Below you’ll find all of Warren Sharp’s Futures recommendations heading into the 2020 NFL season, as an exclusive thank you for listening to him on this week’s ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast.

Recommendations:

  • 1.25 units (split): Indianapolis Colts OVER season win total
    • 0.5 units: Colts Over 9 wins -110 (DraftKings)
    • 0.75 units: Colts to make playoffs -154 (FoxBet)
  • 1 unit (split): Minnesota Vikings UNDER season win total
    • 0.5 units: Vikings Under 9 wins +100 (5Dimes)
    • 0.5 units: Vikings Under 9.5 wins -143 (5Dimes)
  • 1 unit (split): Denver Broncos UNDER season win total
    • 0.5 units: Denver Broncos Under 8 wins -130 (5Dimes)
    • 0.5 units: Denver Broncos Under 8.5 wins -172 (5Dimes)
  • 1 unit: Seattle Seahawks to make Playoffs -137 (DraftKings)
  • 0.5 units: Dallas Cowboys to win NFC East -121 (DraftKings)
  • 0.5 units: Cleveland Browns to make Playoffs +130 (FoxBet)
  • 0.5 units: Detroit Lions Over 6.5 -155 (DraftKings)
  • 0.5 units: Cowboys +2 at Vikings on 11/22/20 (Week 11) (SuperBook)
  • 0.5 units: Chargers +3 at Broncos on 11/22/20 (Week 11) (SuperBook)
  • 0.5 units: Jonathan Taylor Over 700.5 yds -110 (DraftKings)
  • 0.5 units: Josh Allen under 7.5 rushing TDs -110 (DraftKings)
  • 0.5 units: DeAndre Hopkins U 8.5 TDs -106 (DraftKings)
  • 0.5 units: Jared Goff over 23.5 passing TDs -110 (DraftKings)
  • 0.25 units: Washington Football Team to finish 3rd in the NFC East +187 (FoxBet)
  • 0.25 units: Jacksonville Jaguars to have worst record in the NFL +275 (FoxBet)
  • 0.25 units: Dallas Cowboys to win the NFC Conference +700 (DraftKings)
  • 0.25 units: Baltimore Ravens most regular season wins +650 (FoxBet)
  • 0.1 units: JK Dobbins Offensive Rookie of the Year +3300 (DraftKings)
  • 0.1 units: Kevin Stefanski Coach of the Year +2500 (Superbook)

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Detailed Write-ups:

Minnesota Vikings UNDER season win total (split 1 unit):

  • 0.5 units: Vikings Under 9 wins +100 (5Dimes)
  • 0.5 units: Vikings Under 9.5 wins -143 (5Dimes)*
  • *Note: if you do not have access to a line of Under 9.5 wins at increased juice, I suggest putting 0.5 units on Vikings to miss the playoffs at +130 (SuperBook)

Vikings win totals by year:

2019: 9 – over (10)
2018: 10 – under (8)
2017: 8.5 – over (13)
2016: 8.5 – under (8)
2015: 8 – over (11)

Mike Zimmer’s team has never put together back-to-back winning seasons and hit the over in his win total in consecutive years.

I don’t expect their 2020 campaign to be any different.

Zimmer is a risk-averse, defensive head coach who just lost his OC and DC this offseason.

I won’t call it an outright rebuild, but the Vikings are trying to “reset” in the worst offseason imaginable to do so. They accumulated the most draft capital and drafted 15 players. But it’s a terrible year to integrate rookies and most won’t be able to make a difference this season given the lack of practices, mini-camps, etc.

They completely overhauled their defense, allowing most of their starting secondary to walk, as well as multiple players along the defensive line. Gone are Linval Joseph (Chargers) and Everson Griffen (TBD) from the line and all three starting corners: Xavier Rhodes (Colts), Trae Waynes (Bengals), and Mackensie Alexander (Bengals). That is a significant upheaval.

The only place the Vikings actually tried to replace a starter that left was with the $9M per year acquisition of DT Michael Pierce from the Ravens in free agency. But Pierce was one of only 17 NFL starters to opt-out of the 2020 season, leaving the Vikings defense with a significant hole.

Meanwhile, this offseason both Head Coach Mike Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman received extensions.

Of course, the Vikings don’t want to lose in 2020, but nothing this team did this offseason, from new coordinators to roster overhaul (with the exception of the Pierce move that failed) to coach and GM extensions shout “we are in win-now” mode.

