How Donte Moncrief Can Boost Colts' Downfield Passing Attack

Well, it's official: Donte Moncrief can play. 

We saw hints during the first few weeks of the season, when Moncrief got a few snaps here and there. But his usage seemed to drop off, and his chance at contributing shrunk. 

Then came a golden opportunity, as an injury to Reggie Wayne forced the veteran receiver to miss the Colts' Sunday afternoon matchup in Pittsburgh this last week. In case you've been living under a rock, Moncrief took full advantage of the opportunity, catching seven passes for 113 yards and a touchdown. It was one of the better performances ever by a Colts rookie. 

Moncrief has been hyped by fans and analysts all season, and it seems that hype was completely warranted. 

Every time Moncrief has gotten playing time this season, good things have happened. With extended time in a game that actually mattered, we were able to see the full potential of Moncrief on the Colts' offense. With Moncrief, the Colts are given another big-play weapon, something that could transform the offense from one of the league's top 10 to one of the elite. 

Just how exactly does Moncrief bring a needed element to the Colts' offense? After all, the trio of T.Y. Hilton, Reggie Wayne and Hakeem Nicks sounded pretty good at the beginning of the season, not to mention the quartet of tight ends and running backs. 

Unfortunately, preseason predictions are only predictions, and without Moncrief, the Colts' downfield passing attack has a ceiling limited by Nicks' inability to win one-on-one matchups and Wayne's age catching up with him. 

With Moncrief, the field can be stretched to new limits that open up space for Luck to work his magic (and make no mistake, some of his work on Sunday was magic). 

Another Yards After the Catch Threat

While Hilton is one of the league's best receivers, there is nobody on the Colts' roster that can move with the ball like Moncrief. He has the size and the speed to create big plays after the catch, with strength to break tackles and agility to make people miss. 

It started early on against the Steelers. After Luck's infamous pick-six, the Colts desperately needed a score, but faced a 3rd-and-3 at their own 20 early in the drive. Lining up with trips on the right side, Pep Hamilton called a well-designed play to get somebody free out of the trips lineup. 

NFL Game Rewind

As it so happened, Moncrief got the open space, and Luck found him open in the middle of the field. 

Now, with this much room, it's likely a big gain for just about anybody. But there are two defensive backs who immediately have the angle to get Moncrief down for a 20 or 30-yard gain, but he outruns everybody to the corner and then makes a nice move back inside to gain an extra 10 yards at the end of the play. 

NFL Game Rewind

It's not the only thing that backs up Moncrief's ability after the catch. Moncrief has averaged 6.9 yards after the catch, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), nearly twice as much as Hilton's 3.9. Moncrief has been the only receiver to find success on a wide receiver screen for Indianapolis, and his ability to take those shallow dig routes or quick slants for extra yards means that defenses have to play him tighter on the release. 

Chemistry With the Quarterback

One underrated part of passing, and receiving, performances is the relationship between the quarterback and wide receiver. You can have a good quarterback and a good receiver, individually, but if they don't have good chemistry together, their production is going to have a low ceiling. 

That's especially true of possession receivers, who rely more on shorter routes that rely on timing. If a quarterback knows exactly when the receiver is going to come out of his break, he can deliver accurate throws in small windows. If not, it makes those plays much more difficult to accomplish. 

For Hakeem Nicks, this has been an enormous problem to start the season. Luck and Nicks have no discernible chemistry on the field, and there is consistent miscommunication or mis-timed plays that result in incompletions or even interceptions. 

Take this third down, for example. 

NFL Game Rewind

Nicks is the first read here, running a simple curl. Luck looks to the middle at first so as not to stare him down, but as soon as he looks to Nicks he is pulling the trigger. 

The problem is that the two individuals expect different things. Nicks breaks inside, and not just an inside turn for a curl, he actually takes a step to the inside. But Luck isn't throwing to that spot, he's throwing to the outside like it's a comeback route breaking outside. 

