Is Colts Run Defense Really That Good?

Tonight when you turn on FOX to watch the Indianapolis Colts play the New York Jets, the announcers will introduce the units and give their official NFL rankings. They’ll tell you that the Indianapolis Colts rank 17th in the league against the run.

If you’re a Football Outsiders reader, you may have noticed that our rankings are a little different. Right now, our DVOA ratings have the Indianapolis Colts as No. 1 in the league against the run.

There’s a big difference between 17th and first! What’s going on here? Let’s break down the Colts’ rushing totals to see how we get from a team ranking 17th in rushing yards allowed to first in efficiency against the run.

The first thing we want to do is take out all scrambles. Those plays count in the official NFL rushing totals but we count them as passes for the purpose of DVOA. The quarterback dropped back to pass, so that’s a pass play. The Colts have faced 15 scrambles for 121 yards, a little bit higher than the NFL average for this season.

The next step is to look at the number of runs faced by the Colts. It turns out that opponents are running against Indianapolis a lot even though the Colts have been very efficient at stopping the run. The Colts have faced 198 run plays, not including scrambles. That’s tied for seventh in the league. This is not really determined by game script; yes, the Colts are 3-5, but their losses have generally been close with the last two coming in overtime. Opponents are not really building their running totals by running out the clock late in games against the Colts. In fact, the Colts rank lower in runs faced if we only look at the fourth quarter; they drop to 12th.

If we look at rushing yards allowed per carry, not including scrambles, we get a much better picture of how efficient the Colts’ run defense truly is. Here’s a look at the top 10 defenses by yards allowed per carry through Week 8, with DVOA and a couple of other stats. I’ve also removed aborted snaps from this count, since those don’t count as defensive plays in DVOA. (Offenses get penalized, but defenses do not get rewarded.)

So, the Colts are currently fifth in yards per carry allowed. They are also near the bottom of the league in how frequently they allow first downs on running plays. But you’ll notice a couple of other differences between the Colts and the other teams listed here. They’ve allowed the fewest number of rushing touchdowns in the league. Touchdowns get a bonus in DVOA, so defenses do better when they prevent them. The Colts also are tied for the league lead (with Kansas City!) in fumbles forced on rushing plays — again, not including aborted snaps.

The Colts also get a small boost in run defense DVOA from opponent adjustments, going from -34.8% to -36.3%.

So the Colts allow a low yards per carry average. They allow very few first downs on the ground and even fewer touchdowns, and they’ve got a few forced fumbles. That’s why our rank of No. 1 in DVOA is a much better measurement of how good the Colts are against the run than the official NFL ranking of 17th.

The Colts currently have the 18th-best run defense ever tracked by DVOA through eight weeks of the season. Here’s a look at where they stand compared to the best run defenses from the first half of the season since the year 2001:

All of these run defenses regressed somewhat from their hot starts and I expect that the Colts’ run defense will regress somewhat as well. Michael Carter is hoping that starts tonight.

Thursday Night Preview

You probably already know that the Colts are a surprising 10th in DVOA so far this season despite their 3-5 record, so I certainly don’t have to tell you that the Colts are superior to the New York Jets. But, of course, the Jets have a backup quarterback and their offense was a lot better last week than it has been the rest of the season. A lot of the outcome of tonight’s game depends on how good Jets backup Mike White truly is. Was last week’s game against Cincinnati a fluke? Plenty of backup quarterbacks have had surprisingly good first games and then reverted to their expected level. For some reason, White’s first start made me think about Kyle Allen and his first start in the final week of 2018, when the Carolina Panthers beat New Orleans 33-14. Of course, that Saints team was sitting starters. Perhaps a better comparison is to Taylor Heinicke’s playoff start against Tampa Bay last year. Heinicke has not lived up to that performance this season, but he certainly has been better than we would have expected from a guy who has been hanging around practice squads for years. White has only been on two teams but he was on and off the Jets pratice squad for the last couple seasons.

The Jets defense also had its best performance of the season last week, but it wasn’t completely out of the normal range of possibilities. The Jets had -15.7% defensive DVOA against Cincinnati. That was their third game this season with a defensive DVOA below zero (i.e. better than average). The reason the Jets are 28th in defensive DVOA is not that their defense can’t play well, but that its bad games (especially the blowout loss to the Patriots two weeks ago) have been stronger than its good games.

One interesting split for the Jets defense is that they’ve actually been pretty good on first downs. They rank sixth in the league overall in first-down defense. But the Jets are the worst defense in the league on second downs, and 24th on third downs. The Colts offense, on the other hand, is better on third downs: 17th on first downs, 20th on second downs, eighth on third and fourth downs.

Quarter and half splits are normally just for fun and not necessarily predictive but the Jets have been much better this year after halftime. Their offense goes from 32nd in the league to 16th, while their defense goes from 30th to 20th. The Colts offense is also better after halftime, going from 24th to ninth. Their defense is the same before and after halftime.

We’ve written a lot about red zone performance regressing to the mean over time and it’s worth noting that the Colts have struggled in the red zone this year. Their offense ranks just 29th inside the 20. Their defense ranks just 28th. You may be wondering how that jives with what I wrote above about not allowing rushing touchdowns; it turns out that the Colts are 31st against the pass in the red zone but first against the run. It will be interesting to see if that holds up when the Jets get near the goal line! As for the Jets, they are actually better in the red zone this year. Their offense goes from 28th to 12th in the red zone, and their defense goes from 28th to 11th.

I do expect the Colts to pull this game out but I like the Jets with a good chance to cover because 10.5 is a pretty big line for a team like the Colts that has clear weaknesses. That’s especially true if White is better than what Zach Wilson has been all year, and he doesn’t have to be as good as last week to qualify as better than Wilson.