Week 12 Colts’ Opposing QB: An analysis of Jared Goff

Thanks to the nflFastR project 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)

Jared Goff has had a career resurgence after being traded to Detroit and 2024 is shaping up to be his best year ever. Let’s look at his numbers.

DASHBOARD

• Detroit has a fantastic run game to support Goff, which is probably why they are one of the most run-first offenses in the league (2nd arsr, 30th edp) . . . most run-first? run-firstiest?
• Goff uses shotgun less than any other QB and faces heavy zone defense (32nd sg%, 3rd oz%)
• He endures average pressure to go along with his average time to throw (18th pr%, 16th ttt), which helps him to not abandon a lot of pass attempts (19th aa%). When he does give up on a play, he throws the ball away a lot (10th ta%).
• He doesn’t make a lot of deep throws, but rather relies on delivering short passes that gain a lot of yac (26th adot, 2nd cpoe, 1st yac, 2nd yacoe).
• Combine all of that yac with a high completion rate and low abandoned rate and you get the 2nd highest net yards per dropback in the league (2nd cmp%, 2nd ny/d).
• That great yardage efficiency leads to a lot of first downs and TDs (1st 1st%, 2nd TD%).
• His turnover rate is high (8th to%), but that is heavily influenced by his 5 INT game against the Texans. If I ignore that game, he has a below average tunrover rate (19th).

Even with the drag of turnovers, he still has the 6th highest EPA efficiency to go along with the 3rd best Passing Success Rate. Simply put, he is easily a top 5 QB this year and is currently 3rd in the MVP race.

HOW WELL?

He is certainly not perfect as he had poor games to start the year and a less than stellar performance gainst the Titans, but his good games have been ridiculously good.

HOW FAR?

Most of his games have had a below average depth of target, but his accuracy has resulted in 4 games with above average depth of completions.

He relies on yac for a big portion of his yardage efficiency as does Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Mahomes and Tua.

TO WHO?

Amon-Ra St. Brown is his clear #1 receiver, but Jamo Williams gets a ton of yards with about half the targets. Sam LaPorta, Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery are also stars of the yac show.

Williams averages the deepest passes, but Amon-Ra gets more average EPA on much shorter throws.

HOW ACCURATE?

Other than weeks 1-2 and the Texans game, Goff has had consistently high completion rates even when adjusting for passing depth (cpoe).

He has been deadly on anything within 20 yards and when receviers break free, he is hitting them deep, going 50% on passes over 30 yards.

HOW FAST?

His Time to Throw has kind of been all over the place. Most of the games where he had trouble, he threw quickly, which suggests pressure got to him.

TO WHERE?

He has found success all over the field, but he favors the right side.

CONCLUSION

The Detroit passing game doesn’t have many weaknesses. They play from under center and thrive on finding the open receiver and getting a ton of yac. Goff has been very successful with screen passes to Gibbs on the right side and Sam LaPorta likes to hang around the 0-5 yard range for the outlet pass.

In the games where Goff did not perform well, the defenses pressured him, forcing quick throws. He had poor accuracy (likely due to pressure) and that resulted in lower completion rates, but also much lower yac. Goff was still good at avoiding sacks, but he couldn’t get decent yardage off of his throws and so first downs were hard to come by.

If the Colts can pressure Goff and disrupt the receivers off the line, then they can throw off those timing passes which should limit yac and that is the biggest piece of Detroit’s passing success. Oh yeah, and contain Gibbs . . . and don’t let Williams or St. Brown behind you . . . and keep on eye on LaPorta . . . and you know what, I’m just going to stop there.