Saturday the Savior? Colts Fantasy Football Outlook for Matt Ryan, Jonathan Taylor, Michael Pittman, Parris Campbell

November 18, 2022

Justin Carter looks at the fantasy football values of the Indianapolis Colts offensive players for the rest of the 2022 season after the change to coach Jeff Saturday.

The Indianapolis Colts are having a weird season. First, the team benched quarterback Matt Ryan for Sam Ehlinger, the kind of move that doesn't really make sense through the lens of "trying to win NFL football games."

And then, the team fired head coach Frank Reich, and instead of replacing him with someone from the staff, they brought in former player and ESPN analyst Jeff Saturday to take over. Saturday's coaching experience before Sunday's game? One season at a Georgia high school.

And what happened in his coaching debut? The Colts beat the Raiders 25-20. Saturday also put Matt Ryan back in under center, and the Colts are now 4-5-1, still very much in play in the AFC South, though not having any head-to-head matchups left against the first-place Titans limits that path. Now that Saturday has taken back over, what's the fantasy football outlook for the players on this team?

Is Matt Ryan Back?

In his two starts, Sam Ehlinger threw for 304 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception on 61.5% passing. Those are...not good numbers. I think Ehlinger's ability to run theoretically adds something to an NFL team, but he needs to be throwing a little better for it to be worth starting him, and at this point, I think the Colts probably know Ehlinger isn't their answer for the future.

Matt Ryan isn't their future either, but he at least can be their present in a way Ehlinger wasn't going to be.

Ryan's now completed over 70% of his passes in his last three starts. Despite the two-week absence from the starting lineup, he was 21-for-28 on Sunday, passing for 222 yards and a touchdown. Ryan also added 38 rushing yards and a score on the ground, but that's not something you can really count on.

Matt Ryan's not an elite quarterback, but he's still solid. Per PlayerProfiler, he ranks sixth among NFL quarterbacks in accuracy rating this season and fifth in true completion percentage. Sure, a lot of that is from making safe throws—he's 38th in air yards per attempt—but he moves the ball through the air, which is more than you can say for Ehlinger.

Assuming this move back to Matt Ryan is permanent, he's a solid QB2 play. Volume and a lack of air yards keep him from making it up to the QB1 range, though he's been one of the league's most accurate QBs—even on deep balls, as he's third in deep ball completion percentage.

Jonathan Taylor!

Jonathan Taylor missed Week 9 with an ankle injury. When he returned, he had his second-best game of the season, carrying the ball 22 times for 147 yards and a touchdown, and catching two passes for 16 yards. His 6.68 yards per carry were his most of the season.

Analyzing what the move to Matt Ryan and the hiring of Jeff Saturday means for Jonathan Taylor is pretty easy. He's the Colts' best player and they need to get him the ball, but in order to get him the ball the maximum number of times, they also need a passing game that's good enough to keep the Colts on the field.

The one-game sample of Taylor with Ehlinger at quarterback saw him perform decently, with 16 carries for 76 yards. But if you drafted Taylor at 1.01, that kind of performance isn't cutting it.

Now, with Nyheim Hines traded and Matt Ryan back under center, Taylor seems to be in a position where he can thrive again. He played a season-high 94% of this week's game against the Raiders, something that should continue. He hasn't really offered a ton as a pass-catcher this season, but with Hines gone, we should see at least a little bit of an uptick in targets for Taylor.

Does this mean that Taylor's back to being the overall No. 1 running back to have in fantasy? No. But he is a high-end RB1 going forward, which is an improvement over what his outlook would have been had the Colts kept Frank Reich, who probably would have kept Ehlinger at quarterback.

Breaking Down The Pass Catchers

With Sam Ehlinger under center, you could make an argument that no Colts pass catchers were worth playing in fantasy. Even Michael Pittman Jr. struggled—he had seven catches for 53 yards in Ehlinger's first start, then just three catches for 22 yards in Ehlinger's second game.

In fact, in Ehlinger's last start, the former Longhorn threw for just 103 yards. The leading receiver was Alec Pierce, who had 23 yards on just one reception. There was really no upside here.

But the move back to Ryan takes us from zero players you could reliably start back up to two. Against the Raiders, Pittman was targeted nine times, catching seven for 53 yards, while Parris Campbell, who had vanished with Ehlinger, went right back to being the productive receiver he was with Ryan under center, catching seven passes for 76 yards and a touchdown.

There's still a lower ceiling here than there is on other teams because of the importance of the run game and the fact that Ryan's not an elite passer, but Pittman's a WR2 play and Campbell a WR3/flex option now.

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