Indianapolis Colts Passing Chronicles: Joe Flacco in Week 9

Let’s head back to the film room and take a closer look at Joe Flacco’s Week 9 performance as the Indianapolis Colts’ quarterback.

Last week, I did a big film breakdown of what we saw from Anthony Richardson in the Indianapolis Colts’ Week 8 loss to the Texans. While the film wasn’t quite as bad as the 10/32 stat line would have you believe, there still were enough recurring issues with Richardson’s process/footwork that I was fine with him getting benched. “Get some competent play from Joe Flacco while Richardson works on his core issues.”

What did we get from Joe Flacco? Well…

If you use your imagination, you can almost picture the outline of Oogie Boogie.

(I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.)

The standard numbers are bad. He completed 59.3% of his passes for 6.6 Yards Per Attempt and a negative CPOE (Completion Percentage Over Expected). That’s on an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 7.6 yards, the lowest mark of this season for Flacco (per PFF).

The advanced numbers aren’t much better. His adjusted completion percentage was 68%. He was kept clean on 56.7% of his dropbacks, completing 64.7% of his passes for 124 yards (7.3 YPA).

It’s not just the numbers: he straight-up missed multiple guys. Some of the misses could potentially be on the receivers not throttling down against zone, but most of his misses just looked like misses.

The silver lining here is that the Vikings are the #1 defense in the league (per DVOA). While the Bills aren’t exactly a walk in the park, they have the 15th ranked pass defense per DVOA (12th overall) and don’t run half the funky stuff up front that the Vikings do. So we’re likely to see a better showing from the passing game this week, which would certainly be a nice change of pace.

To the film. As we try to do in this space, we’re finding a fun play from this past weekend and digging in a bit. Because, even as frustrating as the game can be at times, there are always fun and cool things happening.

This play sees the Colts getting to Dagger – a core passing concept in pretty much every offense in the league – in a creative way. The throw goes elsewhere, but this is still a really cool concept.

Dagger is a two-man concept, consisting of the inside receiver running a clear-out route and the outside receiver running an in-cutting route behind it. The idea is that the inside receiver helps clear space for the outside receiver in the middle of the field.

The Colts are in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in shotgun. They have a bunch to the left, with Mo Alie-Cox [81] at the point, Michael Pittman Jr. [11] as the inside man and Josh Downs [1] as the outside man.

At the snap, Pittman bubbles outside, with the initial step from Alie-Cox and Downs going up the field. This looks like a bubble screen to Pittman, something the Colts show a lot. They’re trying to trigger the Vikings down on the bubble screen, then release vertically behind it.

After that initial action, Alie-Cox releases vertically as the clear-out man and Pittman works back inside and behind Alie-Cox.

Flacco is looking to attack the middle of the field. He’s looking to Alie-Cox first, then working back to Pittman. But the Vikings are a tricky bunch. They’re showing a single-high defense pre-snap, with Cam Bynum [24] playing the post. At the snap, they switch to an inverted Cover 2 look, with Bynum dropping down to the middle of the field: the exact area the Colts are looking to attack.

With Flacco starting to feel the pressure, he moves off the middle and finds his way down to hit Downs in space.

Downs gets the ball and picks up 5 yards on 2nd & 9. I’ve seen a couple different measurements for Success Rate over the years, but the one I’ve heard most recently from coaching circles is gaining 50% of the necessary yards on 1st or 2nd down and 100% of the necessary yards on 3rd or 4th down. By that standard, this was a successful play.

Really fun way to get to one of your core passing concepts, by working it off a horizontal, behind-the-line-of-scrimmage play you show quite a bit.

Albums listened to: The Raveonettes – Pe’ahi; Bon Iver – i,i

Colts Passing Chronicles: Anthony Richardson finds AD Mitchell for big gain

Colts’ QB Anthony Richardson connected with AD Mitchell for a 30 yard gain vs. the Packers. Let’s take a closer look at how that play unfolded.

To say the Colts struggled to pass the ball this week would be an understatement. Before we get too deep into it, let’s look at Anthony Richardson’s passing chart.

He spread the ball around a bit, not locking onto one part of the field. That’s good! Also, we can knock one interception off his total there, because Hail Mary interceptions shouldn’t count. That’s the platform I’m running for office on.

One thing these charts don’t account for are the drops. And there were quite a few drops. PFF has them listed with three, but I’ve yet to find a place that accurately charts drops. Most places tend to skew more charitable to the receiver, which is fine except it makes it hard to get the full view of the QB. Personally, I counted 5 passes that hit a receiver in the hand that ended up being incomplete. There’s also a spike thrown in for good measure. So not a great day for Richardson, but it could have been a little better with some help from his receivers.

Richardson had an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 11.6. That’s down from his 16.4 ADOT we saw in Week 1, but still higher than the 2023 ADOT Leader, Will Levis (11.1). So I don’t expect the number to be this high every week, but maybe it will. The Colts certainly have the speed and weapons to try to operate that way, but they’ll need to be better in the short-to-intermediate areas to be a more consistent offense.

There were flashes from this passing offense that were really exciting, but, for the most part, they remained flashes. Moments of brilliance, bridged by moments of madness.

Let’s look at a fun play before we get out of here. This is Adonai’s Mitchell only catch of the game: a 30 yard gain on 1st & 10 early in the 4th quarter.

With the Colts down 16-3, the Packers come out with a two-high safety look. It looks like the Packers know the Colts need to pass and are looking to put an umbrella over the offense. The two deep safeties for the Packers are Xavier McKinney [29] and Evan Williams [33].

On the left side, the Colts are looking to take a shot, with Alec Pierce [14] running a post from the outside and Adonai Mitchell [10] running an out-and-up from the slot.

