Week 13 Colts Defensive Rankings and Analysis: Colts defense gets pushed around.

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.

The Colts defense had a rough game against the Patriots. New England entered the red zone on 6 of their 9 drives, but earned only 2 TDs for the effort. Some would say that is a successful bend-don’t-break defense, but it was really more about the Patriots shooting themselves in the foot.

A flukey goal line interception and back to back first down offensive holding calls from the 2 yard line basically took 11 New England points off of the board. Add in an shanked chip shot field goal and the Patriots score could have easily been 38.

The Patriots earned a 76.7% Drive Success Rate (72nd percentile) and had good starting field position on half their drives, which allowed them to consistently play on the Colts’ side of the field.

TEAM TOTALS

(Use the right-left arrows to 6.7toggle between stats for the week and the season).

2.67 Points per Drive allowed, is the 7th worst defensive performance for the week coupled with the 9th worst defensive DSR. Yards per play, success rate, conversion rate and EPA per play all rank around the same in the 25th – 28th range.

Giving up the 2nd highest 3rd down conversion rate against a team that had the 4th best avg. starting field position didn’t help matters either.

While this was worse than their season average, the Colts maintain 15th place on the season in PPD, but 23rd in DSR. That is a wide range, which is pretty concerning, but DVOA has Indy defense at 16th, so maybe I am overly worried . . . (I’m not).

PASS TOTALS

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

Drake Maye earned the 5th best EPA/d for the week, which is way higher than his 20th season rank he had coming into the game. He also had the 2nd best Pass Success Rate (16th on the season). So, the Colts’ defense, yet again, made a below average QB look great.

Maye had no problem earning yards (7th ny/d) and moving the ball down the field (4th 1st/d). If not for the Patriots’ Keystone Cops red zone performance, this could have easily been a blowout. That’s right, I’m comfortable making silent film references.

On the year, I have the Colts’ pass defense at 16th in EPA/d and 23rd in PSR. Again, that’s a pretty wide range and DVOA splits the middle, ranking them 19th.

RUSH TOTALS

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

Against the run, the Colts weren’t great but they weren’t terrible either. They gave up a lot of first downs (9th highest 1st/c) and Yards per Carry was pretty high (7th most), but when adjusted for situation, the adj Rush Success Rate was right about average (16th aRSR).

I’ve got them 17th on the season, which is close to the 19th rank by DVOA.

CONCLUSION & LOOK AHEAD

This was a poor defensive effort and the Colts were fortunate to escape with a win. Indy’s cumulative season defensive effort is about as close to pure average as there is, but the way they attain that is pretty volatile, looking bad 1 week and competent the next. It is what it is, I guess.

Next week is bye-week. WOOHOO!!, I need a week off.