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Much has been made about the Colts' 7-8 playoff record in the past decade. Despite the Colts' offense and its quarterback being among the most consistently prolific in NFL history, the blame for this record has been placed squarely on their shoulders by popular opinion.
It does not matter if the Colts are the only one out of the four teams with a double digit number of playoff games since 2001 to not field a consistently strong defense. It does not matter that the Colts defense has given up two touchdowns in the first three drives of three different playoff games.
It does not even matter that the Colts have fielded one of the most consistently poor special teams units in recent memory—a unit that blew two field goals in the postseason that would have sent one playoff game to overtime and won another one in overtime, and is the only one in NFL history to allow a kickoff return for a touchdown on the opening drive of a Super Bowl.
Popular opinion has decreed that the Colts offense, and namely its quarterback, simply did not do enough to win.
Using the data made available through the NFL’s Game Books, which currently go back to the 2001 season, I examined this popular opinion more closely using all playoff games since the 2001 playoffs.
Of the 14 offenses with at least half a dozen playoff games since 2001, the Colts offense actually scored the second most points per game (23.2) behind only the Steelers offense (25.1).
Keep in mind that I am only referring to points actually scored by offenses, which excludes any points scored on returns by defense and special teams.
While this fact alone would be impressive enough for many, consider that the Colts offense scored those points despite averaging the fewest drives per game (10.6) of any of those 14 offenses (drives ending in kneel downs were excluded).
It being easier to score more points with more drives may be more or less common sense, but it bears mentioning that the only other offenses to average less than 11 drives per game out of the 14 offenses both averaged under 20 points per game, ranking 11th and 12th out of 14.
By some apparent coincidence, both of these offenses are from New York. Both the Giants and Jets averaged 19 points per game on 10.6 and 10.7 drives per game respectively.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Steelers offense, who ranked first in points per game, tied for second in drives per game with 12. The Ravens offense also averaged 12 drives per game and the Packers offense was first with 12.1 drives per game.
As you may already be expecting, the Colts offense averaged the most points per drive (2.19) of any of the 14 offenses.
The Steelers offense ranked second with 2.09 points per drive, and the Rams offense ranked third with 2.01 points per drive. The remaining 11 offenses averaged between 1.02 (Ravens offense) and 1.95 (Patriots offense) points per drive.
An additional consideration when putting scoring into context is field position. The smaller the distance an offense has to move the ball to score, the better their chances are of scoring.
The Colts offense had the worst average field position of the 14 offenses (29.1) and was one of only two offenses to start behind the 30 on average (the other being the Chargers offense at 29.4).
Perhaps not so surprising, the same Steelers offense that ranked first in points per game and second in points per drive ranked first in field position (33.9).
Similarly, the same Patriots offense that ranked fourth in both points per drive and points per game (21.7) ranked third in field position (32.1).
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