Despite going into this game without Anthony Richardson under center, the Indianapolis Colts put up 33 points on the road and still somehow lost by 12 to the 2-13 Giants. That has already been covered on this fine site, so we’re just going to focus on what we always focus on here: the passing game.
This is the place where I usually put up the passing chart for the week, but NFL Next Gen doesn’t have a passing chart for the Colts this week. In fact, there are no charts for either the Colts or the Giants this week. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before.
We do, however, have some different sources. Here’s a passing chart from RBSDM. We don’t get the exact position on the field, but we do have the quadrant and air yards, so we’ll take it.
We also have a nice little passing summary from StatMuse:
The 2 interceptions stand out, but the numbers paint a pretty nice picture overall for Flacco. If it’s your thing, PFF tends to agree, giving him a 76.8 passing grade on the day. He was great when kept clean, turning in an adjusted completion percentage of 80.8% and throwing 2 TDs, with an ADOT (Average Depth Of Target) of 10.6 and an average time to throw of 2.32 seconds.
It was the pressure that got him. On the day, Flacco was pressured on 14 dropbacks. On those, he was 6/12 for 90 yards, 2 INTs and 2 sacks, including this duck-and-chuck on 2nd & 9 from the Giants 29 on the first drive of the game.
Overall, I think the numbers paint a pretty accurate picture of what the film shows. More good than bad, but still some bad and that absolutely bit them in this game. But when it was good, it was pretty good. We got Flacco hitting back-shoulder throws.
We got him ripping slants.
We got perfectly placed balls across the middle.
And we got big completions while being murdered.
Before we get out of here, let’s take a closer look at another nice throw from Flacco: his touchdown pass to Alec Pierce.
The Colts are in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR), with Joe Flacco [15] in shotgun. They start in a 3×1 set, with Alec Pierce [14] as the lone receiver on the right side of the field. Before the snap, Josh Downs [1] goes in jet motion under the line. You can see the Giants communicating on the motion, with Ty Summers [47] motioning out to Cordale Flott [28]. Summers is telling Flott to bump outside with the motion, but Flott doesn’t see him until fairly late, which leads to confusion on the defense.
The Colts are running a version of Smash to that side, with Downs as the underneath receiver and Pierce on the corner route. With the confusion on defense, both Summers and Flott converge on Downs in the flat, which doesn’t allow either of them to fall under the corner route from Pierce.
That leaves Jason Pinnock [27] alone on Pierce, with Pierce running an out-breaking route and Pinnock starting with inside leverage on Pierce.
Pinnock tries to close the distance and Flott tries to peel off Downs and fall under the throw, but Flacco leaves the ball up, which allows the 6’3″ Pierce to go up and make a play.
And make a play he did. Nice throw and a great job by Pierce to high-point this ball and come down with a touchdown.
Albums listened to: Lush – Spooky; Slowdive – Slowdive; MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks