Indianapolis Colts by the Numbers: Week 10 Offensive Stats

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.

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Week 10 Colts Offense: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Andrew Luck, Eric Ebron and the rest of the boys came out on fire, notching 4 TDs in their first 5 drives against one of the league’s best defenses. When Luck took a knee to end the half, he had a 13 point lead, an 80% completion rate and a near perfect passer rating.

Little did we know the spring of hope would be followed by the winter of despair.

The ridiculous 94% Drive Success Rate of the first half was followed by 4 drives with 2 first downs and 0 points. Conservative play calling, dropped passes and an interception another dropped pass killed drives that could have put the game away.

Luck’s 2nd half completion rate fell to 55%, with just 5 completions and a 40 passer rating. But overall, a 77% game DSR is still impressive and was good enough to win.

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TEAM TOTALS

I have altered the ranking of the team totals to use DSR instead of adjusted points per drive as I feel that is a slightly better descriptor of an offense.

Across the board, the Colts numbers are pretty solid. The % of plays that were first downs is a little low at 29%, but the 3rd down conversions continue to be a team strength at almost 55% leading to the high DSR.

Going forward, it would be nice if there were less than 7 yards to go on 3rd downs, but if the team maintains a high conversion rate then it doesn’t really matter.

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PASSING

Frank Reich’s passing script continues to stretch the field. An 8.2 average depth of target was 10th longest of the week, which makes Luck’s 72% completion rate even more impressive.

However, Colt receivers continue to have bad yards after the catch. That is not necessarily all on the receiving corps as play call and ball placement figure into that. But trailing the league in YAC for the season is not the preferred place to be.

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RUSHING

After a few weeks of rushing dominance, week 10 was a letdown for the Colts. 85 yards from the running backs with a 27% weighted Rushing Success Rate was one of the worst displays in the league.

But coming in to the game, Jacksonville ranked 9th in rushing DVOA against and 5th in defensive wRSR. So, running the ball was not going to be an easy task.

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CONCLUSIONS

Given the abysmal second half, it felt like the offense was worse than they actually were, as overall this was a really good effort. If a couple of dropped passes had been caught, then I think we would be talking about the blowout instead of the squeaker.

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SEASON TOTALS (per game)