Colts’ Week 6 QB Analysis: Another successful game

_{Thanks to the project, and 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 Colts’ QB 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)}

HOW WELL?

Take away the interception, and this looked like a typical Daniel Jones game (Colts-Jones, not Giants-Jones). He had a lot of positive plays (7th-highest success rate), and his negative plays caused limited damage. Of course, the interception counts—and it was a massively negative play, which greatly reduced his overall EPA (15th EPA/play).

You can see in the graph below that his EPA dropped significantly this week, whereas the other three measures—while lower—did not decline nearly as much. He converted a lot of first downs, but did it off of basically average yardage.

HOW FAR?

Again, Jones completed a lot of passes that resulted in plenty of first downs and touchdowns. Many of those came on throws under 10 yards, but as long as they move the chains, I’m fine with that.

Both attmept and completion depth is way down this week.

On the season, though, he still uses depth rather than YAC to generate most of his passing yards.

TO WHO?

Warren owned the day both in targets and yards. Pierce had a better day than Pittman.

Just like in the weekly totals, Warren leads the team in both targets and yards for the season. The Colts already have four receivers over 200 yards through just six games. Nice.

Only one player fell below the league-average target efficiency, and it was JT. That’s pretty common among running backs, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Ignore Mitchell and imagine a trend line through all the other Colts players— that line would scream highly efficient balanced receiving.

HOW ACCURATE?

Completion rate and accuracy ticked up this week as Jones posts a season long 12th best CPOE.

HOW FAST?

For the first time as a Colt, Jones took significantly longer than average to get rid of the ball. Combined with the shorter passes, that suggests he had trouble finding open receivers on his intitial read(s).

TO WHERE?

The left side of the field was mostly unkind to Jones, while the right side paid dividends — aside from the interception.

Still no red for the season.

DASHBOARD

• The run game once again performed at a high level, but game script kept the Colts from leaning on it as much as they probably wanted to (2nd in ARSR, 6th in EDP).
• Jones faced average pressure, yet he held the ball for a long time and settled for short completions (15th in PR%, 9th in TTT, 22nd in AY/C). It seems the receivers were well covered.
• YAC was about average, and even though his completion rate was high, it wasn’t enough to offset poor yardage efficiency (15th in YAC, 14th in AC%, 23rd in AYPA).
• Like most weeks, Jones didn’t abandon his pass attempts (25th in AA%). When he did have to bail on the throw, he did it with scrambles rather than throwaways or sacks (12th in SCR%, 26th in TA%, 28th in SCK%).
• That all results in just average overall yardage, but he turned that mediocrity into success by consistently moving the chains and finding the end zone (17th NY/P, 3rd 1st%, 4th TD%).
• The turnover, though, dragged down his EPA while leaving his overall success largely intact (11th in TO%, 15th in EPA/P, 7th in QBSR).

Fortunately, the turnover didn’t end up hurting the Colts, so it’s easy to dismiss it and say Jones had another great game. But if the Cardinals had scored a touchdown instead of immediately giving the ball back, my guess is a lot of people would be blaming what might have been a loss on Jones—well, that and the defense—but that’s a different article.

Suffice it to say, Jones had a lot of success on Sunday — both literally and figuratively.

For 2025 QBs, I have him ranked 4th after adjusting for opponent. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

Looking at his efficiency curve, there are no significant dips in performance. There are minor blips from receiver drops, low scramble yardage, and inefficient designed carries, but those barely register.

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