Their offensive line and defensive lines are both in the bottom-five for the cheapest units in the NFL. LG Pat Elflein was terrible last year, particularly when pass blocking. The team may try to stick Riley Reiff at LG and let rookie second-round LT Ezra Cleveland (Boise State) try to roll at LT. At RG, they used Josh Kline and Dakota Dozier there last year. Kline graded out fine, Dozier graded terrible. But Kline is no longer a Viking and either Dozier or Dru Samia (played 31 snaps last year and was terrible) will be their starting RG.

But let’s look backward before we look forward in greater detail.

The 10-win, 2019 Vikings were:

· #1 healthiest team in the NFL (after being #12 in 2018)
· #4 in sack margin at +20 (after being +10 in 2018)
· #5 in turnover margin at +11 (after being even – +0 – in 2018)
· #7 in fumble recovery luck (after being #32 in 2018)
· #8 in field goal luck (after being #32 in 2018)

What these numbers scream across the board is REGRESSION! For example, in the most important stat, turnover margin, the Vikings were dead-even in 2018 before going +11 in 2019. This is not a team that’s consistently great in those five, key metrics. The reason they won 10 games last year was that all five of those went their way, big time. But it’s likely to regress in 2020.

Speaking of regressing, behind a line that could have two potential downgrades, the passing game is likely to digress without WR Stefon Diggs. Diggs has played 14+ games for the Vikings in each of the last three seasons. Now Adam Thielen will have to carry that receiving load on his own. Most of Thielen’s targets come on the left side of the field within 10-yards of the line of scrimmage. He averaged 2.6 less YPA than Diggs last year, and is far less explosive:

Last year Diggs ranked #20 in missed YPA but Thielen ranked #82. This metric looks at only unsuccessful plays and at how “close” WRs were to recording successful gains when they fell short of the required yardage. In other words, Diggs got very close, setting up better odds of getting back on track the successive down. Thielen was below average.

Last year Diggs ranked #16 in YAS % but Thielen ranked #73. This metric looks at only successful plays, and looks at yardage gained in excess of the cutoff. It measures explosiveness. Like missed YPA, Diggs was great (top-20 again) while Thielen was below average.

The Vikings #2 most targeted player in 2019 after the now-departed Stefon Diggs? A running back. Yes, this is true but only because Thielen was injured and missed games with a hamstring injury. But it underlines a problem area for the Vikings, and that is redundancy.

No redundancy at wide receiver: Thielen will be 30. He doesn’t get to share the field with Diggs and will be marked by better corner backs. The likely #2 in 2020 targets will be rookie WR Justin Jefferson. And we know it’s tougher than ever to play rookies. After that? Bisi Johnson, who was one of the worst WRs in yards per route run in the entire NFL last year? Tajae Sharpe? There’s not much there in the WR cabinet. Lest Thielen goes down again, and then forget about it.

No redundancy at QB: If anything happens to Kirk Cousins, the Vikings have Sean Mannion as backup QB1. Mannion has 2 starts, 2 losses, 0 TDs, 3 INTs, and 5.2 YPA in his five-year career.

Offensively, the Vikings lost two of their most important pieces: offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski and wide receiver Stefon Diggs. Almost hilariously, Stefon Diggs earned 3.9 EPA when RUSHING the ball last year. The entire 2019 season, Dalvin Cook only earned 6.9 EPA, and all other rushers were between 2.0 EPA (Mike Boone) and -10.2 EPA (Alexander Mattison). As a receiver, Diggs’s EPA was 38.4, outpacing all other Vikings receivers by a significant margin (No. 2 was down at 21.4 EPA).

Defensively, the Vikings lost run stuffers and their back-up plan (Pierce). The Vikings defense ranked #9 against the run in 2019 but played the 11th easiest schedule of run offenses. They play the 9th toughest schedule of run offenses in 2020 without their run stuffers. It’s the 4th largest increase in difficulty a run defense will face from 2019 to 2020.

In 2019, the Vikings defense played:

• 2 games vs rookie QBs (David Blough, Daniel Jones)
• 3 games vs bad veteran QBs (Matt Moore, Case Keenum, Derek Carr)
• 5 games v the Bears & Packers & the Broncos’ Brandon Allen
• 6 games vs respectable QBs

Here is what those six QBs produced:

Dak Prescott: 397 yds, 9.0 YPA, 59% success
Matthew Stafford: 364 yds, 8.1 YPA, 56% success
Philip Rivers: 307 yds, 8.1 YPA, 58% success
Carson Wentz: 306 yds, 7.7 YPA, 55% success
Matt Ryan: 304 yds, 6.8 YPA, 53% success
Russell Wilson: 240 yds, 7.7 YPA, 52% success

And those three games vs the bad vets? Moore had 8.1 YPA and a 62% success rate, Keenum also had 8.1 YPA with a 75% success rate, and Carr was at 7.3 YPA with a 61% success rate and a 105 rating.

