Week 2… am I overreacting or is this team actually this good? Or bad?
- The Dolphins? Are they a dumpster fire?
- The Colts? Is Daniel Jones fit for this offense?
- Is Justin Fields now the best passer in the history of the NFL?
- Is Aaron Rodgers a 4-TD game waiting to happen?
- Is Ja’Marr Chase suddenly bad at the game?
The adage we share often on the podcast is “things never quite are as good as they seem or as bad as you feel“.
In this article, I highlight the top DFS game environments factoring in their pace metrics, stacks to consider for tournaments, and routes for game flows. I try to dip into some matchup-based discussions and then run with certain narratives to give you a lean early in the week of how I could see a game play out. On Friday’s DFS & Betting Podcast, I talk through these games alongside Betz adding in DFS salaries and roster percentages.
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.
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 2, 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 rom Week 1. Keep in mind how small of a sample size we are dealing with. These don’t begin to normalize until 5-6 weeks into the season.
For those that would like a CSV version of the above chart, you can download the Week 2 Pace of Play CSV.
Jacksonville Jaguars @ Cincinnati Bengals
If you played Ja’Marr Chase (me!) or Trevor Lawrence (also me!) in cash in Week 1, you might be staring at these two teams with disappointment in your eyes. It is the kind of “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” look your father once gave you as a child. (Wow, are we going there in this Pace of Play article?) Nevertheless, with the highest total on the slate, we cannot ignore our wounds from the past but must instead deal with them here (yep, he went there) in Week 2. We know the potential of both offenses in the way we drafted them in Best Ball and in redraft leagues but we want back-and-forth fantasy bonanzas and neither team threw the ball like they cared at all about our DFS bankrolls!
Ok, now that we’ve addressed our pain from a week ago, what are the ingredients here for a slate-breaking DFS game stack? Joe Burrow traditionally gets off to a slow start (see last week’s Pace of Play article) but once Zac Taylor gets out of the way, we just let Burrow do his thing. He’s averaged 301 passing yards and 2.3 passing TDs at home since Ja’Marr Chase was drafted. With the other elite QBs flooding this slate, he might just be overlooked enough coming off a bad fantasy game that the Burrow double stack is alive and well. I honestly don’t have a preference between Chase or Higgins because both are still underpriced relative to their ceilings. The Jaguars had arguably the largest defensive scheme shift of any team in Week 1. Remember they were a heavy man coverage team last year gambling that their corners could hold up in press. (Narrator: but they did not.) New DC Anthony Campanile played a ton of Cover 3 versus Bryce Young last week which actually stifled Burrow last week.
How boring was that Bengals offense in Week 1? They recorded their lowest explosive play rate (2.0%) and 2nd-lowest offensive yards per play (2.9) in any game since 2020. It felt like they never quite could sustain drives but if we wanted to point our attention at someone, it should be Chase Brown. He was everything and I expect that to remain the same against the Jags this week. Include him in your Burrow stacks or as a bring back if you think the Burrow-led offense needs another week to pump the primer.
RBs with 35+ % of team's total rush att + targets in Week 1
52% Chase Brown
46% Christian McCaffrey
41% Tony Pollard
40% Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry
38% Breece Hall, Kyren Williams
37% D'Andre Swift, Ashton Jeanty
36% Chuba Hubbard
35% Jordan Mason— Kyle Borgognoni (@kyle_borg) September 9, 2025
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