Week 13 Colts’ Opposing QB: An analysis of Will Levis

The Colts have yet to face Well Levis. What can we expect?

Thanks to the nflFastR project and NFL NextGen Stats for the timely sources of data.

For those of you new to this, I will publish key QB stats each week judging how well the upcoming opponent QB has performed. Yes, O-Line, receivers, and play-calling impact these numbers but they are primarily QB measures. I will probably modify the charts throughout the season. Commentary will be brief but feel free to let me know in the comments that stats aren’t everything. (click charts for larger view)

The Colts have yet to face Well Levis. What can we expect?

DASHBOARD

• He has only played 5 games, but those opponents were some of the easiest pass defenses in the league (31st opd)
• The Titans implement a run-first offense, but their rushing success has been mixed (27th edp, 18th arsr).
• Levis’ time to throw is longer than average, but not by a lot (15th ttt). That helps him make the longest average attempts of any QB (1st adot), but it also likely contributes to the high pressure rate he endures (2nd pr%). Although the O-line is primarily to blame for that (22nd PFF pass black grades).
• He has decent accuracy and so those long passes result in long completions (20th cpoe, 6th ay/c). However, his receivers aren’t getting him very good YAC and that depresses his yardage efficiency (30th yacoe, 24th ypa).
• He takes a lot of sacks instead of scrambling or throwing the ball away (7th sck%, 20th scr%, 31st ta%). So, on broken plays, he loses almost 4 yards a dropback (31st aay), which drags down his overall yardage per dropback (25th ny/d).
• With such short average yards, it’s not surprising that he isn’t getting many first downs or TDs (29th 1st%, 25th td%).
• He has been fairly careful with the ball (30th td%), but that’s not enough to save his overall efficiency as he is 27th in EPA per dropback and 29th in passing success rate.

HOW WELL?

His weekly numbers are really all over the place, which isn’t surprising for a rookie QB. His last couple of weeks seemed a little more consistent.

HOW FAR?

His passing depth was way, way above average in his initial 3 weeks, but returned closer to normal the last 2 games. Ironically, that led to his longest average completions so far.

TO WHO?

Hopkins is the clear leader in targets and yards, but Levis spreads the ball out pretty evenly to everyone else.

HOW ACCURATE?

His overall accuracy is just shy of league average, but he is is excelling at passes within 10 yards.

HOW FAST?

Other than 1 game, he has had a pretty average time to throw. That’s good when accounting for his long passing depth.

TO WHERE?

He’s very efficient on the short routes.