Adjusted NFL Pace and Pass Rate Report: Ranking Week 1's Fastest Games

• Advanced Offensive Metrics Provide Better Context: Pass rate over expectation (PROE) and adjusted pace help us better understand team tendencies because they account for game context rather than rely solely on raw play counts.
• Coaching Changes Could Shift Trends in 2025: Several teams, including the Cowboys, Saints, Seahawks, and Jets, have new offensive coordinators or head coaches whose past tendencies suggest potential shifts in pace and passing strategy heading into Week 1.
• Eyes on Detroit: We will likely learn a lot about the Lions' offensive tendencies after Detroit's coordinator change and a pace-down matchup in Week 1.

Pace and pass rate can tell us a lot about offensive tendencies for NFL teams.

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 when digging into team pace trends.

This season, I'll be posting pass rate over expectation numbers (as designated by nflfastR's live win models, which account for game situation) and adjusted pace numbers (my own methodology of anticipating expected pace based on numerous in-game factors).

Without any NFL data to dig into for 2025 just yet, we'll leverage 2024's findings ahead of Week 1.

NFL Pace and Pass Rate Over Expectation

This table shows pass and run plays per game, adjusted pace, pass rate plus pass rate over expectation, pass rate over expectation, and no-huddle rates that exclude two-minute drills.

Note: All data is from 2024 season for Week 1.

2025 Pace and Pass Rate Notes

Adjusted pace tends to stabilize pretty quickly, and we can learn a lot from Week 1 (the r^2 between Week 1 pace numbers and full-season pace numbers last year was 0.47 -- compared to 0.32 for PROE and just 0.05 for plays per game).

With that said, here are just a few of the more notable standout situations to monitor entering Week 1.

• Brian Schottenheimer takes over head coaching duties for the Dallas Cowboys, typically one of the fastest teams in the league in recent seasons with Schottenheimer as the offensive coordinator.
• Kellen Moore is at the helm for the New Orleans Saints after serving as the Philadelphia Eagles's OC in 2024, a team that operated with the 32nd-ranked pass rate over expectation -- albeit with top-five plays per game and non-two-minute-drill no-huddle rate.
• Will John Morton continue to push the pace like Ben Johnson did for the Detroit Lions? Morton spent the last two seasons as the passing game coordinator for the Denver Broncos.
• The Saints were fast under Klint Kubiak a year ago and is now the OC for the Seattle Seahawks.
• Tanner Engstrand takes over as the OC for the New York Jets after the team operated -- by far -- as the slowest adjusted offense in the NFL a year ago. Engstrand was the passing game coordinator for the Lions the last two seasons and was with Detroit since 2020.

NFL Week 1 Pace and Pass Rate Preview

Here's a look at this week's games in terms of average pace and pass rate (plus pass rate over expectation). 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.

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