Anytime a new head coach comes into town, especially one that will call the offensive plays, there are questions about what kind of offense we’ll see. Sometimes the previous season’s starting quarterback remains in place, which can help mitigate some of the mystery, but that’s not the case for the Indianapolis Colts. They will have a new head coach/offensive coordinator and be rolling out a new starting quarterback in rookie Anthony Richardson. Steichen does have a limited history of play calling we can turn to and has some experience molding a toolsy yet raw quarterback with immense upside, so let’s dig into what we can expect with Steichen calling the plays for the Colts.
Coaching experience
Shane Steichen has been an NFL coach since the 2013 season with the Cleveland Browns. He coached in various roles while with the Chargers, starting as an offensive quality control coach in 2014 and finishing his tenure there as the offensive coordinator prior to moving on to Philadelphia. He has called plays for quarterbacks with a wide variety of skill sets thus far in his NFL career, Philip Rivers, Justin Herbert, and Jalen Hurts, and will now call plays with rookie Anthony Richardson under center in Indianapolis. One commonality between the rookie quarterbacks that Steichen has coached is their shared fantasy football success.
Shane Steichen QBs
2020: Justin Herbert set rookie QB records for touchdown passes (31) and passing YPG (289.1). Averaged 22.9 FPG (+5.8 more than he did last year)
2021-2022: Jalen Hurts ranks tied with Patrick Mahomes and behind only Josh Allen in FPG (23.5)
2023: ???
— Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) May 3, 2023
For whatever it’s worth Steichen has only gone into two seasons as the preferred play-caller 2020 with the Chargers and 2022 with the Eagles. He took over playcalling duties for the Chargers when Ken Whisenhunt was fired in 2019, and for the Eagles in the middle of the 2021 season taking over for Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. Prior to his stints in Philly, and with the Chargers Steichen Because Jalen Hurts is a more comparable player to Anthony Richardson than Justin Herbert of Phil Rivers, for the purposes of this article I wanted to dig into Steichen’s history as the play caller for the Eagles.
2021 Takeover
After a 2-5 start to the 2021 season, Nick Sirianni relinquished play-calling duties to Steichen starting in Week 8 in the Eagles tilt vs. the Detroit Lions. Hurts ended up starting eight games with Sirianni calling plays and seven games under Steichen calling plays. The game plans could not be more different. Sirianni favored a pass-heavy approach and the Eagles averaged 34.6 pass attempts per game, a top 12 rate, while Steichen dialed back the pass attempts to just 23.8 per game, a bottom two rate. The Eagles’ rushing attempts in Steichen-called and Hurts-started games increased from 32 to 39 per game, which correlates with the drop in pass attempts, but also with the fact the Eagles were winning those games. Put plainly, Steichen looked at how the Eagles’ offense operated (pass heavy), and the results (2-5), and adjusted the game plans to maximize the strengths of his roster with Hurts’ rushing ability, and the Eagles’ top-five run-blocking offense. But we’ve seen gimmicky offenses come and go in the NFL and the NFL would surely adjust to the Eagles run-heavy approach in 2022, but Steichen was ready for the challenge.
The Ascension
While the Eagles were the most run-heavy teams during the 2022 season, they also increased their passing volume, averaging 31.2 pass attempts per game. Part of the reason for the increase in pass attempts was the addition of A.J. Brown via trade, and the Eagles offense simply being better and more efficient in 2022. Efficient offenses are a trend when it comes to Shane Steichen-led offenses.
New Colts HC Shane Steichen’s offensive ranks (by EPA per play) as OC:
2022 (PHI) – 2nd
2021 (PHI) – 10th (sophomore Jalen Hurts)
2020 (LAC) – 13th (rookie Justin Herbert)Steichen took over play-calling from Nick Sirianni in the middle of 2021
— Brad Spielberger, Esq. (@PFF_Brad) February 14, 2023
Jalen Hurts continued to be a menace as a rusher, averaging 11 rushing attempts and 50.5 yards per game. While those rushing stats are impressive in and of themselves what really set Hurts apart and allowed him to finish as the QB1 in PPG last season were his rushing touchdowns. The Eagles famously employed a rugby scrum tush push whenever they were within 2 yards of a first down or inside the five-yard line. This led to Hurts finishing second in the league in rushing attempts within the five-yard line (20), while finishing third in touchdowns (9) from the five-yard line.