One of the major benefits the Vikings have enjoyed has been the crowd noise impacting their home field advantage since moving into their new stadium in 2016.

Minnesota has a 24-9 record and is 21-9-3 ATS (70%) at home, which is the best home cover rate in the NFL since 2016. If there are no fans or a reduced number, the reflection of their noise waves off the acoustically designed roof back down onto the playing surface will absolutely hurt the Vikings home field. And while the Vikings have the best cover rate in the NFL at home since 2016, they are just 16-17-1 on the road, covering only 15 of 34 games.

Finally, look at their division. The Bears improved this offseason with a new QB. The Lions will be improved if Matthew Stafford can play the full season (was injured in early November and missed half the season). The Packers are no better but likely not much worse in 2020 from a talent/roster perspective. And all of those teams have the same play callers. The one team with new coordinators, a massive departure of talent defensively and the loss of their best offensive player is the Vikings.

Denver Broncos UNDER season win total (split 1 unit):

  • 0.5 units: Denver Broncos Under 8 wins -130 (5Dimes)
  • 0.5 units: Denver Broncos Under 8.5 wins -172 (5Dimes)*
  • *Note: if you do not have access to a line of Under 8.5 wins at increased juice, I suggest putting 1 full unit on the Under 8 wins at -130

Denver used a lot of 21 personnel last year (4th most in the NFL) and it was their #1 most successful personnel grouping and the #2 most efficient from an EPA/play perspective. However, new OC Pat Shurmur prefers 11 personnel and the team built themselves in that manner this offseason. They drafted two WRs (Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler) and traded FB Andy Janovich to the Browns.

Only 51% of the Broncos 2019 plays came from 11 personnel, but Shurmur had the Giants at 73% 11 personnel last year and the Broncos are likely to fall into that category this season.

Over the last 5 weeks of the season, when Drew Lock was playing QB, his performance out of 11 personnel was 37% success, 5.9 YPA.

Even looking only at early downs (to eliminate 3rd downs which are likely to come from 11 personnel), here was Lock’s efficiency from the three primary groupings:

11: 36% success, 5.0 YPA, -0.11 EPA/att
21: 55% success, 6.1 YPA, +0.11 EPA/att
12: 54% success, 7.2 YPA, +0.03 EPA/att

The efficiencies were not even close. Lock was terrible in 11 personnel, be it all downs or only early downs.

Perhaps adding new WRs will help significantly. Perhaps it’s a terrible offseason to expect two of your three WRs in 11 personnel to be rookies who will significantly improve your efficiency.

Speaking of change, beyond the OC, the offense itself is going to have to incorporate a lot of new players, and quickly.

Gone is the everyone safe for the LG and LT. And the LT, Garrett Bolles has led the NFL in holding penalties since entering the league in 2017.

At C is third-round rookie Lloyd Cushenberry. The center is extremely important for a QB, particularly a QB in his first year as a full-time starter. The center communicates and sets protections. To have a rookie center with a QB playing his first season as the team’s starter isn’t ideal. And the pieces to the right side of the center are highly questionable.

At RG is Graham Glasgow, a new RG the Broncos signed in free agency from Detroit. Glasgow was one of the better-graded guards in the NFL last season.

Next to him, at RT, was to be Ja’Wuan James, who John Elway gave a $51M deal to prior to the season. But James opted-out of the 2020 season. So at RT is Elijah Wilkinson. Wilkinson is out of UMass and graded out #47 of 61 tackles in blocking efficiency last year.  Wilkinson allowed 10 sacks and his sack rate on pass dropbacks was the 2nd worst of any tackle in the NFL.  Moments ago, John Elway signed T Demar Dotson.  Dotson has done well when pass blocking, but has been a real liability in run blocking the last several years, and is going to be a backup in case he needs to fill in elsewhere due to the struggling line in general, namely, LT.

On the defensive side of the ball, Denver lost CB Chris Harris Jr and fellow DB Will Parks. They added AJ Bouye at CB, but he was picked on terribly last season and abused with regularity. Bouye ranked #111 in yards per snap allowed in coverage. Their CBs other than Bouye doesn’t give much hope for the Broncos secondary, as Isaac Yiadom and Davontae Harris were also among the worst corners in Adjusted Yards allowed per coverage snap last season.

