Mobile QB is Vital for Shane Steichen's Offense at Full Strength
The 2023 NFL Draft is right around the corner and the biggest thing on everybody's mind is the quarterback position. The biggest question facing the Indianapolis Colts, aside from who will be the team's next passer, is what type of quarterback best fits Shane Steichen's offense.
Unlike some play callers around the NFL, Steichen is a true chameleon in his offensive philosophy. He has a vast amount of experience working with pure pocket passers (Philip Rivers), big armed youngsters (Justin Herbert), and athletic mobile passers (Jalen Hurts). This variety has made it hard to pin down exactly what he wants in his next quarterback in Indy.
Shane Steichen himself has even said, multiple times, that quarterbacks come in all shapes and sizes. The biggest separator for him is that internal drive to be great. Unfortunately, I don't possess the access or the ability to determine that drive in any of the Colts' next potential quarterbacks.
One thing that I can do, however, is look at what Steichen likes to accomplish with his offenses. Steichen has always been consistent in one thing; he wants a vertical passing offense that creates explosive passing plays. He said as much on a recent podcast episode with Jason Kelce:
Once you see those explosive plays happen, that’s how you score points. You have to create those explosives. How do we create those and how do we scheme up guys to get down field?
When you get those one on one match-ups like we did this last season, it was nice with (DeVonta Smith), AJ (Brown), Dallas (Goedert), and Quez (Watkins). All those guys are vertical threats, which was awesome.
No matter which quarterback Shane Steichen has worked with, he has been able to create explosive plays. Even in his Los Angeles Chargers (in 2021) days, his offense ranked in the top ten in 20+ yard pass attempts and just outside the top ten in completions at that distance. While this adaptable coach can find explosives with any quarterback, I'd like to posit that he found the true formula the last two seasons in Philadelphia.
The Eagles not only boasted one of the league's top rushing attacks over the past two years, but they were in the top two (second in 2022, first in 2021) in explosive play rate over those seasons. What was the key to this explosive offense? To me, it all starts with the quarterback.
Added Dynamic in the Run Game
Jalen Hurts has been the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles (under Shane Steichen) the past two seasons. Hurts is a talented passer, but the true value in his ability to play the position comes in his athleticism. He is a gifted runner that can gash defenses on rushing attempts, whether they are by design or on scrambles off of broken plays.
Just by having an extra dynamic rusher in the backfield opens up so much for an offense. One major impact that we can tangibly see is in the run game. The league average yards per carry for running back this past season was 4.4 yards per attempt. The Philadelphia Eagles' running backs averaged 4.7 in 2022. In 2021 the league average was 4.3 yards per attempt. The Eagles averaged 4.8 during that season from their backs.
One could argue that the Eagles' superior offensive line had a heavy hand in this number, but it is easy to see the impact that a quarterback like Jalen Hurts has in this aspect of the game. Let's take a look at two plays below to illustrate this point.
Notice the linebackers and the run filling defensive backs on these two plays. They are pulled completely out of position because they have to respect the rushing ability of Jalen Hurts on the ground. These are explosive chunk plays created by good play design and by having a dynamic threat at quarterback.
A quarterback with the ability to create yards in the ground game has a massive impact on a team's overall rushing attack. Each of the top five offenses in rushing yards from a year ago had a quarterback that accounted for over 400 yards on the ground. Quarterbacks add value with their legs, but also in how they dictate defenses with the threat of using those legs.
Scrambling Explosives
Mobile quarterbacks create explosives in the designed run game from their own mobility and their ability to create space for running backs, but what about the non-designed runs? Mobile quarterbacks can create explosives anytime they bail from the pocket.
Jalen Hurts (this past season) averaged 7.75 yards per attempt on 48 scrambles for the Eagles. In 2021, he averaged 8.2 yards per attempt on 51 scrambles. In total, he has been able to create an additional 794 yards of offense for the Eagles simply by having the ability to create on non-designed plays.
Just by having a quarterback that can create with his legs, the Eagles (under Shane Steichen) added an additional 29 plays that gained over 10 yards. For a coach that is obsessed with explosive plays, he will definitely remember the impact that this style of quarterback had on his end goal.
Impact on the Passing Game
Now we get to the meat of this entire line of thinking. It is great to have a dominant and explosive rushing attack, but the NFL is a passing league. If Shane Steichen wants to create explosive plays on offense, he needs to have a vertical passing attack (and a quarterback that can operate that attack).
Recent history suggests that mobile passers are more likely to be the ones to attack vertically and create those explosive passing plays. Let's look at the eight individual seasons over the past two years where a quarterback rushed for over 500 yards:
- Justin Fields, Chicago Bears (2022): 1,143 yards rushing
- Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (2022): 764 yards rushing
- Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills (2022): 762 yards rushing
- Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles (2022): 760 yards rushing
- Daniel Jones, New York Giants (2022): 708 yards rushing
- Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles (2021): 784 yards rushing
- Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (2021): 767 yards rushing
- Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills (2021): 763 yards rushing
With these eight passing seasons, six of the eight averaged over 9.0 yards on average depth of target (league average usually sits around 8.0). This group of passers also attempted a ton of deep passes (20+ intended air yards) compared to the rest of the NFL, as 7/8 players listed above attempted those passes on 12% or more of their overall attempts.
There are a few reasons for this uptick in vertical passing attempts among mobile quarterbacks. One of which being that these quarterbacks typically have a higher time to throw (due to their pocket mobility), so they are able to attack downfield more on broken plays. The other is how their mobility influences defenses.
I wrote above about the impact in having a mobile passer in both the designed run game and in the scramble drill. This dynamic ability influences coverages and causes defenses to commit more defenders to the box to slow down the rushing attack. In doing this, offenses face far more favorable looks for vertical shot plays than other teams do.
Take the Philadelphia Eagles last year. Shane Steichen dialed up countless vertical shot plays to his dominant receivers on the outside. If you take a closer look at when he dialed those shots up, you will see that a majority of them came against MOFC/single-high safety alignments. Once Steichen got defenses out of their two-high shell, he peppered the vertical game to create explosive plays.
The vertical passing game is its most effective when defenses are moved out of the two-high shell. The best way to get teams out of this shell is by having an explosive rushing attack. The best way to have an explosive rushing attack is by having a dynamic mobile quarterback.
Do you get where I'm going with this?
The Bottom Line
Overall, Shane Steichen is a chameleon of a play caller that can tailor his offense to whichever type of quarterback he gets to work with. While this is completely true, I would posit that he found the perfect formula for success over the past two seasons with Jalen Hurts.
With Jalen Hurts as his quarterback, Shane Steichen was able to achieve the most explosive offense in football the past two seasons. For a Norv Turner disciple like Steichen, this is the end goal of offensive play calling. He may continually say that quarterbacks come in all shapes and sizes, but I know that he is like a shark smelling blood in the water right now.
He got a taste of what his preferred style of offense looks like in the NFL, and now I imagine he wants to get after replicating that with his new team. This isn't Anthony Richardson propaganda (Will Levis and C.J Stroud are plenty capable rushers as well), but it is an argument in favor of a mobile passer in Indy next season.
Shane Steichen wants his offense to be vertical and explosive in Indianapolis. The best and most efficient way to do that is by adding a dynamic mobile passer. Luckily, the 2023 NFL Draft has a few candidates that can do exactly that.
Follow Zach on Twitter @ZachHicks2.