Just before the snap, McKinney bails to the post and Williams drives down on Mitchell, changing from a two-high safety defense to a single-high. It’s a nice bit of disguise and solid rotation, but the Colts have the perfect play-call on and Richardson sees the defensive rotation and knows exactly where to go with the ball.

By firing down hard on the slot, Williams leaves himself open to a double-move, which is exactly what Mitchell is doing. Williams follows Mitchell on the out, but can’t catch up when Mitchell turns upfield.

With Pierce dragging the boundary defender to the middle of the field, there’s an ocean of space for Mitchell.

Richardson throws a perfect ball, dropping over the top of Williams and to the outside where the closing Carrington Valentine [24] can’t get to it.

Nicely done all the way around.

Album listened to: Haley Heynderickx – I Need to Start a Garden

Colts Passing Chronicles: Richardson Goes Deep vs. Texans

Let’s examine and take a closer look at Anthony Richardson’s two deep touchdown passes from the Colts’ Week 1 matchup with the Texans.

A tough loss to a division opponent in Week 1. The Colts showed some nice things but, ultimately, were gassed on defense at the end of the game and weren’t able to stop the Texans from closing it out. That’s no shot at the Colts defense: they played 76 defensive snaps this past weekend, the most snaps any opposing defense faced in Week 1. On the other hand, the Colts offense ran 43 plays, the fewest of any offense in Week 1.

Let’s back up for a second and set the stage for this article. Every week, we’ll be digging into the Colts passing offense. We’ll kick things off with a high level look using stats (some standard, some advanced), then dig into a play or two. Sometimes it’ll be a big play. Sometimes it’ll just be a fun play.

We’ll start out by looking at his passing chart (from NFL Next Gen Stats), so let’s get rolling.

He broke it. Anthony Richardson broke the chart. This chart goes up to +50 air yards, and Richardson beat that mark while falling backwards, surrounded by enemies. Truly an insane feat. According to Ben Baldwin’s RBSDM, Richardson had an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 16.4. In 2023, among QBs who accounted for at least 20% of their teams passing attempts, Will Levis led the league with an ADOT of 11.1. And Levis only has two modes: drinking mayo and hucking the ball (and he’s all out of mayo).

In his limited time last year, Richardson had an ADOT of 8.0. So 16.4 is a wild number, but it’s also not something I expect to see every week. Or maybe we will! I’m excited to find out.

Everything else is within 20 yards (although this chart does seem to be missing the deep throw to Pierce in the 4th quarter). It’s also pretty evenly distributed. Targeted the left side of the field more than the right, but not by much.

Given some of the throws he missed, I expected his CPOE (Completion Percentage Over Expected) to be lower than the -4.3% mark we’re seeing here. Obviously negative isn’t great – and his 47.4% completion on the day doesn’t exactly inspire confidence – but a small negative number like that speaks to the difficulty of some of the throws Richardson was attempting this week.

When Richardson did drop back to pass, he did so with a heavy play action game to work off of. The Colts used play action on 45.8% of Richardson’s dropbacks (per NFL Pro), the 2nd highest mark of the week (the highest was Justin Fields’ eye-popping 53.6% play action rate). The highest user of play action in 2023 was Kirk Cousins at 31.1%, so I don’t expect that 45.8% to stick, but it’s always worth pointing out outliers early and seeing if it’s a one-off approach, or if that’s a new trend to pay attention to throughout the season.

Alright, that’s enough numbers for now. Let’s look at a play.

You know what? It’s Week 1. Let’s look at two plays; the touchdown passes. Mostly because the bomb to Pierce is fun, but not a lot to unpack. So let’s start there.

Play 1: 1st & 10, 5:20 remaining in the 1st quarter

Colts are in 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR) in a tight formation. The Texans respond with a 4-3 look. One safety is in the box early, but backs out to a pinched two-high look before the ball is snapped.

The Colts run a two-man concept with max protect up front. Ashton Dulin [16] pushes vertically to the middle of the field, drawing the two deep defenders on his side. At 15 yards, Dulin plants and cuts to the sideline, drawing the defenders with him and holding them to that intermediate area.

Meanwhile, Alex Pierce [14] is running a deep post. Although, based on what we’re seeing here, it may just be called the “I’m faster than you” route. Pierce pushes vertically up the field, gives a little fake to the outside, then cuts to the post, splitting the two defenders over him.

Richardson lays this it up over the top with perfect placement on a ball that traveled 70 yards in the air.

Absurd.

Play 2: 1st & 10, 12:22 remaining in the 4th quarter

Once again, the Colts are in 12 personnel in a tight formation. Texans are showing a 4-3 look with a Quarters look on the back end. The Colts initially align with Dulin as the lone receiver on the left and Adonai Mitchell [10] as the lone receiver on the right, but Dulin motions to the right pre-snap.

The Colts are running a Dagger concept off motion, with Mitchell running the vertical clear-out route and Dulin running a deep in-cutter underneath.
The play action doesn’t influence the linebackers, who drop deep to take away the middle of the field. Jonathan Taylor [28] releasing to the flat removes one of those linebackers from falling under Dulin, but the man in the middle rallies to try to take it away.

However, Richardson rips this throw just past his outstretched hands. With the deep safety running with Mitchell, Dulin finds himself with a really nice lane to speed through. He erases the angle at the end and uses a stiff-arm to find his way to glory.

An absolute dart from Richardson and a great play from Dulin ends with a 54 yard touchdown.

Albums listened to: The Heavy Heavy – One of a Kind; Hinds – VIVA Hinds; Hazel English – Real Life