Week 12 Colts Offensive Rankings and Analysis:

Each week during the season, I will be walking through the data from the previous Colts game and analyzing the numbers to form a sort of “what happened” narrative, as well as comparing the Colts against all other teams in the league. For a glossary of the stats listed, reference Season Stats. Thanks to Pro Football Reference, NFL.com, Football Outsiders, and the nflFastR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.

You all saw the game, the offense was bad.

They managed only 268 yards and 11 first downs, with a 55.0% Drive Success Rate (5th percentile). They entered the red zone twice and thanks to a dropped TD pass, came away with only 6 points.

Drives were killed by penalties and inefficient play across the board. After the 2nd field goal, they were unable to cross the 50 yard line until it was far too late.

TEAM TOTALS

(Use the right-left arrows to toggle between stats for the week and the season).

The 6 point effort results in the 2nd to worst ranking for both Points per Drive and DSR. Their 5.5 yards per play actually ranks 12th best, but the aforementioned penalties wiped away gains and left an average of 9.8 yards to the sticks on 3rd downs, the longest of any team. So, it’s no surprise that the offense had the 7th worst 3rd down conversion rate and the 3rd worst overall conversion rate.

On the year, the Colts drop to 20th in PPD and 26th in Drive Success Rate. DVOA ranks them at 22nd, so take yer pick.

PASS TOTALS

(Use the right-left arrows to toggle between stats for the week and the season).

As I wrote about in my QB analysis, Anthony Richardson ended with a below average EPA efficiency and Passing Success Rate (20th EPA/d, 24th PSR). Many people have pointed out that those numbers understate his level of play and while I don’t necessarily disagree, I never said those stats capture everything. I look at a suite of numbers to describe QB play and those are 2 big ones.

Two other important stats are completion % and CPOE, something he has struggled with most of the year and this game was no exception. Yes, there were dropped passes, throw-aways and completions called back on penalties. But even accounting for all of that, he simply had too many incompletions.

For this game, I saw a QB try to put a team on his back, but fail because he had no help. His play in this game was not as good as week 11, but better than all his other games this year.

On the season, the Colts passing ranks 18th in EPA/d and 29th in PSR. DVOA has them 21st.

RUSH TOTALS

(Use the right-left arrows to toggle between stats for the week and the season).

Even with AR’s designed runs included, the run game was anemic. They could muster only 3 first downs on 20 carries for a 5th worst 15% conversion rate. Some explosive carries boosted the yards per carry to a 4.7 (5th best), but that is no measure of how well a team is running on any given play.

On the week I give them a 4th worst adj Rush Success rate which drops their season total 3 spots to 22nd. DVOA wildly disagrees ranking the Colts run game 12th on the year. That’s probably due to defensive adjustments as well as a heavy weighting on the Colts ability to get explosive carrries (7th most).

CONCLUSION & LOOK AHEAD

This was an undisciplined effort that was a basically a drive suicide by flag. However, at the end of the day, the Lions defense was just too much for the Colts offense. Even if the Colts had played mistake-free, they just weren’t consistently moving the ball.

This game was definitely a step back away from the steady gains they had been making the previous weeks.

Next up, the Colts take on the 3-9 New England Patriots and their 20th ranked defense (PPD).

The Patriots are vey weak against the pass allowing the 4th most EPA per dropback and the 6th highest DSR to opposing QBs. They rank 24th in sack volume and 28th in opponent scrambles, so they don’t pressure the QB much at all. They give up the 8th most net yards per dropback and the 3rd highest completion rate.

They are much better against the run. The Pats give up the 11th lowest adj Rush Success rate and the 8th lowest conversion rate.

This could be a great chance for AR to shine, but may be a bit of a challenge for JT.