Week 6 Colts’ Opposing QB: An analysis of Will Levis

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 upcoming opponent QB has 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)

I’m assuming that Will Levis will play through his injury tag on Sunday, so let’s look at his numbers.

DASHBOARD

• When Levis is under center, Tennessee leans into a run game that is around average (24th edp, 18th arsr).
• Levis has faced very hard opponent passing defenses, but that will change on Sunday (2nd opd).
• He has been one of the most pressured QBs in the league even though he has been throwing quicker than average (4th pr%, 20th ttt). That points to bad O-line protection and ESPN agrees (26th Pass Block Win Rate).
• His completions are short, which boosts his completion rate, but even accounting for depth, he has been accurate (24th ay/c, 15th cmp%, 3rd cpoe).
• Even though he is throwing short, accurate, quick passes, his receivers are not turning that into YAC (30th yac, 30th yacoe).
• With the high pressure rate comes a lot of abandoned attempts (2nd aa%), and even though he scrambles and throws the ball away a lot, he gets sacked even more (7th scr%, 12th ta%, 1st sck%).
• His yardage efficiency can’t hold up against all of those negative factors and he has the 3rd lowest yards per dropback of any QB (30th ny/d).
• Unsurprisingly, he’s not getting a lots of first downs or TDs with that low yardage (30th 1st%, 20th td%).
• He’s also a turnover machine (#1 to%).

In summary, he’s got no O-line, his receivers aren’t getting yards, he’s playing really difficult opponent defenses and his run game isn’t much help. I’m not shocked that he’s got horrible EPA efficiency and success rate (31st epa/d, 28th psr). Of course, he’s not blameless. He needs to deal with the pressure without taking sacks and stop giving the ball over to the other team.

HOW WELL?

He’s had a few decent games under his belt, but he has been trending down in general.

HOW FAR?

His depth of target has been getting shorter, likely a result of increased pressure.

TO WHO?

He spreads the ball around well.

HOW ACCURATE?

He’s had pretty good accuracy since coming into the league.

HOW FAST?

He has never been one too hold on to the ball too long.

TO WHERE?

His only success has been between 10-20 yards.