Indianapolis Colts by the Numbers: Week 8 Offensive Stats

By T. Troy Russell@TTroyRussell Nov 1, 2018, 10:00am EDT

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Every week, I will present a summary of some basic and advanced stats for the Colts performance relative to the league. Thanks to Pro Football Reference, NFL.com and the nflSCrapR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, so I may just frame and hang this week’s drive chart on my office wall.

28 first downs helped the Colts notch a 90.3% Drive Success Rate, which ties for the second best mark of any team this year. I know a lot of you don’t like ties but in this case I think its OK.

Ignoring kneel downs, there was only 1 drive, on which the Colts failed to score. That is just simply fantastic.

TEAM TOTALS

There is just no stat listed that is anything other than great.

#1 in DSR
#1 in Points Per Drive
#1 in Third Down conversions
#1 in yards to go on 3rd down
#1 in Time of Possession (if you care about that sort of thing . . . and you shouldn’t)

PASSING

Sunday was a very efficient day from Andrew Luck. Probably the most significant passing number is that 41.9% of his passes resulted in a first down (or TD), ranking 7th for the week and eclipsing Oakland’s season defensive average (36% avg).

I’m very happy to see Average Depth of Target at 7.0. I think between 6 & 8 is the sweet spot for Luck and this offense. If Indy can develop an additional deep threat to T.Y. Hilton then look for that number to stretch.

The only stats that give me pause are the low 3.8 Yards After Catch that limited passing Yards per Attempt to a good, but not great, 7.7. YAC fluctuates a lot so it’s not a real concern, it’s just something I noticed. If it trends low over time, then I’ll dive deeper into it.

RUSHING

It is the nature of football that a lot of game level rushing stats are meaningless as they are accumulated by teams with leads grinding out the clock. But that isn’t the case here.

The Success Rate stats listed adjust for 4th quarter game script and you can see that the Colts rush game was again, one of the best for the week. A 65.8% Rush Success Rate means that about 2 of every 3 Colt runs resulted in a first down, TD or chunk yardage, while the weighted RSR of 50.8% comes in at 3rd best of any team for the week.

4 explosive runs (10+ yards) for 88 yards is encouraging, as the Colts rarely see those kinds of run plays . . . well not from players in Colt jerseys.

CONCLUSIONS

When all of the stats are good, there really isn’t much to say. Yeah the Raiders are a bad team with a bad defense, but the Indy offense put up numbers that were far above what the Raiders have given up so far this year.