Atlanta Falcons: Expect to have more spare time Sunday evening

What is the best recipe for a short football game? Two teams who run the ball on the majority of plays which is exactly the formula for the two teams playing in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday — the Atlanta Falcons and Chicago Bears.

For those who dedicate a portion of their week to watching the Atlanta Falcons (or even the Chicago Bears if you happen to be on the wrong website) then you should have a bit more free time following the week 11 game.

This Atlanta Falcons and Chicago Bears game should end fairly quickly

The Atlanta Falcons are a running team and the Chicago Bears are a running team. After each run that is downed in the field of play, the clock will continue to tick. And while we are at it we will get technical, with every run that goes out of bounds (provided it isn’t the final two minutes of the first half or the final five minutes of the game) the clock starts when the ball is spotted.

So, what that means is that when you get two teams who run the ball on a higher percentage of snaps than any other NFL team on the same field, you are going to have a short game.

The Chicago Bears run the ball on 59.6% of their plays which is the most in the NFL, while the Atlanta Falcons run the ball on 56.07% of their plays, the second most in the NFL.

It is going to be a fast-moving game that will likely have substantial bonus coverage of another game on Fox following its conclusion.

Obviously, nothing is certain and for all we know both of these teams are going to throw the ball 50 times, but you can make plans a little earlier following the Falcons game than you usually could and be pretty safe.

The only thing that dispels that narrative is the fact that we also have two quarterbacks who are not the most accurate passers in the league, so if they do decide, for some stupid reason, to throw the ball routinely, the clock might be paused a lot.