Welcome to the Week 17 edition of Snaps, Pace & Stats, where we examine trends in snap totals and no-huddle usage. It is meant as a 30,000-foot view of upcoming games, with the goal of identifying which matchups will — and which will not — be played on fertile fantasy soil.
With many teams eliminated and a few having nothing to gain by winning, we want to concentrate on the contests in which we can best predict motivation. While not every game below involves teams fighting for their playoff lives, we have a strong enough sense of how they will approach the matchup to project its pace.
Up in pace
Rank | Week 16 Snaps | 2016 Snaps/Game | Opponent Wk 16 Snaps | 2016 Opp Snaps/Gm |
1 | Buffalo (90) | New Orleans (68.7) | Miami (90) | San Francisco (69.1) |
2 | N.Y. Giants (88) | Arizona (67.9) | Philadelphia (88) | Denver (68.4) |
3 | Seattle (78) | Baltimore (67.3) | Arizona (78) | Miami (68.3) |
4 | Kansas City (74) | Philadelphia (67.0) | Denver (74) | N.Y. Giants (67.2) |
5 | Minnesota (74) | Tampa Bay (66.9) | Green Bay (74) | Kansas City (66.6) |
Jacksonville Jaguars at Indianapolis Colts
The Jaguars average the 11th-most plays per game (65.4) and allow the 13th-most (64.2). They operate at the league’s fourth-quickest seconds-per-snap pace, mainly due to trailing at the third-highest rate (64.3 percent of plays) and because their running game stinks. Jacksonville throws on the fifth-highest percentage of plays and will face the 30th-graded Colts’ pass coverage unit, supported by a league-worst-graded pass rush. New coach Doug Marrone presided over one of Blake Bortles’ few good 2016 games — Bortles’ best according to Marrone — and unleashed Allen Robinson by moving him around the formation.
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