NFL Open Thread: Break up the Colts edition
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Here is something I absolutely did not see coming:
The Indianapolis Colts, a team that finished 8-9 in 2024 and hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2020 season, currently sport the NFL’s best record at 6-1, and they have the NFL’s best offense by a runaway margin. Through Week 7, the Colts rank first in Offensive DVOA, Passing DVOA, and Rushing DVOA, and it’s not even close in any category. The extent to which the Colts are steamrolling every defense they face is singularly impressive, and entirely unexpected given their previous quarterback situations.
Before the season began, Colts general manager Chris Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen signed veteran quarterback Daniel Jones to a one-year, $14 million contract with $13.15 million guaranteed, primarily to provide competition for quarterback Anthony Richardson, the team’s fourth overall pick in the first round of the 2023 draft. Richardson was supposed to end the Colts’ quarterback drama that has existed since Andrew Luck’s surprise retirement on August 24, 2019. Since then, the Colts have rifled through a litany of guys at the game’s most important position – Jacoby Brissett, Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Nick Foles, Gardner Minshew, Joe Flacco, and Richardson – with very little to show for any of it.
Given Jones’ NFL past – the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft was outright released by the New York Giants, his first team, on November 22, 2024 –this is especially unexpected. Jones was signed by the Minnesota Vikings a week later as Sam Darnold’s backup, but even though Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell is one of the game’s great quarterback whisperers, nobody in their right minds thought that Jones would come out of that career crucible playing the way he is now.
Through seven games, Jones has completed 154 of 214 passes for 1,790 yards, 10 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 105.9. Jones has the NFL’s highest EPA per dropback at +0.27, and what he’s done under pressure this season is particularly insane. Most quarterbacks struggle to break even from an efficiency standpoint when they’re pressured, but Jones thrives on it, and nobody who saw Jones play in a Giants uniform would ever believe it. Jones has completed 44 of 72 passes when pressured for 590 yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 110.3.
Jones’ EPA per dropback under pressure of +0.12 is specifically ridiculous in that he’s the only starting quarterback this season with a plus sign there – Dak Prescott has the NFL’s second-best EPA per dropback under pressure at -0.02, and Jones is the first quarterback to have a positive EPA per dropback under pressure since Josh Allen’s +0.02 in 2020. The last quarterback with a higher EPA/play under pressure was Patrick Mahomes in 2019, at +0.13.
Even granting that 1)Steichen is a very good playcaller and 2)the weaponry is very impressive, with Tyler Warren in particular being a coup and 3)Jones’s body of work in New York was more “mediocre and injury-prone” than “completely unplayable,” this is still about as out-of-nowhere a QB success story as I’ve ever seen. And perhaps it will just be a brief flash of glory like Case Keenum or Nick Foles, but it doesn’t feel like it.
The other takeaways are 1)yikes Anthony Richardson is a gigantic bust and 2)color me very skeptical about whether Joe Flacco can keep winning in Cincinnati.