Indianapolis Colts by the Numbers: Week 17 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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I believe that it doesn’t really matter when a team scores as long as they do. However, the Colt’s put my belief to the test as they came out looking like the greatest team to ever take the field and then forgot how to play football for about half a game.

Those first 2 drives were a thing of beauty. Two 90+ yard, balanced, methodical drives totaling 12 first downs, 14 points and 17 minutes is football perfection. That is why it is so frustrating that it took another 9 drives to mimic those numbers.

I shouldn’t care, because 33 points, 24 first downs and a 75% Drive Success Rate are all good things. I just wish, that for my emotional health, it had been a little more even.

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TEAM TOTALS

Those are all good stats, but the one that jumps off the page for me is explosive plays. Indy’s big play numbers are usually around league average, but this week, the Colts were right up there with the big boys at 8 plays for 181 yards.

It would take a real pessimist to see something bad in those numbers. I guess Third Down Conversions of 39%, while still good, is below the Colts league leading season average of 49%. There’s a half empty glass of water for ya.

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PASSING

Other than the riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma that was the mind-boggling, head-scratching, mystifying decision on the pick-6, Andrew Luck had a great day. Seriously, that was just a really bad decision.

A 69% completion rate is good but with an 8.1 yard average Depth of Target, it is even better. Add to that some decent Yards After the Catch from the receivers and you end up with 8.1 Yards per Attempt, which is a happy stat.

5 explosive pass plays for 139 yards is one of the better marks for the week but even more impressive is that it came from 4 different receivers (T.Y. Hilton, Mo Alie-Cox, Eric Ebron and Dontrelle Inman twice).

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RUSHING

Marlon Mack was almost all of the rushing game and he had an excellent day. Mack put up 119 yards on 25 carries (4.8 YPC) with 2 explosive rushes, 7 first downs and a TD, which culminated in a 47% weighted Rushing Success Rate. That wRSR is the 6th best of week 17 for running backs with at least 10 carries.

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CONCLUSIONS & NEXT MATCH-UP

Although it didn’t feel like it to me at the time, the Colts offense was very good against the Titans. Outside of the consecutive drives of a pick-6, a three-and-out and a fumble, Indy was efficient and put points on the board and that is all you can ask an offense to do. Well, I guess you could ask them not to fumble or throw a pick-6.

Colts-Texans round 3 is coming up and if Frank Reich and company can win that one, then not only will they advance, but it will also mean that not settling for the tie will officially have had no impact on the Colts post-season.

Based on my ranking of passing (ANY/A) and rush (wRSR), here is what the Colts will face.

So the bad news is that Houston run defense is depressingly awesome, having limited the Colts to just 91 yards in the last 2 meetings . . . not each game, 91 yards for both games combined. And that includes 27 yards from Luck scrambles. Yikes.

The good news is that Houston’s pass defense isn’t very good, and Luck has managed to eke out 863 yards and 6 TDs against them so far.

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TRAILING 5 WEEK TOTALS (per game)

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SEASON TOTALS (per game)