Colts’ Week 6 QB analysis: More consistancy, but less value.

Thanks to the nflFastR project, Pro Football Focus 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)

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(Use the right-left arrows to toggle between stats for the week and the season).

• With a horrible run game, the Colts’ leaned on Flacco against a Titans defense that was a little zone-shy (28th arsr, 10th edp, 17th oz%)
• Flacco was barely pressured and a big part of that was his quick throws (27th pr%, 31st ttt).
• He didn’t sacrifice depth, though, as he had the 7th longest depth of target. Unfortunately, his accuracy was off, which bought downs his average depth on completions (23rd cpoe, 17th ay/c).
• The receivers did not help out with additional yac either and so, Flacco’s yards per attempt suffered (25th yac, 24th yacoe, 22nd ypa).
• The few times, he was pressured, he threw the ball away avoiding sacks, which kept his yards per abandoned rate positive and lifted his overall net yards per dropback (6th ta%, 29th sck%, 15th yaa, 20th ny/d).
• He didn’t throw a lot of first downs, but had a decent TD rate with only turnover (20th 1st%, 14th td%, 17th to%).

That all mixes together to make the 18th ranked EPA efficiency and the 15th ranked passing success rate (before MNF). That’s worse overall value than last week (EPA), but better consistency throughout the game (PSR). That puts him smack dab in the middle of passers for week 6.

HOW WELL?

The interception was a huge negative play, but most of his other negative plays did limited damage. Conversely, he had a lot of big positive plays (6 over +2.0 EPA) that kept the Colts in the game.

Last week, he was pretty bad in the 2nd and 3rd quarter, whereas this week he was much better throughout.

These next charts are the team as a whole so, the historical weeks are Richardson / Flacco / Minshew. You can see what I an describing as a dropoff in value (EPA/d), but better consistency (PSR). That presents itself in worse yardage efficiency (ny/d), but a better first down rate.

HOW FAR?

The 61% completion rate isn’t good, but that was ameliorated with a decent amount of first downs. If you are moving the chains a lot, then I don’t really care how many passes it took to do it.

Passing depth stayed high and you can see the Colts have specifically tried to stretch the field the last 9 or so games. With that, has come longer actual completions, but week 6 took a drop (poor accuracy).

TO WHO?

Pittman may have been the hero, but Downs was the workhorse.

In this next graph, the receivers specifically avoid the upper right quadrant, which is unfortunate because that is where you want to live (depth + value).

HOW ACCURATE?

Flacco’s accuracy dropped off, but it is still higher than what AR had been giving.

HOW FAST?

Flacco threw the ball quickly and not just quick by 2024’s standards, which isn’t quick at all, but rather proper quick (2.3 seconds). I just wish he had completed a few more.

TO WHERE?

He feasted on the 0 – 20 yard passing depth, which is a site for sore eyes.