2016 NFL Week 4: Inside the Colts Numbers - Delaying the Inevitable

The season is just a quarter of the way finished, but it's felt like an eternity already. The Colts once again found themselves down big, made a frantic comeback, and like two of the first three games, fell short in the end, this time 30-27 in London to division rival Jacksonville. The loss drops the Colts to 1-3 on the season, with two of those losses (Lions, Jaguars) coming to teams who are also 1-3 (meaning the Colts were their only win). Joyous time to be a Colts fan.

I want to focus on a positive first, and that was the start time. When i lived in Colorado, NFL games started at 11 in the morning, and it was glorious. The Mountain Time Zone is by far the best in the country, and we all got a piece of that on Sunday with the game starting at 9:30. I know it's impossible to do that while playing in this country, but that would be the one advantage to a team playing in London...morning games on the East Coast.

As far as the game goes, just like Week 1 against the Lions, the blueprint of a Chuck Pagano / Ryan Grigson Colts game. Terrible out of the gate, catch fire at the absolute last possible moment, climb back from an insurmountable deficit and make it look like it's a foregone conclusion they'll actually win, and the newest wrinkle: fall short because it all evens out in the long run. Eventually I'm going to make a list of every game where this happened, and I'm guessing we'll get at least a season and a half worth of games that fit this exact model.

On Defense, all eleven starters from the Colts pre-Training Camp depth chart played on Sunday, which was a first for 2016. You can attribute how well they played together to rust, London, or just a lack of talent, but either way the Colts have to live with the fact that the Jaguars, who have one of the worst Offenses in the NFL by a number of measures, did basically whatever they wanted to them. The ever-elusive Blake Bortles was able to run/scramble seven times for 36 yards and a touchdown, with each one (I think) being on a roll-out with nobody around him. It's just the tip of the iceberg on a failure to make adjustments based on the personnel on the field, but if you allow 30 points to the Jaguars with every starter playing, your Defense isn't very good.

There's no need to go into the over-arching problems with this team that we saw manifest themselves Sunday morning/afternoon across the pond. Let's get into the stats, where the Colts continue to do one thing really, really well, while not being good at much else.

Non-Adjusted Stats for Week 4:

Adjusted Stats for Week 4:

Some thoughts:

• I'm going to lead with the positive thing here, which is another perfect day in the Red Zone (2/2) scoring touchdowns, which makes them 10/11 on the season, a 95% clip that is tops in the NFL. There's lots of areas to criticize the Offense, but they need credit for the marked improvement inside the 20. They've been nearly perfect.
• Just the lone turnover, but it basically gifted the Jaguars a touchdown early on, something they've not been used to very much. In fact, they had scored just a single first quarter touchdown since Week 10 of 2015, a span of 10 games. Let that sink in a bit, and I bet  your head will fall into your palms all on their own.
• Passing game stunk, and every facet is partly to blame. Luck had the least of the blame, but he still struggled at times. Anthony Castonzo was a revolving door, and the rest of the Offensive line didn't help much at all either. Then the dropped passes. Oh the dropped passes, including one that virtually ended the game for the Colts by Dwayne Allen. I thought the Tight End with the poor hands went to New Orleans...
• The Jaguars had 145 yards in penalties, yet still found a way to win the game. It was the most penalty yards by any team so far this season, and only three games topped it last year. They tried to hand the game to the Colts, but it just fell right on the floor.
• There were a whole lot of poor performances in Week 4 if this one ranks as 17th out of 30 games, and you can tell that by the overall rank of 97th. You can also see the difference between adjusting for opponent and not, as there's a start difference. Colts looked very "average" in straight numbers, which is a bad thing when playing a team near the bottom of the league.

Season Stats through Week 4 (Adjusted):

A couple things:

• The undefeated records of both Drive Success Rate and ANPY/A fell this week, with the lone victim in our Passing stat being the Chargers, who have a special ability to blow big leads late. Still a very, very telling stat.
• Through the first four weeks, I'd call the Offense "slightly above average" based on the numbers, ranking 12th overall. We talked about the Red Zone numbers above, and they are moving the ball with some success. There's very little game-breaking ability however (24th in Yards per Play), and their Field Position stinks, but otherwise the Offense is good enough to win games.
• The Defense, on the other hand, is a bottom five Defense in the league, and there isn't any evidence to the contrary. They are all healthy and playing now, which means absolutely no excuses. Time for guys to step up.

Week-to-Week Comparison:

The three losses are very similar in the Total Adjusted column, with the outlier being the one victory. Does that match what you've seen with your eyes? It does mine.

The Colts are in last place in the worst division in football, and the only team they beat has given up double digit 4th quarter leads in two of their three losses. As we've said time and again over the past four-plus years, the one score games will even out over time, and we're seeing that play out right in front of us this season. I look forward to a week of cliches without much of an improvement on the field.