Week 17 Colts Defensive Rankings and Analysis:

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.

After very careful consideration, sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks. —General Beringer from the movie WarGames

I’m not sure how much time I want to spend analyzing a defense that gave up 38 points, so let’s just agree that the Colts against the Giants weren’t good.

Outside of the 5 drives where the Giants bulldozed their way into the end zone, the Colts defense actually held the Giants to only 7.6 yards per drive. Unfortunately, those other 5 drives count and Indy gave up 67 yards per drive on those.

TEAM TOTALS

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

At least the Colts weren’t dead last in defensive Points per Drive, finishing 28th on the week. The defense was 30th in yards per play and 29th in EPA pr play, but ironically 11th in opponent conversion rate and 10th in defensive success rate. The discrepancy in those rankings are due to the explosive plays the defense let happen (2nd most explosive yards).

For the season, the Colts’ defense falls 5 spots in PPD to 19th and 1 spot in DSR to 15th. DVOA ranks them 19th.

PASS TOTALS

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

Against the pass, the Colts defense finished 32nd, allowing Drew freakin’ Lock the most EPA per dropback of any QB not just for the week, but for any QB this season. That’s right, this was the worst defensive performance against the pass in the NFL of 2024.

The defense was 31st in opponent PSR, 30th in conversion rate, 32nd in net yards per dropback and gave up the most explosive passing yards for the week. Everything was bad.

On the season, the Colts are currently in 25th place for defensive EPA per dropback and 24th place in opponent Pass Success Rate. DVOA says 24th. I’m sensing a pattern.

RUSH TOTALS

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

Well, the good news is we were successful against the run. yay!

The Colts held the Giants to the 2nd worst conversion rate, the 2nd worst yards per carry and the 3rd worst EPA per carry. Adjust that for situation and you get the 2nd lowest rush success rate for the week.

Unbelievably, that bumps the season ranking for the Colts rush defense to 12th best. DVOA ranks them at 14th, so I am not completely out of my mind.

CONCLUSION & LOOK AHEAD

Just a horrible, horrible performance by the Indy D. There’s not much more to say.

Season-wise, being good against the run isn’t much consolation, because a terrible passing defense has so much more impact on game outcomes.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. The last Colts’ game of the year is against a Jacksonville offense that ranks 23rd in Points per Drive.

Since Trevor Lawrence’s injury, Mac Jones has been filling in and has earned only the 20th ranked EPA per dropback and the 24th Pass Success Rate. He doesn’t get sacked a lot (26th sck%), but he likes to turn the ball over (7th to%).

On the ground, the Jags are about average with a 17th ranked adj RSR. DVOA ranks them 18th, so yeah, they are average-ish.

Match-up-wise, this favors the Colts defense, but I’m not putting any money on it.