Brother, let me tell you something: writing about the Indianapolis Colts’ passing game becomes a much quicker task when the quarterback in question only attempts 11 passes. I guess that’s what happens when you’re up 24-7 at the half and your running back averages 7.5 yards per carry.
But in this space, we look at the passing game, so let’s get rolling.
What an odd pass chart. There’s so little data here that it’s hard to draw too much from it, but let’s try to get a little blood from this stone.
On these 11 dropbacks, 2 attempts were on called screens (per PFF). On those screens, Richardson was 2/2 for 30 yards and 1 TD. On his 9 non-screen attempts, he was 5/9 for 101 yards and 1 INT. On the non-screen attempts, he is charted with 1 WR drop and 1 batted ball, so his adjusted completion percentage is 66.7%.
Last week we took a look at his numbers when kept clean and they were real bad. This week? Pretty good! When kept clean, Richardson was 7/10 for 131 yards and 1 TD for a QB Rating of 145.8. The 1 WR drop was on a clean dropback, so his adjusted completion percentage when kept clean was 80%. That’s a pretty nice bump from the 52.9% adjusted completion percentage when clean last week.
Richardson helped keep himself clean this week, with an average time to throw of 2.14 seconds on those plays. Lots of see-it-rip-it this week. Overall, his average time to throw was 2.47 seconds, his fastest time in a game this year.
Alright. Let’s look at his biggest play: a go ball to Adonai Mitchell.
The Colts are in a Quads look, with 3 receivers and the running back aligned on the left. Adonai Mitchell [10] is left as the lone receiver on the right. Chidobe Awuzie [13] is aligned tight over Mitchell. Mitchell hasn’t quite had the season I had hoped he would, but he is very fast. Anthony Richardson knows this and is eyeing that as a nice one-on-one match-up.
The Titans are showing a two-high look pre-snap, so that’s something Richardson is looking at post-snap. If the safety to Mitchell’s buzzes out wide, Richardson will likely come back and work the concept underneath. Instead, the Titans spin one of the safeties down, with the safety to Mitchell’s side rotating back to the middle of the field. That tells Richardson that he has Mitchell one-on-one with Awuzie.
Mitchell takes an outside release, avoiding the hands of Awuzie. Mitchell gets Awuzie stacked immediately, allowing Mitchell to get vertical and keep off the red line (the imaginary line 5 yards from the sideline). That gives Richardson plenty of room to work with, putting the ball over Mitchell’s outside shoulder and allowing him to fade with the throw and away from coverage, giving some late separation.
Richardson finishes his dropback, bounces and throws a nice ball to Mitchell, who comes down with a nice catch. I’ve been critical of Richardson’s footwork this season – and we certainly saw it again in today’s game – but this was nicely done by both Richardson and Mitchell.
Album listened to: Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