NFL Game Rewind

Who's right? Based on the safety lurking inside, I'd lean toward Luck, but it really doesn't matter. The point is the lack of understanding between the two, and this isn't something that just occurred in one play. That's a big part of the reason why Luck rarely targets Nicks (targeted on less than 15 percent of his routes, lowest among the Colts' top four receivers per Pro Football Focus, subscription required), and when he does, things don't work out so well. 

For Luck and Moncrief, there's more of a connection. Moncrief has actually been targeted at a higher rate, per route run, than any other Colts receiver, just passing Hilton (23.9 percent versus 23.5 percent). Luck just seems to find Moncrief on the field, similarly to the way he finds Hilton, or even Reggie Wayne in past years.

Nicks' skill set means he's limited to shorter timing routes as a possession receiver, but he doesn't have the timing with Luck for those to be very successful (among other reasons). Moncrief stretches the field more as a deep threat and has the speed to get open on crossing routes, which means Luck doesn't have to rely on timing to get him the ball. 

Downfield Threat, Similar to Hilton

And that brings us to our last point, Moncrief's direct impact as a downfield threat. 

This is where he's been most impressive, and his touchdown on Sunday was once again a great piece of work between Luck and the rookie. 

About five seconds before the touchdown pass, I tweeted this: 

I was impressed with how much Luck trusted Moncrief early in this game, especially given that Moncrief hadn't played significant snaps in about four weeks. But Luck kept going back to the rookie out of Ole Miss, and Moncrief rewarded him. 

NFL Game Rewind

On this particular play, Luck works his magic with the safeties, forcing Troy Polamalu to stay inside on Dwayne Allen before unleashing a perfect pass to Moncrief. 

NFL Game Rewind

The amount of ground Polamalu has to make up after taking a step inside is too much, and Moncrief uses his speed to beat Cortez Allen down the sideline. Luck's throw is just long enough to get over the corner but shallow enough that Moncrief can go up and get it, rather than be pushed up against the sideline to make a toe-touch grab. 

With the rookie's first touchdown comes high expectations now. Moncrief broke out in the game, and fans will expect a high level of performance from him if he can get in the game. There's good reason to believe in him.

To get a more concrete idea of Moncrief's impact, I spoke with the guys at numberFire, who use Net Expected Points (NEP) to judge a player's impact on the team's scoring chances on each play. Moncrief, as it so happens to match the eye test, has been very efficient with his chances. 

According to numberFire CEO and founder Nik Bonaddio, Moncrief has a Net Expected Points (NEP) of plus-0.83 per target, which is on the high end of receivers for the year. Randall Cobb leads all receivers in NEP/T with 1.09, with DeSean Jackson second at 0.95. A few players down are those around Moncrief's efficiency, like Antonio Brown (0.84), Jordy Nelson (0.84) and Sammy Watkins (0.83). 

Is Moncrief on any of those players' level? Of course not. But he's been effective every time he's been on the field, a fact that's backed up both by the eye test and the numbers. Weeks ago, we looked at Moncrief's performance in very limited snaps, and we saw the potential. Now we've seen it flourish when given opportunity this past week. 

So now what? If Reggie Wayne stays out another week, Moncrief will likely get a high level of snaps against the New York Giants. But what about after the bye? Does Moncrief begin to take over for Hakeem Nicks? 

He should. Moncrief is the future, that much is clear. He, T.Y. Hilton and Dwayne Allen are the three skill position players most likely to stay in Indianapolis and build a dynastic offense with Andrew Luck. Why mess around with Hakeem Nicks when Moncrief does more for the offense, both now and in the future? 

There is potential here for Moncrief and Hilton to be the next Wayne and Marvin Harrison. Granted, it's just potential right now. But we've seen what increased repetitions with Luck have done for Hilton. He's become a bonafide No. 1 receiver in the league. 

Now let's see what Moncrief can do.