB 29.0 4 66.6% 1 28.8 29.1 68.4% 64.8%
LA@ARI 29.1 5 61.7% 4 28.6 29.6 59.4% 63.9%
LV@KC 29.2 6 62.8% 2 29.1 29.3 61.7% 63.8%
ATL@CAR 29.7 7 57.2% 8 30.8 28.6 53.6% 60.9%
JAX@TEN 29.7 8 54.2% 13 29.9 29.5 52.7% 55.7%
PIT@MIN 29.9 9 60.1% 5 28.7 31.2 59.1% 61.0%
NO@NYJ 30.0 10 57.8% 7 30.9 29.2 60.3% 55.4%
SF@CIN 30.7 11 55.8% 9 30.7 30.7 60.6% 51.1%
CHI@GB 30.8 12 55.4% 11 32.8 28.7 60.2% 50.5%
DET@DEN 30.8 13 54.6% 12 31.1 30.5 58.9% 50.4%
BAL@CLE 31.3 14 53.3% 14 31.5 31.2 54.4% 52.2%