The Broncos have the #1 most expensive defense in the NFL in 2020. But the #1 defense should not have question marks like this in the secondary. And the #1 most expensive defense means the offense is going to be cheap, and it is, clocking in at the 2nd cheapest offense in the NFL.

The big buzz in Denver is over QB Drew Lock, so let’s dive in there deeper:

Lock played most of his games at home. He played most of his games against terrible pass defenses. He played most games without any wind, rain, snow, or brutally cold temperatures.

This was a perfect stage for a rookie quarterback to put on display everything he learned while he sat back watching film and learning the office the first three months of the season.

But while the Broncos won four of those five games, Lock’s performance in a perfect situation was not anything to get excited over.

On early downs especially, Lock was barely at league average in completion percentage over expectation through passes at a five-yard depth. Beyond five yards, his accuracy fell off precipitously. It literally was off the map bad when targeting receivers at a depth of 15+ air yards.

And it wasn’t just receivers dropping the ball. Beyond just his completion rate, let’s look at his accuracy by depth:

Up to 5 yards: 87% (avg = 86%) :: 1% above avg
6 – 10 yards: 80% (avg = 77%) :: 3% above avg
11 – 15 yards: 57% (avg = 70%) :: 13% below avg
16 – 20 yards: 45% (avg = 67%) :: 22% below avg
Over 20 yards: 30% (avg = 51%) :: 21% below avg

If we remove Lock’s dreadful Week 15 trip to Kansas City in the snow, Lock’s accuracy improves slightly up to 10 yards, his accuracy improves to just below average 11-15 yards, but he is still 10% to 18% below average 16+ yards downfield.

Comparing Lock to Flacco wasn’t close. Flacco delivered a far more accurate and catchable ball at all depths. In fact, Flacco’s accuracy was at or above average in all depths save for 16-20 yards, which was 62%, falling below average by only 4%.

Looking at NextGen Stats, out of 39 qualifying QBs, Lock’s passes had the ninth-highest expected completion rate. Expected completion rate uses player tracking tags and incorporates factors such as receiver separation from the nearest defender, where the receiver is on the field, the separation the passer had at the time of throw from the nearest pass rusher, and more.

While he was expected the ninth-highest rate of passes, he ranked 27th of 39 QBs in actual completion percentage over expectation, or CPOE.

Pressure also really got to Lock. He was extremely poor when under pressure. And while we typically will expect non-pressured passing performance to correlate closer year over year as compared to pressured passing performance, there are times you need your quarterback to perform when pressured, and Lock didn’t do that nearly enough in 2019.

I forecast the Broncos will face one of the NFL’s five toughest schedules. They play five straight games against top-10 run defenses to start the season, including four top-six run defenses.

Last year, they played just two top-10 run defenses and zero that ranked in the top six.

A lot of pressure is sure to fall on Drew Lock and the Broncos passing attack given the run game may not hit the ground running. And that’s added pressure to this relatively new offensive line.

When so much is unknown this offseason, getting off on the right foot would be ideal. But for Denver, it looks to be easier said than done. The good news is that Denver plays a home game Week 1, where they’ve been absolutely tremendous, but the bad news is they have to travel to Pittsburgh on a short week for Week 2 and then back home to host Tom Brady’s Buccaneers the very next week.

They then have a cross-country road Thursday game the very next week, putting them in a tough spot. And then they play the Patriots in New England. Normally a team might stay out East for back-to-back games in New York and New England, but because they have a longer week due to the Thursday kick, they probably will end up taking four cross-country flights for those two games. It’s a brutal start, and I haven’t even mentioned the Chiefs, who they face in Week 7.

The Broncos swept the Chargers last year by one score in each win, and also beat the Raiders by one point. Expecting them to improve on that record and get to 9 wins to beat us here, in this division, with the #5 toughest schedule in the NFL, is a tall order.

Indianapolis Colts Over Season Wins*
0.5 units: Colts Over 9 wins -110 (DraftKings)
0.75 units: Colts to make playoffs -154 (FoxBet)

*Note: if you do not have access to a line a line of -140 or better on the Colts over 9 wins, I recommend betting 1.25 units on them to make the playoffs at -154. If you do not have access to a line of -170 or better on Colts to make the playoffs, I recommend betting 1.25 units on Colts over 9 wins.

I believe Colts Head coach Frank Reich is one of the most underappreciated play callers in the NFL.

