Last night we received the stunning news that Andrew Luck retired at age 29 just two weeks prior to the start of the 2019 season. Luck’s departure from the team creates a windfall of fantasy dominoes to put back in order.
The Colts With and Without Luck Since 2012
| Colts Since 2012 | Games | W/L | Win% | Pts/Gm | Pts/Drive | PaYd/Gm | RuYd/Gm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Luck | 86 | 53-33 | 61.60% | 25.6 | 2.1 | 280.4 | 104.9 |
| W/o Luck | 26 | 10-16 | 38.50% | 17.2 | 1.5 | 212.1 | 94.1 |
Since the Colts drafted Luck in 2012, he’s missed 26 games overall. In those games, the Colts have floundered offensively as they were forced to turn to Josh Freeman, Scott Tolzien, Matt Hasselbeck, and Jacoby Brissett to start in Luck’s absence.
Jacoby Brissett
The last time Luck was out a significant length of time was when he missed the entire 2017 season with a shoulder injury. In that season, the Colts went 4-12. Brissett made 15 starts that season, completing 58.8 percent of his passes for 3,098 yards, 13 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. For fantasy purposes, he finished that season as the QB20 in overall scoring and the QB27 in fantasy points per game.
While those numbers are hardly inspiring, there a few things to consider before we completely throw dirt on Brissett. That was only Brissett’s second NFL season and he was traded to the Colts just eight days prior to the start of the regular season. The Colts also were under a different regime in 2017, under the defensive-minded Chuck Pagano and led offensively by coordinator Rob Chudzinski, who is no longer coaching in the league.
Brissett also played that 2017 behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league. The Colts allowed a league-high 56 sacks that season and Brissett was under pressure on 40.1 percent of his dropbacks, the second-highest rate in the league that season behind Russell Wilson (41.4 percent). This season, the Colts return all five offensive line starters from the 2018 season, a unit that allowed a league-low 18 sacks and ranked second-best in the league in adjusted sack rate (4.1 percent).
Brissett is definitely no direct replacement to Andrew Luck, but the current situation that he’s stepping into now under his second season with Frank Reich is a far cry from the circumstances he faced a young quarterback chancing teams two years ago. Brissett also has a bit of rushing appeal as we highlighted in the quarterback archetype outlook. In that 2017 season, Brissett rushed for 260 yards and four touchdowns, finishing seventh at the position in rushing points (3.1 per game). Giving Brissett the benefit of the doubt of being in a better offensive climate and his rushing floor, he has some QB2 appeal in leagues that start multiple quarterbacks, but we still need to see him elevate before treating him as more than another streaming option in leagues that only require one starting passer.
T.Y. Hilton and the Pass Catchers
There’s even further fantasy trickle-down from Brissett taking over that flows to the pass catchers in Indianapolis. The most important asset of the group is soon-to-be 30-year-old T.Y. Hilton, who was most recently being selected as the WR12 in both PPR and standard scoring formats. Hilton has played 26 career games without Luck as the starter, and in those 26 games, he has suffered a significant dip in fantasy production.
| Hilton Career | Games | Tgt/Gm | Rec/Gm | ReYd/Gm | ReTD/Gm | PPR PPG | St. PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Luck | 82 | 8.5 | 5 | 79.3 | 0.4 | 15.5 | 10.5 |
| W/o Luck | 26 | 7 | 3.8 | 61.4 | 0.2 | 11.3 | 7.5 |
In that 2017 season in which Hilton played with Brissett, he was the WR27 in overall scoring and the WR38 in fantasy points per game, posting 3.6 receptions for 60.4 receiving yards per game, his lowest totals per game in a season since his rookie year in 2012. On a weekly level, Hilton showed that he’s still capable of generating some spike moments — finishing as a top-12 scoring wideout four times and a top-5 scorer on three occasions — but he also finished as the WR42 or lower in 10 of his games started by Brissett. As noted, this is a better layout for Brissett than in 2017, but he’s also no sure thing. Hilton goes from being a lower-end WR1 with Luck playing to being a volatile lower-end WR2 in drafts.
Brissett hasn’t shown he is capable of supporting just one starting-caliber wideout for fantasy, so the ancillary components of the Colts’ receiving corps suffer a major hit to their fantasy appeal as well. Devin Funchess, Parris Campbell, and deeper play Deon Cain all are solely fringe options to even be drafted in leagues to close the summer.
Both Eric Ebron and Jack Doyle hang on to some fantasy appeal, but only because of the state of the position and the Colts’ use of the position in Reich’s offense. Colts tight ends accounted for 27 percent of the team targets in 2018 (fourth in the league) and ranked third in overall tight end targets with 168. This is coming off Reich’s time with the Eagles when they ranked fourth and 14th in overall tight end targets. Brissett also was fond of utilizing the tight end in 2017, targeting Doyle a team-high 105 times on his pass attempts. All of that said, Doyle is no longer the only tight end here to catch passes and the involvement of both likely cannibalizes both options from weekly consistency. Ebron was already due for major scoring regression and Doyle is someone who has needed high-volume to produce, leaving both as TE2 streaming options.
Marlon Mack and the Backfield
The final aspect of the fantasy fallout is what Luck’s retirement does for the Indianapolis run game. The most significant fantasy is Marlon Mack, who was being drafted as the RB17 in standard formats and the RB19 in PPR leagues.
Once Mack returned to the lineup for good in Week 6, he was fourth in the NFL in rushing (79.5 yards per game) and tied for third in the league with nine rushing scores for the remainder of the season. Over that span, he was the RB9 in overall fantasy scoring.
As mentioned earlier, the Colts have all five offensive linemen returning from a group that was fourth in the league in adjusted line yards created per Football Outsiders run blocking stats. Mack is set up for a positive outlook in the rushing department, what remains in question is if he will truly be used as a three-down bell-cow option this season and if not, can the Colts retain enough neutral-to-positive game script to keep Mack actively churning out opportunities on the ground.
The Colts were tied or leading for 66.9 percent of their offensive snaps over that span of Weeks 6-17 when Mack was producing as a lead fantasy back. For someone that been so reliant rushing output and stacking a significant amount of fantasy points while playing with late leads, Mack needs the Colts to be in similar scripts under Brissett. Per Scott Barrett of Pro Football Focus, 70 percent of Mack’s fantasy points came in games where the Colts won by 14 or more points. The offensive line and opportunity are enough to keep Mack in the RB2 bucket of backs, but the loss of Luck and potentially a chink of positive game script pushed him down a few spots to the lower regions of that secondary back grouping.
The last time we saw Brissett on the field, his average depth of target was just 7.9 yards downfield, which ranked 33rd in the league in 2017. That paired with the offensive scheme revolving more around shorter throws may be enough to keep some faint hope for Nyheim Hines stacking receptions, but there is still a very low ceiling here.
Hines caught 63 passes as a rookie but his 5.2 yards per target for the season ranked 57th among running backs. He also was a non-factor in the run game and progressively lost snaps as the season closed out. Hines rushed 33 times for 76 yards (2.3 YPC) over the final eight games of the regular season. With the additions of rookie Campbell to take away some of the near the line of scrimmage targets, the possible extension of Mack’s third-down use, and the return of Doyle, I’d bet the under on Hines on matching those 63 catches from his rookie campaign.
