Week 8 Colts Defensive Rankings and Analysis:

Each week during the season, I will be walking through the data from the previous Colts game and analyzing the numbers to form a sort of “what happened” narrative, as well as comparing the Colts against all other teams in the league. For a glossary of the stats listed, reference Season Stats. Thanks to Pro Football Reference, NFL.com, Football Outsiders, and the nflFastR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.

In a 12 drive game, it doesn’t take a lot for your opponent to accumulate 23 points, especially when your offense basically gifts them 7 of those points. However, the Colts defense did an admirable job containing the Houston offense.

The Colts held the Texans to a 67.7% Drive Success Rate, which is a 70th percentile defensive effort. They let the Texans into the red zone on 5 drives, but held them to a field goal on 3 and forced a turnover on another.

TEAM TOTALS

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

1.92 defensive Points per Drive ranks the Colts defense 10th best for the week, while opponent DSR was 7th lowest. Indy kept Houston to an 11th lowest 5.2 yards per play, which helped limit their ability to get first downs (11th lowest 1st/ply).

It was a good effort that helped boost the Colts defensive season ranking from 17th to 14th in PPD, but they remain stuck at 21st in opponent DSR.

PASS TOTALS

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

Against the pass, the Colts were about average. C.J. Stroud was held to the 14th lowest EPA per dropback and tied for the 15th lowest Pass Success Rate. Stroud had minimal success moving the chains on dropbacks, with only the 13th highest conversion rate and he found his yardage efficiency was capped at 15th net yards per dropback.

On the year, that bumps the Colts up 1 spot to 21st in passing defense.

RUSH TOTALS

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

The Colts were good against the run, forcing the Texans to the 9th worst adj Rush Success Rate. They gave up only 3.3 yards per carry (11th lowest), which helped keep the conversion rate to only 17.2% (8th lowest).

They continue to struggle stopping the explosive carry, but forcing a lost fumble helped counter that and the Texans EPA per carry was the 3rd worst in week 8.

On the season, the Colts run defense climbs 1 spot to 10th best against the run.

CONCLUSION & LOOK AHEAD

Even though it ended with a loss, this was a good showing by the defense. Absent the Anthony Richardson pick at the end of the first half, this might have been a 16 point game for the Texans, which would have been their 2nd lowest point total of the year.

On the season, the defense is hovering just around average.

The next challenge is a tough Minnesota offense. The Vikings score the 11th most points per drive (2.23 PPD) off of a not-as-impressive 16th Drive Success Rate (70.3% DSR). They have benefitted from good starting field position (11th best), but they have had turnover problems (10th most).

Somehow, Sam Darnold has managed to earn the 10th best EPA per dropback of any starting QB. That’s complimented by an 11th best Passing Success Rate, so he isn’t living off of explosive plays, rather simply consistently moving the chains (11th best 1st%). About the only real weakness I see in his numbers is that he holds the ball a long time leading to a lot of sacks. He is the 7th most pressured QB and the Colts need to capitalize on that.

The Minnesota run game is not very good. They have the 23rd ranked adj Rush Success rate earning only 3.9 yards per carry (11th lowest) and the 6th worst conversion rate on carries. If our defense can contain the explosive rushes, we have a chance of making Minnesota a 1-dimensional offense.