His first year as a NFL play caller was 2014 and he led the Chargers to 9 wins, going OVER their projected win total of 8 games, despite being the 2nd-most injured team in the NFL.

In 2015, as OC the Chargers went 3-9 in one-score games, coupled with being the 6th-most injured, and fell under their projected win total.

In 2016 and 2017, he went to the Eagles as their OC, but was not the #1 play caller. That said, he had a lot of influence on the offense, and the team went OVER their 2016 win total during Carson Wentz’s rookie season. In the 2017 season, they once again went OVER their win total and Reich won a Super Bowl with Nick Foles as QB.

In 2018, Reich was hired by the Colts. Rumors circled as to whether QB Andrew Luck would even be able to return to football. He started camp throwing only a tennis ball. Reich had to adjust everything on offense to help his QB succeed. The Colts went OVER their win total.

In 2019, weeks before the start of the season, Luck retired. Reich had to turn over the offense to Jacoby Brissett. I’ll detail the 2019 season more below, but in summary, the Colts were 5-2 through week 8 last year, and in second-place in the AFC. Their win total was 7.5, so they needed to win only three of their last 9 games to get there. Over the Colts’ final nine games, they led either at halftime or entering the fourth quarter in seven games! But yet they won only two of those games, and landed 0.5 games short of their 7.5 game win total.

Needing to win just one more game, they went 0-4 in games decided by 4 or fewer points down that stretch.

In total as an OC or play caller, prior to last season, the Reich led his team to a 4-1 OVER mark in season win totals.

The last 4 years, this is what Reich has had to work with at QB:

2016: Wentz – Rookie QB
2017: Wentz/Foles – Year 2 QB, gets injured, wins playoff games & Super Bowl with backup
2018: Luck – QB that was throwing tennis balls before the season and wasn’t 100%
2019: Brissett – backup QB

In all but 2017 (the Eagles won 13 games), these seasons saw Reich working with the QB for the first time of his career in that season.

Now in 2020, Reich gets Philip Rivers, who he work with when Reich was the OC of the Chargers.

Additionally, as a redundant piece, he gets Brissett who is still on the roster as the backup. The Colts could have cut Brissett and ate a $12.5M dead cap hit, but instead kept him, and let him count $21M against the 2020 cap.

In the COVID environment, it may prove to be a really wise move.

This team added many key pieces offensively. Already with a great offensive line, they added WR Michael Pittman and RB Jonathan Taylor with their first two picks. Both were highly coveted by Reich for this offense, and they got aggressive to add both.

Then, let’s talk about what they get back.

First, they return what should be a healthy TY Hilton. Hilton played just 485 snaps last year, and was full-go in only five games all season. He played between 56 and 70 snaps in all five of those games. In a five other games, he wasn’t 100% and played only 38 or less snaps. And he missed six games entirely.

Second, they return 3rd-round draft pick from 2019, WR Parris Campbell, who missed the entire 2019 season due to injury.

If you’re reading closely, the Colts were without QB1, WR1 and WR2 last season and still were a good team.

Now they have three WRs that didn’t play full seasons last year:

WR1: TY Hilton
WR2: Parris Campbell
WR3: Michael Pittman

All to pair with a new QB, Philip Rivers.

This is a team that is lead by a solid HC/play caller, has a healthy (important) veteran QB, has a backup QB capable of filling in adequately and has a massive upgrade at the skill positions compared to 2019.

Not to mention that I have them facing the #1 easiest schedule in the NFL this year.

The only way I don’t see them hitting 9+ wins or missing the playoffs is either catastrophic health issues or a terrible, outlandishly bad record in one-score games.

I’ll leave you with some more color on the 2019 Colts and why they were better than their final record indicated.

The 2019 Colts, with a back-up QB, sat 5-2 through Week 8.

They beat the Chiefs in Kansas City, handing Patrick Mahomes just his second regular season home loss of his career.

They also defeated the other 2019 playoff teams they faced: the Texans and Titans. They only lost once against the spread in their first six games.

But then things started to fall apart. They were due to play the 2-4 Steelers, also starting a backup quarterback, and the 0-8 Dolphins in their next two games. The 5-2 Colts dropped both games and that was just the beginning. After the 5-2 start, the Colts went 2-7 the rest of the way.

Over their first seven games, the Colts led at halftime in four games and won all four. They led entering the fourth quarter in three games and won all three. The only win which saw a fourth-quarter comeback was Week 8 against the Broncos. But prior to that, if they had a lead, they kept it.

