Colts’ Week 15 QB Analysis: Same story, different game

Thanks to the nflFastR project, Pro Football Focus 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)

There are those that believe the momentum fairy caused Anthony Richardson, through no fault of his own, to struggle in the 2nd half after Jonathon Taylor fumbled away a touchdown. I‘m here to tell you, he struggled in the first half too.

HOW WELL?

In the chart below, The J.T. fumble happened after the first pass of the 2nd half. Prior to that, Richardson had 5 total dropbacks out of 20 that added positive value. He completed 6 of 18 passes including an interception. Does that sound like a guy that was lighting it up prior to the fumble?

Now to be fair, I haven’t included his rushing TD, because it was not a pass play, but even if I did include that, its pretty clear he was not hit with the momentum stick. He just played the whole game like he has all year, bad on most plays with a few “wow’ plays sprinkled in.

Both his EPA per dropback and Passing Success Rate were close to the worst of week 15 and unfortunately very similar to many previous weeks. He earned a season low in net yards per dropback and his first down rate was similarly poor.

HOW FAR?

He completed only 4 of his first 10 passes and it didn’t get much better after that. He ended the game with a 44.7% completion rate almost matching his season 47% that he started the game with.

He had a nice cluster of first downs in the 4th qtr, but being down by 2+ scores might have had something to do with that.

The depth of his targets ticked down this week, but his completion depth has fallen off a cliff the last 2 games. Basically, he’s not hitting the deep passes as much.

TO WHO?

He spread the ball around pretty well. Even though he didn’t connect with Pierce or Mitchell, he did keep the Denver defense on their toes.

The EPA per target was pretty bad across all receivers, with only Gould having an above average day on his 1 catch.

HOW ACCURATE?

Accuracy has been the same story all year . . . well, all year save for the Jets game. AR just isn’t good at completing passes.

The arguments to hand-waive away this maybe fatal flaw in his passing has grown thin. If I remove all drops, throw-aways and limit the passes to under 20 yards, Richardson still has the worst season completion % in the league. Even on attempts > 20 yards, he is under-performing the league averages.

It’s not a question of if he has a problem, it’s a question of if he can fix it.

HOW FAST?

His Time to Throw increased again this week. For a week where the average depth of completion is <5 yards, that’s not good.

TO WHERE?

He didn’t have much success anywhere on the field, just like most of the season.

DASHBOARD

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

To summarize Richardson’s week 15:

• The Colts leaned on the run game and the rushing wasn’t great (22nd edp, 21st arsr)
• AR continued to take snaps almost exclusively out of the shotgun while Denver gave him heavy zone reads (3rd sg%, 12th oz%).
• He was pressured most of the day, but a big part of that was him holding the ball far too long (3rd pr%, 5th ttt).
• He still threw it deep but was unable to connect and ended with about an average completion depth (7th adot, 17th ay/c).
• He was highly inaccurate, which kept yac low and depressed his yards per attempt (29th cpoe, 23rd yacoe, 29th ypa)
• He had an above average abandoned pass rate, but given such a high pressure rate, it’s actually lower than expected (3rd pr%, 12th aa%). As he has done all year, when he abandons the play, he does so by throwing the ball away and scrambling instead of taking sacks (9th ta%, 11tgh scr%, 18th sck%), which is a critically important skill for a mobile QB.
• Because he is smart under pressure, he gets a ranking boost in overall net yardage. I mean 24th ny/d isn’t good, but it’s better than 29th ypa.
• Of course, with low yardage, it’s tough to get first downs or TDs (27th 1st%, 28th TD). As previously stated, his running TD doesn’t show up in these passing stats, so if you want mentally add that, feel free. It doesn’t really change the story.
• His turnover rate was again bad as has been the case for most of the season (9th to). FYI, that does not include Pittman’s fumble (not on QB) nor the pick-6 flea flicker (run play and not his fault anyway).

He finishes 28th in both EPA per dropback and Passing Success Rate, which is on par with his season numbers (28th, 30th). Clearly that’s not ideal, but at the beginning of the year, I said all I wanted AR to do was 2 things: have decent accuracy (cpoe) and not abandon pass plays (aa%). So far, he is 1 for 2.

He has horrible accuracy (32nd cpoe) and I’m a little concerned as to if that is fixable. I know Josh Allen had that problem and got better after a year, but then again, Tim Tebow didn’t. I guess I am saying that Josh Allen is more the exception than the rule. AR doesn’t have to be great or even average at completing throws, but he definitely has to get better to succeed.

As far as abandoned plays, he is doing great. He is pressured on 39.3% of his dropbacks (4th highest), but he only abandons 15.2% of those plays (16th lowest). And when he abandons them, he avoids sacks (27th sck%). That is very good news as it describes a QB who stays in the pocket and keeps his eyes downfield, but still makes good decisions when things go south. If he can simply connect on a few more passes, then he could be very good.