Week 6 Colts Defensive Rankings and Analysis: Good by default

Each week during the season, I will be walking through the data from the previous Colts game and analyzing the numbers to form a sort of “what happened” narrative, as well as comparing the Colts against all other teams in the league. For a glossary of the stats listed, reference Season Stats. Thanks to Pro Football Reference, NFL.com, Football Outsiders, and the nflFastR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.

Tennessee is one of the worst offenses in the league and in week 6 they demonstrated that. The Colts held the Titans to just 2 red zone drives and 1 of those started on the Colts’ 27 yard line after a Joe Flacco interception.

The Colts kept the Titans from moving the chains as they could only muster 16 first downs culminating in a 12th lowest 69.6% DSR. In the 2nd half, the Titans couldn’t advance the ball past their own 39 yard line. That makes for some long field goal attempts.

TEAM TOTALS

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

Indy’s defense ranks 8th best in points per drive for the week. They held the Titans to the 4th lowest yards per play (4.4 yds/ply) and the 5th lowest success rate (34.2 adj TSR).

They stopped Tennessee from moving the chains giving up the 7th lowest overall conversion rate and the 12th lowest 3rd down conversion rate.

This effort moves the season total ranking up a few spots to 20th, but of course that isn’t adjusted for opponent so, grain o’ salt.

PASS TOTALS

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

The Colts defense didn’t allow Will Levis any passing success, which is a feat accomplished by only 30 other teams. He had the 4th worst EPA efficiency, the worst passing success rate, the lowest net yards per dropback and the 5th lowest conversion rate. In addition, he failed to break 100 passing yards. That’s some bad passing.

But it’s the NFL, so it counts and even though it seems a little disingenuous to increase the Colts’ passing defense season ranking off of this game, I’m going to do it anyway. On the season, Colts move up to 20th against the pass . . . (but not really).

RUSH TOTALS

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

Against the run the Colts were pretty bad. They gave up the 5th highest yards per carry and 6th most EPA per carry to a team that was obviously going to run most of the day.

With situational adjustments, that gives the Colts defense a 19th ranked defensive Rush Success Rate out of 28 teams, so bottom 10. That drops the season total rank 8 spots to 13th against the run.

CONCLUSION & LOOK AHEAD

When you play a bad offense, your defense is supposed to keep them from moving down the field and scoring and that is what the Colts did. Giving up only 241 yards and 17 points is a good day. So even though it sounds like I am complaining, I’m not. They did their job this past week.

However, on the year, the defense has not looked good. They give up too many big plays (5th worst in explosive play yards) and too may 3rd down conversions (5th worst).

In week 7, the defense will face the Miami Dolphins who have scored the lowest Points per Drive in the league (0.89 ppd).

Without Tua, they have relied on Tyler Huntley for their air attack and it has not gone well. Huntley ranks 28th in EPA per dropback and dead last in Passing Success rate. He doesn’t average a lot of yards, which keeps him from getting first downs, which prevents him from scoring TDs (29th ny/d, 24th 1st%, 32nd td%).

It shouldn’t be a surprise that with Huntley under center, the Dolphins are the most run-first team in the league (32nd early down pass %). Although that doesn’t really help much as they are the 3rd worst running team by Rush Success Rate.

This should be another week of Colts defensive dominance by default. Aaaaand I jinxed it.