That’s the way things go for most teams. A team with a lead at halftime wins just under 80% of the time. A lead to start the fourth quarter bumps that up to 83%.

But after the first half of the season, something went bad for the Colts. Quite bad.

Over the Colts’ final nine games, they led either at halftime or entering the fourth quarter in seven games!

The only teams with more late leads (led to start the third or fourth quarter) after Week 8 were the Chiefs and Ravens. That’s it. The 49ers also held late leads in seven games. Every other team held late leads in fewer games.

Remember, winning games with late leads was not a problem for the Colts earlier in the year: the Colts won 100% of the time earlier in the season, 90% of the time the prior season, and the NFL overall wins 80% of the time.

Back of the napkin math shows that seven halftime leads should result in about five, maybe six wins for the Colts. They started 5-2, and with an additional five, maybe six wins, the 2019 Colts should have won 10 or maybe 11 games. And that would have landed them in the playoffs.

But the Colts went 2-5 in those seven games. They blew leads to the Steelers in Week 9 (lost by 2), the Texans in Week 12 (lost by 3), the Titans in Week 13 (lost by 14), the Buccaneers in Week 14 (lost by 3), and the Jaguars in Week 17 (lost by 18).

Of the 608 team-seasons since division realignment in 2002, only 146 times (24%) did a team hold late leads in at least seven games from Week 8 onward.

The Colts were the only team in the NFL to win fewer than 35% of those games.

Their 2-5 (29%) record was the worst in the NFL. In fact, even going back 30 years, no team has a worse record.

A lot of things factored into this. Turnovers, playcalling, and talent.

Over the first half of the season, the Colts had just two games with two turnovers and zero with three. In the second half of the season, they had five games with two or more turnovers and three games with three turnovers.

Over the first half of the season, the Colts were solid on early downs with a second half lead.

They averaged just 6.5 yards to go on third downs, the sixth-lowest rate in the NFL. And they had a 42% conversion rate on these plays, the 12th best in the NFL.

But over the second half of the season, they averaged 8.9 yards to go on these plays. Substantially worse. Remarkably, their conversion rate was nearly identical (43%), the 11th best in the NFL.

The first half of the season, they went 35% pass on these early down plays, just shy of the 38% NFL average.

But in the second half of the season, they upped that to 41% pass. Their early down runs generated 6.4 YPC and a 55% success rate and 10.6 EPA but early down passes generated just 33% success, 5.7 YPA, and -8.5 EPA.

Another issue for them over the second half of the season was injuries. The Colts’ big offensive signing last year was wide receiver Devin Funchess, but he was lost after Week 1. Their best offensive draft pick was second-round receiver Parris Campbell. He broke his hand, suffered a sports hernia, missed a lot of time, and played in just one game after Week 9. The Colts’ projected 2019 11 personnel receivers played in one game together, Week 1.

The biggest loss was clearly WR1 T.Y. Hilton. As the Colts started out 5-2, he played in six of their first seven games (missing the loss to the Raiders in Week 4).

He missed five of the team’s next six games with injuries, which is when the season derailed itself as they lost five of those next six games. All told, when Hilton played, the Colts went 6-4. When he didn’t play, the Colts went 1-5.

And the team also had to deal with the loss of tight end Eric Ebron, who missed the team’s final five games of the season (they went 1-4).

Primarily on account of the lack of talent at receiver, the Colts shifted to become a more run-centric team. In 2018, with Luck and slightly healthier receivers, the Colts went 65% pass in one-score games, the second-highest rate in the NFL. But last year, without Luck and without receiving talent or depth, the Colts shifted to only 52% pass in one-score games, which ranked second-lowest. Their shift from pass heavy to run heavy was, unsurprisingly, the largest shift in the NFL last year.

Compare Luck in 2018 to Brissett in 2019:

  • Luck saw 59% of his passing yardage come via the air, seventh-most in the NFL
  • Brissett saw just 46%, ranked 43rd.
  • Luck averaged 0.9% CPOE, meaning his completion rate was better than expected based on player tracking data looking at pass location, defender proximity, and state of QB
  • Brissett averaged -4.0% CPOE, ranking 36 of 39 quarterbacks last year.

Brissett was extremely susceptible to pressure. His accuracy was 79.9% from a clean pocket but only 57.5% when pressured (31st). Brissett brought some of that pressure on himself when he held the ball in the pocket. His 2.03 average seconds to throw was the second-longest among those 39 qualified quarterbacks in 2019.