Colts vs Raiders Team Stats
The first important aspect of this comparison to understand is how many opportunities each player had in the redzone last season. According to footballguys.com, Minshew was involved in 5.07 redzone opportunities per game, and O’Connell 5.52
An “opportunity” constitutes a play that a certain player is directly involved in, so for this measure, when a quarterback hands the ball off to the running back, that is not included.
As far as team statistics are concerned, the Raiders and Colts (where Minshew played last season) were incredibly similar. The Colts edged the Raiders just slightly, with a 49.12% touchdown percentage in the redzone compared to the Raiders’ 48.94%, and an average of 1.6 redzone touchdowns per game as opposed to 1.4.
The percentages are not significantly different, as the two finished 23rd and 24th respectively. There is a significant difference, however, between the two touchdowns per game measures. The Colts were 16th in the league, which is right in the middle, whereas the Raiders finished 24th, in the bottom quarter of the league.
A difference of 0.2 touchdowns more per game calculates to 1.4 more points per game on this alone and 23.8 over the course of a 17-game season. For a team that lost 5 games by one score or less last season, that difference is not negligible.
It should also be noted that Minshew increased redzone touchdown scoring by ~4% compared to the previous year. When O’Connell took over for the Raiders on November 1st, the Raiders felt a similar increase, with nearly a 5% improvement from the first half of the season.
Both of these team numbers do tell a story, but not the entire story.