[JAFF]

I think I missed this one, yesterday, tablet giving me fits today

Meet the Colts running backs stepping up with Jonathan Taylor, Zack Moss out
Nate Atkins
Indianapolis Star







WESTFIELD − Jonathan Taylor stood off to the side as the Colts broke out the pads for the first time in training camp. It was a spotlight day for a backfield getting younger by the practice.

“We’re not running away from any contact," third-year running back Deon Jackson said. "We’re not running away from any smoke.”

The hits came fast and furious and sometimes devastatingly. Zack Moss emerged through a hole in 11-on-11 drills and felt Zaire Franklin's thunderous boom and the hoots and hollers from his fellow defenders.

On a hit a few moments later, Moss didn't get up so well. He felt something in his arm snap, and he took his helmet and spiked it to the turf. Moments later, he'd walk off the grass fields and discover that he'd broken the arm and is now set to miss around six weeks.


That loss, along with Taylor's looming absence on the Physically Unable to Perform List amid a contract standoff and trade demand with the franchise, has opened the door to four less heralded players.

The room now consists of Jackson, sixth-round Northwestern rookie Evan Hull, second-year undrafted player Jake Funk and undrafted Maine rookie Zavier Scott.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Gardner Minshew (10) hands off to Indianapolis Colts running back Evan Hull (26) on Monday, July 31, 2023, during training camp at the Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana.
MORE:10 thoughts on Jonathan Taylor's contract standoff with the Colts, where it goes from here

They combine for 81 career carries for 267 yards and two touchdowns in the NFL, all belonging to Jackson. It's a way off from Taylor, who had 1,811 yards, 18 touchdowns and a rushing title all in 2021 alone.


But for as long as Taylor and Moss are out, these are the young men who will make up the committee Shane Steichen will lean on for what was supposed to be one of the most run-heavy offenses in the NFL.

"It’s a solid group – smart, young guys in there that have played some football," Steichen said. "... Whoever’s got the hot hand rolls.”


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This is bittersweet opportunity, which is the genesis of training camp. Players compete against their teammates for a limited number of roster spots. Injuries happen, playing time disappears and reappears somewhere else. Someone wins and someone loses sometimes.

Taylor watches the group every day, often with his hood up and in silence. But he's not sulking in the moments outside of practice when it's him and his guys again.

“Even though he’s not out there on the field, he’s still in meetings every day. He’s in the locker room with us. He’s preparing everyone else to step up," Jackson said. "He understands that at the end of the day, it’s a business.”

Indianapolis Colts running back Deon Jackson has a chance to secure another steady role with the team for a second straight season.
It's a business, and these practices are the time to carve out a line of work. That's getting harder and harder in the NFL at the running back position, where Pro Bowlers like Dalvin Cook and Ezekiel Elliott remain free agents and where the past two rushing champions, Taylor and Las Vegas' Josh Jacobs, are sitting out without extensions.

But that's not the attitude resting in the Colts' young hodgepodge. They don't come in with the expectations of the above names. Only the dreams.

Hull has known since his first year playing youth football that he was destined to be a running back. A coach dropped a football into his belly and sent him through a hole, and in a way he's been running ever since.


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“I think it just creates more grit within you knowing that everything you do, it means something," Hull said of the team's state of running backs. "I take a lot of pride in being a running back. I’m going to continue to do that and continue to show my skill set in the passing game. The NFL is a passing league.”

That's the point Hull and Jackson hammered home after Monday's practice, as they try to orient themselves to a sport that isn't like the highlight tapes they idolized growing up. They are running backs, and teams still employ them and need them, like a Colts team that wants a stable in order to run many Run-Pass-Option concepts with No. 4 overall pick Anthony Richardson.

Third downs are what make players money, and Hull seemed keenly aware of it as he grew up studying Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara, the two backs who currently earn more than $15 million per season. Though it took some time to see it in himself.

“In high school, I couldn’t really catch the ball for real," Hull said. "That’s something I had to hone into. That was one of my weaknesses, and I wanted to turn my weakness into my strength.”


It took off at Northwestern, where he asked his coaches to help develop his routes and work on his hands until it felt more natural. It paid off in his final two seasons, when he caught 88 passes for 810 yards and four touchdowns total.

That helped him get drafted in the sixth round by the Colts, who at the time were planning to roll with Taylor but needed another third-down option after trading Nyheim Hines to the Bills.

Hull was set up to battle for the third running back spot this camp with Jackson, who flashed last year with 30 catches for 209 yards and a score. But now, thanks to the injuries and Taylor's contract situation, the two could have a chance to secure roster spots with their play.

It would bring Jackson full-circle, back to his senior year of high school, when he was playing wide receiver and his team's starting running back broke his leg. His coach asked him to make the move, and his parents disagreed at first, until they saw what he could do. He landed a scholarship to Duke and eventually a ticket to the NFL.

As an undrafted free agent, he first found his footing on special teams, which are always a focus for the Colts' No. 3 running back role. But last year featured 98 touches, a bright spot amid Taylor's six-game absence for a high-ankle sprain. The coaches asked him to develop as a pass protector to see action on the field and then rewarded the growth.

This camp is a strangely motivating time now that the pathway for playing time is clear but the rewards that await are not. It's hard to know what any running back's career arc will look like from here one out, but these young men are eager to find out.

“I made it to where I wanted to make it to. I’m in the NFL," Jackson said. "I’m taking what was given to me and I’m running with it.”