Breaking Down Your Favorite Plays from the 2024 Season

Even through an up and down season, there were still a lot of plays that were really cool. So I asked everyone to share their favorites and break them down in depth.

Anthony Richardson TD Pass to Alec Pierce vs. Texans

This is everyone’s favorite and for good reason.

This was predictably going to make the list. There isn’t a ton that’s special here—schematically. This is truly one of the greatest throws I have ever seen, and I’m not sure if it will ever be duplicated. It’s one thing to throw the ball 65 yards in the air— but it’s another thing to do it with pressure in your face and slipping at the top of your drop. Special stuff.

Schematically, here’s my best guess. Alec Pierce is running a Big Post. A Big Post is kinda what it sounds like. It’s the Holy Grail vs Quarters coverage— which the Texans happen to be playing. Alec Pierce is going to run as fast as he can and get vertical for the first 10 yards. You want that corner to feel the speed down the field. At 10 yards, because that corner is outside and deep, Alec is going to stem his route outside to widen that corner and get space to break back inside.

Here’s what’s a bit different about this play. Normally to beat quarters coverage, you want a something to occupy that safety. In quarters, that safety is responsible for anything vertical from the #2 WR. So normally you have a dig or some sort of route that forces the safety to nail down on, so that the corner has to defend a post route from outside leverage with no inside help.

But the Colts decide to use play action instead. They see pre-snap that Ward is trying to disguise the look by looking like he’s going to rotate down in Cover 3—probably something they saw in the scouting process. They were likely hoping that the run action would hold him just enough so that he couldn’t make a play on that post from Pierce.

But honestly he plays this pretty well—Anthony Richardson just out throws the coverage.

Same Side Power Read (“Toss Read”) vs. Tennessee

This is one of my FAVORITE play calls from the Colts in 2024. One of the coolest ways to run the same play, but from a different formation.

The Colts love to run “Power Read” with Anthony Richardson. What is Power Read?

Power Read is essentially QB Power BUT instead of “kicking out” the end man of the line of scrimmage the Colts are going to read him. If he can tackle the RB, then AR will pull the ball and run power like he’s the RB. But if he can’t tackle the RB, then you hand it off to JT on a sweep.

This is the exact blocking scheme and concept, except instead of having JT on the opposite side of the ball to take a hand off, he’ll move to the other side and they’ll toss it instead. Hence the Same Side Power Read.

This an incredibly smart way to run the same play but dress it up so the defense is off balanced. Defenses know that in the shotgun, if the back is offset, most of the time the run can really only go one direction.

The way this plays out, the Titans are running a scrape exchange—a popular way to defend Zone Read. The DE will dive at the ball carrier, taking the RB and forcing the QB to pull the ball, while the ILB will “scrape over the top” to take the QB.

That would technically require a “toss” to JT since he can’t tackle the RB. But the Colts know this scrape exchange is coming, so AR fakes the toss to get Kenneth Murray out of position and cuts it back inside. It’s really good execution vs. a look they often get.

Josh Downs Catch vs. Houston

This is a Post-Corner combination which shreds Cover 1. The timing of this play is important. The post must go first! His job is to clear the corner out of the play. So Josh Downs is going to give Jalen Pitre an inside release to freeze him, since he’s inside leveraged on the play, and at 10 yards will break for that front pylon.

The Colts also are Max protecting on this play so they can block up any potential pressure from the Texans.

Dayo Odeyingbo Run Stuff vs. Houston

This is a cool concept from Houston that gets blown up by Dayo. Defenses fit the run based off of the TE. So in order to confuse linebackers, offenses will change the path of the TE in motion to screw with those rules.

Dayo does a great job getting off the ball here. A great sign a crack block is coming is when an offenses’ best blocking WR is lined up tight to the core of the formation with his outside foot up.

Watch Dayo key the ball while using his outside hand to counter Woods punch. The rest was unfortunately all for nothing, but this should probably be a TD.