Week 8 Colts Offensive Rankings and Analysis: More bust than boom.

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.

A lot of people will look at 20 points and think that is an OK offense. As always, though, it matters how it was achieved.

The Colts had difficulty moving the ball most of the day. They had 5 three-and-outs, 4 of them consecutively, which wasted an entire quarter. 3 of their drives accumulated negative yardage, while 6 others earned less than 30 yards. Their 17 first downs took 12 drives to accumulate for a 63% Drive Success Rate, which is 4th worst on the week and a 20th percentile rank for the NFL season.

Thankfully, though, explosive plays kept the offense competitive eating up large chunks of field without needing a lot of conversions. This has been the story all year; a lot of bad plays sprinkled with some spectacular ones. You tell me, is that a good offense? Never mind, I already know.

TEAM TOTALS

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

The Colts’ 1.67 Points per Drive places them 25th on the week, slightly better than their DSR (29th). The 4.8 yards per play was 5th lowest and their conversion rate was 8th worst, including going 2 for 13 on 3rd downs. Add in 2 turnovers and you have a pretty pathetic showing that somehow found themselves in a spot to potentially tie it up or even win on the final drive.

On the season, the Colts offense drops 2 spots to 17th in PPD and 21st in DSR. They are officially below average.

PASS TOTALS

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

The passing game was absolute garbage. Anthony Richardson’s 31.3% completion rate pretty much tells the story. If you can’t complete passes (32nd cmp%), then you can’t get yards (31st ypa). And if you can’t get yards, you can’t get first downs (30th 1st%). And if you can’t get first downs, it’s tough to score a lot of points.

On the year, the Colts passing drops 4 spots to 17th in EPA per dropback and 30th in Passing Success Rate, which means Colts’ passing is also officially below average.

RUSH TOTALS

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

The run game, however, performed above average. The Colts turned 40% of their runs into first downs off of the 8th best yards per carry and 8th best EPA per carry. Unfortunately, they were 0 for 2 on 3rd downs, which depresses their overall adj Rush Success Rate to only 14th.

On the year, I have them as the 13th best rushing team.

CONCLUSION & LOOK AHEAD

The Colt offense has been threatening to be average for a while and it took them 8 weeks to reach that goal. I don’t know how long Anthony Richardson will be sitting on the bench, but as long as he does, I expect the passing game to improve and the run game to fall off a bit. In other words, the point production probably stays the same.

Week 9 has Colts at Minnesota. The Vikings have held their opponents to the 5th lowest points per drive on the season and their defensive DSR ranks 10th. So, yeah.

They have the 4th best passing defense and are 1 of only 8 teams to hold their opponent passing to negative EPA on the season. They have the 6th best defensive passing success rate, which means they are consistently good at preventing opponents from getting passing yards. They also lead the league in picking off QBs.

I wish the story were brighter for rushing, but the Vikings give up the lowest adj Rush Success Rate to opponents. They also give up only a 16% conversion rate and -0.26 EPA per carry, both league best.

This does not bode well for the Indy offense.