The Eagles’ controversial QB sneak play, in which two, and sometimes even three players line up behind Jalen Hurts to push, was unchallenged by NFL competition committee.
It’s here to stay for at least 2023.
🎥 @NFL pic.twitter.com/6hPhWWSVD8
— The Athletic NFL (@TheAthleticNFL) March 24, 2023
Hurts was not the only elite fantasy asset the Eagles offense produced in 2022. Despite ranking 24th in pass attempts per game AJ Brown and Devonta Smith both exceeded 136 targets while capturing 29% and 27% target shares respectively. Brown finished as the WR8 and Smith as the WR14, while for good measure Dallas Goedert was the TE5 and secured a 19.4% target share. Brown, Smith, and Goedert secured 69% of all the targets in the Eagles offense, allowing them to thrive despite being in a low-volume passing attack. Despite just 20 receptions on the season, Miles Sanders was even able to finish as the RB22, showing that rising tides do lift all boats.
What to expect
Quarterback:
If you happen to own Anthony Richardson in fantasy your mouth should water at the thought of what Steichen will do with Richardson. Even if Richardson doesn’t improve as a pure passer, his rushing upside is immense. Like Richardson, Hurts was considered a less-than-average passer with unique rushing ability, and Steichen could coax QB6 and QB1 (PPG) seasons out of Hurts in his first two seasons as a starter. Hurts improvement from 2021 to 2022 was nothing less than astounding. He improved from 15th to 3rd in yards per attempt, and from 15th to 4th in adjusted yards per attempt, while finishing 10th in true completion percentage a season after finishing 31st in that stat. Richardson’s pure physical abilities are greater than Hurts, and though still raw as a pure passer, the upside for Richardson is QB1 overall in dynasty leagues.
Wide Receivers:
Michael Pittman was the undisputed target hog for the Colts last year, securing 141 total targets for a 25.6% share last year. While it’s doubtful there’s much more room for an increase in targets, what will be interesting to watch is how Pittman is used. Last year Pittman ranked 108th in deep ball targets with just five on the season. This was in large part due to the woeful quarterback play of the Colts, but Pittman has never finished higher than 34th in deep ball targets in his career. An interesting parallel is AJ Brown, who never ranked higher than 28th in deep ball targets until being ranked 7th overall last year with 28. Brown also saw a marked increase of a full yard in his aDOT from 2021 to 2022, another area where Pittman could improve as he’s ranked 72nd or worse in his three seasons. Richardson’s arm strength is one of his best traits so it’s possible that Pittman could see some deep work sprinkled in his route tree, which could be a boon for his fantasy prospects. Sticking with the theme of concentrated targets, Alec Peirce could be the Colts version of Devonta Smith (lite, very lite). He was able to command a 17.5% target share as a rookie, and even with the addition of Josh Downs, Steichen has a history of limiting his targets to his best players. Even in a low-volume passing offense, similar to the Eagles offenses, it’s plausible that Pierce sees 100 targets while putting up WR3 numbers.
Running backs and Tight End:
Though the tight end position has been targeted heavily under Steichen offenses, it should be obvious there’s a big difference between Dallas Goedert and the Colts’ tight end room of Jelani Woods and Kylen Granson. Though both tight ends are fine as upside darts, neither held the draft capital or prospect profile to match Goedert and I don’t expect either to be featured in the Colts offense. A common theme for Steichen offenses is featuring the best players, which would not be the tight ends in this case.
Special players can change the narrative so until we see what happens with Jonathan Taylor it’s hard to make any definitive claims about the Colts’ running backs for fantasy. One area we can count on though will be the lack of involvement in the passing attack from running backs in Steichen’s offense. In 2020 Eagles running backs finished 18th in targets as a position group, and finished last in 2022. Part of this is surely a function of the offense playcalling itself, but also because of Jalen Hurts rushing ability. Both these factors will remain in place with the Colts, substituting Richardson for Hurts, leaving no reason to expect Colts running backs to be used much in the passing game. If Taylor does get moved to another team, I have no interest in Colts running backs considering their expected lack of involvement in the passing game and Richardson’s rushing prowess.
The Colts offense is going to be fun to watch in 2023, but even if they struggle similar to how the Eagles offense started the 2021 season, I wouldn’t panic and start trading away Colts players off my fantasy roster. Shane Steichen has shown an ability to take a raw quarterback with elite traits and turn them into an elite fantasy asset while providing elite fantasy production throughout the other skill positions.
