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Stock Up/Stock Down Following Colts' Switch to Joe Flacco

How does the move to Joe Flacco impact the Indianapolis Colts' offense?

Zach Hicks

Oct 13, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Indianapolis Colts quarterback Joe Flacco (15) throws during pregame warmups against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
Oct 13, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Indianapolis Colts quarterback Joe Flacco (15) throws during pregame warmups against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images / Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
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The Indianapolis Colts made the surprising move this week to bench 22-year-old quarterback Anthony Richardson in favor of 39-year-old Joe Flacco. This represents the Colts' desire to shift away from the developmental path with Richardson in order to win more games now with the veteran journeyman.

This move at the quarterback position will have massive ramifications for the rest of the offense, as the Colts' passing game efficiency should see a healthy uptick in production going forward. While there is plenty of good to go around for the Colts' offense following this move, the overall impact of it is a bit more nuanced.

Here is the stock up/stock down report of how this move at quarterback should impact the Colts.

STOCK UP

Josh Downs/Mo Alie-Cox

Every receiver on the Colts should be on the stock up side of things when it comes to this change at quarterback, but the two pass catchers that benefit the most are Josh Downs and Mo Alie-Cox. For Downs, he has seen a bulk of his production this season with Flacco at quarterback despite averaging a higher yards-per-reception with Richardson.

In a little over three games played with Richardson, Downs totaled nine receptions for 145 yards and one touchdown. In just over two games with Flacco, he had 23 receptions for 206 yards and two touchdowns. While the yardage is at least somewhat close in comparison, Downs is clearly targeted more in the short to intermediate game with Flacco as the starter.

As for Alie-Cox, almost all of his production as a pass catcher this season has come with Flacco at the helm. In Flacco's two starts this year, Alie-Cox has six catches for 78 yards and a touchdown. With Richardson starting, Alie-Cox managed to snag just one catch for 22 yards. Flacco has a bit more faith in the big bodied tight end than Richardson had in his time as the starter.

3rd Down Offense

Arguably the biggest boost the Colts' offense gets with this quarterback move is third-down efficiency. With Flacco on the field this season, the Colts have converted 20-of-42 (47.6%) of their third-down chances, which would be good for third-best in football. With Richardson, the Colts have converted just 18-of-59 (30.5%) such opportunities, which would be 31st in the NFL this season.

The Colts' ability to convert on third down goes beyond just conversion rates as well. Flacco ranks as the best quarterback in the entire league (by a wide margin) in EPA/play on third down this season while Richardson ranks 39th out of 39 qualifying quarterbacks in that same metric.

One could argue that Flacco is on an unsustainable heater on third down at the moment but even if he regresses down to average, it's still a sizeable upgrade over the Colts' previous starter at the position.

STOCK DOWN

Run Game Efficiency

The biggest fallout from this move at quarterback is the Colts' early-down success, particularly when running the football. The Colts have been a pass-heavy offense with Flacco at the helm this season, and the lack of creativity in the run game shows when the mobile quarterback is removed from the equation.

Indy's run game success rate with Richardson this season was a steady 43.8%. That number plummeted to just 26.9% with Flacco in the game this season. To give proper context to these numbers, Flacco has only played alongside Jonathan Taylor for a handful of his snaps this season, but even then Taylor averaged just 3.6 yards per carry with Flacco at quarterback (compared to 5.2 yards per carry with Richardson).

The Colts' ground game is built around the +1 QB and a lot of the team's creativity in that department goes out the window if Richardson isn't in the game. Unless the Colts drastically shift the entire run game to more of an under center approach (which is unlikely at this point in the year), the run game will suffer a bit from this move at quarterback.

Sack Negation

The other major downside to the quarterback move is sack negation. For all of Richardson's faults, he is fantastic at escaping negative plays in the backfield and giving the offense a chance to get back to the line of scrimmage. His pressure-to-sack rate is 16.1% this season, while Flacco's currently sits at 21.4%.

Richardson's ability to escape sacks also shows up in other areas as well. Net yards per attempt (NY/A) measures how many yards a quarterback creates on their drop backs by this simple formula; (pass yards - sack yards)/(passing attempts + sacks). Richardson's NY/A currently sits at 6.29 while Flacco is a tick lower at 5.85 this season despite the difference in passing production.

Richardson's ability to negate sacks and keep the Colts in favorable situations will certainly be lost to some degree with this move to Flacco.

The Bottom Line

The Colts moving from Richardson to Flacco certainly moves the needle for this offense, but does it move the needle enough to make a massive difference? The team is essentially sacrificing rushing efficiency for passing efficiency, and even for that to work they need Flacco's insane level of play on third down to maintain going forward.

Time will tell if this move does much of anything for the Colts' organization. This is a win-now type of maneuver midseason, so anything short of making the playoffs should be seen as a failure from this change at quarterback.

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Zach Hicks
ZACH HICKS

Zach Hicks is the Lead Analyst for HorseshoeHuddle.com. Zach has been on the NFL beat since 2017. His works have appeared on SBNation.com, the Locked On Podcast Network, BleacherReport.com, MSN.com, & Yardbarker.com. 

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