Colts’ Week 13 QB Analysis: I’m impressed

_{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?

This was a game where you can’t look at the scoreboard and determine how well Daniel Jones performed. Well, you should never do that — but many people try anyway… QB winzzz! The past few weeks, I haven’t felt great about how Jones was playing, but this game went a long way toward allaying those fears.

His 0.13 EPA per play isn’t a great number, but it isn’t bad — and he was facing the best passing defense in the league. Houston allows opposing QBs an average of -0.11 EPA per play. Read that again: that’s negative EPA per play. Jones was well, well above that baseline.

Now, his success rate is a different story — 40% is pretty poor — but even that is higher than what the Texans usually allow. And considering he was playing with a fractured fibula, he performed much better than I expected.

The first quarter was a slog, and he posted seven negative plays in a row. But the 2nd, 3rd, and the first part of the 4th quarter were simply brilliant — big positive plays, and only a handful of limited negative ones. Unfortunately, he ended with 3 incompletions and a turnover on downs.

His last few weeks have been shaky, but this was a clear bounce-back. His EPA was above average, his 1st-down conversion rate was right there as well, and his yardage efficiency was very good.

HOW FAR?

As I mentioned earlier, he had a great partial game that was book-ended by a lot of incompletions. Extreme pressure and a few receiver drops certainly contributed to that. But he also hit much longer completions this week than he has in a while — 8.3 adjusted yards per attempt is ridiculously high for a 53.6% completion rate.

You can see in these next graphs how his passing depth returned to normal, and his completion depth is almost off the chart. In fact, it can’t go off the chart because the 100th percentile is the maximum — and Jones hit that.

I’ve said this many times, but Jones doesn’t rely on YAC for his efficiency — he relies on passing depth, which is the exact opposite of how he operated in New York.

TO WHO?

Pierce had a day and Warren had unusally low production.

Because of that, Warren has actually handed the season yardage crown to Pierce… for now.

I would’ve liked to see Pittman a lot higher in this chart, but the overall trendline for the receivers is normal — RBs with short, lower-value targets, then the TEs have deeper targets with more value, then the WRs.

This one still amazes me and makes me happy. Almost all of the receives are above the league average value line.

HOW ACCURATE?

His accuracy was the worst of the season, so that’s not good.

HOW FAST?

Just like against the Chiefs, pressure forced him to get the ball out earlier than he wanted. That was a key problem for him in New York. On the season, though, he’s gotten the ball out quickly relative to the depth of his throws — and that’s a really, really good sign.

TO WHERE?

He distributed the ball across the field really well, but his longer passes were far more successful than his shorter ones. I see that as forced checkdowns rather than designed throws.

Very little red on the season chart. He doesn’t really favor one side of the field either.

DASHBOARD

Here’s what happened in week 13:

• Even though JT had some nice carries, the run game struggled overall. Despite that, the Colts kept a balanced attack (29th ARSR, 17th EDP).
• Jones faced the most pressure of any QB in Week 13, and he countered it with quick throws (1st PR%, 28th TTT). Think about that — he got rid of the ball super quick, and he still faced the #1 pressure rate. Yikes.
• Despite the fast throws, he didn’t sacrifice depth — neither on his attempts nor on his completions (12th ADOT, 1st AY/C).
• With the longer throws came limited YAC, but he still produced the longest completions of the week (24th YAC, 1st YDS/C).
• One big negative is his low completion rate (30th AC%), which was partly due to the 2nd-highest team drop rate. Despite that, he still accumulated the 7th-best adjusted yards per attempt (before throwaways).
• Given the pressure he faced, it’s impressive that he didn’t abandon many passing attempts. He had no scrambles (injury?), a low throw-away rate, and only one sack (28th SCR%, 22nd TA%, 25th SCK%). That kept his abandon rate low, which helped keep his yardage efficiency high (30th AA%, 5th NY/D).
• Unfortunately, that great yardage didn’t translate into a lot of first downs, but he did throw a couple of TDs and no turnovers (18th 1st%, 6th TD%, 25th TO%).
• That all translates to a 16th-ranked EPA efficiency and a much lower 25th-ranked success rate, which tells the story of how big plays pulled the overall value up.

Considering he was playing hurt against the Houston defense, I call that game a win for Jones — even if it didn’t translate into a win for the Colts. As hard as that game was to watch, it actually made me feel much better about the rest of the season.

For the past few games, I saw the New York Giants version of Jones, who was folding under pressure. Not this game. He made good decisions, reacted quickly, and threw a lot of big passes. As odd as it sounds after a 16-point effort, I actually feel like he’s back on track… I just jinxed it, didn’t I?

On the season, I have Jones ranked 6th in overall efficiency. However, he has faced the 4th-toughest slate of opposing pass defenses, so he gets bumped up to 3rd in adjusted overall efficiency. Amazing.

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