Matt Ryan Stat Tracker: Week 4

Thanks to the nflFastR project and NFL NextGen Stats for the timely sources of data.

For those of you new to this, I will publish key QB stats each week judging how well the Colts passing game performed. Yes, O-Line, receivers, and play-calling impact these numbers but they are primarily QB measures. I will probably modify the charts throughout the season. Commentary will be brief but feel free to let me know in the comments that stats aren’t everything. (click charts for larger view)

HOW WELL?

If anyone is looking for good news buried within a loss, here is some: Matt Ryan was actually good this week.

Obviously, the turnovers are unacceptable, but on the whole, he had some impressive production. After the interception, he was kind of lights out.

His overall efficiency and success rate were good. He got a ton of first downs and his average yardage was great (which has been a recent weakness).

For the week, he was solidly a top 10 QB. For the year . . . not so much.

HOW FAR?

A very cold start was followed by a lot of impressive completions. 9.6 yards per attempt is the 3rd highest mark this week (through Sunday night).

Target depth ticked up along with the average completion depth.

TO WHO?

Mo Allie-Cox had a career day and even a surging Alec Pierce could not catch him. It’s kind of nice when this graph has more than 1 bar.

HOW ACCURATE?

Accuracy was great for the 2nd week in a row. That is a really promising sign.

HOW FAST?

He took a little more time to get rid of the ball this week and relative to his target depth, that was probably a bit too long. But, he got good completion distance out of the extra time.

TO WHERE?

There is a lot more green in this chart than in previous weeks.

DASHBOARD

Let’s summarize it all in a single visual.

Numbers relative to the 28 QBs through Sunday afternoon.

In a pass-heavy game, with horrible rushing (7th edp, 30th arsr), Ryan took an average amount of time to connect on longer than average completions (11th ttt, 13th ay/c).

He was very accurate, which helped the receivers gain a lot of yac (10th cpoe, 10th yac, 9th yacoe) and resulted in the 3rd best yardage efficiency of the week (ypa). He took a lot of sacks, which dropped his overall net yardage down to 6th, but that is still very good (8th sk%, 6th ny/d).

He consistently moved the ball with his arm (6th 1st%), but turnovers continue to be a major problem (8th to%). Even with the turnovers, though, his overall efficiency was 9th best (epa/d) along with an 8th highest success rate.

Don’t let the loss cloud your judgment: this was a promising outing from Ryan.