Anthony Gordon: Indianapolis Colts
Anthony Gordon is a fun quarterback to watch, and even more enjoyable to talk to.
Let us start with the film. Gordon put up great numbers in Mike Leach’s Air Raid system last season, but part of the production is due to what Gordon can do with his arm, and the aggression he brings to the football field. Gordon is able to make a variety of throws off of various arm platforms, and this is something that he attributes to his baseball background. During his podium session, Derrik Klassen from Rotoworld asked Gordon about his off-platform throws, and he pointed to his background as a middle infielder:
I attribute a lot of it to baseball. I grew up a baseball player, my whole life, didn’t start playing football until my freshman year of high school. A middle infielder too, so you are a lot of the time turning double plays from real awkward angles, any way you can get it out as quick as you can. So once I started playing football I figured out pretty quickly that there’s a fine line between baseball and football but you can use your baseball background to your advantage. I’ve definitely done that. Going to junior college as well, my junior college coach always encouraged me in being able to get the ball out from a bunch of different angles, it really helps against pressure and getting the ball out quick.
Gordon’s strengths as a passer come in reading underneath coverages and attacking them based on defensive alignment and leverage. One of his favorite concepts to run, the Air Raid staple Y-Cross, gives the quarterback four different reads to choose from, from a peek at a vertical route to a number of routes working underneath. As Gordon described it to me:
I love that Y-Cross. That signature Y-Cross, it’s probably my favorite play. I think that translates to the next level. Every team pretty much has some form of Y-Cross and we read ours left to right. We start at that vertical to the sail-route to the cross to the dig. So, it’s one of my favorite plays, it was on every third-down script and it was something that we would always run. Teams knew it would be coming and we would still execute it.
As Gordon says, every team has a variation of Y-Cross in their playbook. But in Indianapolis, Gordon would get the chance to run the ideal system for him: A West Coast rooted system that plays to his strengths of reading underneath coverages, attacking leverage and getting the ball out quickly.
Frank Reich’s offense draws heavily from West Coast influences, and whether it was Andrew Luck two seasons ago or Jacoby Brissett last season, the Colts’ QBs are put in situations where they are tasked with quick reads and attacking the defense horizontally, with vertical concepts mixed into the playbook. An absolutely perfect fit for Gordon.