10 thoughts on Jonathan Taylor's contract standoff with the Colts, where it goes from here
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Ten thoughts on the Jonathan Taylor vs. the Colts soap opera that has become the dominant storyline of training camp:
1. This first week has been quite a year on the Colts beat. We'll get to those leaks and tweets from Sunday night in a moment, but I want to start with Saturday’s first night practice, where two 11-on-11 groups were running drills on the field and I spent it tracking a luxury bus parked outside the fences.
Fans have strong reasons to be excited about this Colts team, with Shane Steichen building a fascinating offensive system around a historic but unproven quarterback like Anthony Richardson.
But rolling back so much of last year's team meant inheriting at least some of its scars. And that's how this Jonathan Taylor contract situation is starting to feel.
2. Taylor met with owner Jim Irsay on a bus for close to an hour for something that wasn’t a contract negotiation and wasn’t really a trade talk but more of a clearing-the-air session. The two emerged, and as Irsay was holding his ground with us in the media, Taylor’s trade request was leaked to NFL Network.
That explained the frosty vibe we’d seen all week from the normally wide-smiling Taylor, with his hood up, arms crossed, face blank, engaging with few teammates. The contract he wanted wasn’t here, but the clock to start practicing and risking injury was.
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) makes his way around the field Friday, July 28, 2023, during an indoor practice at Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana.
RELATED:Jim Irsay holds hour-long bus chat with Jonathan Taylor amid contract and trade requests
3. That mood was never about that ankle surgery in January.
ESPN’s Stephen Holder and Fox59’s Mike Chappell both reported Sunday night that Taylor arrived to camp on Tuesday complaining about a back injury he suffered while training away from the facility, in addition to the repaired ankle.
Taylor is refuting those reports, saying on Twitter he never reported an injury or pain in his back.
MORE: Jonathan Taylor refutes reports that he suffered back injury away from Colts
When it comes to PUP, the recovering ankle qualifies but realistically only for so long. The procedure he had done is called arthroscopic debridement, NFL Network reported. A source with knowledge of these types of procedures told me that it carries a 2-4-week recovery for football players. Even the toughest ankle injuries often take around three months to heal.
It’s been six months.
4. Back injuries are trickier to map out, of course, and we don't even know if this one happened.
If it did, and if it occurred away from the facility, then it could qualify him for the Non-Football Injury List.
That list does not entitle a player to his salary while he’s on it, though those payments don’t come until Week 1. If it were to extend into the regular season, the player must miss four games, which means nearly a quarter of his base salary. If it were to extend to six games, a player in a contract year like Taylor would then have that contract year moved to the next season.
Why was the possibility leaked instead of just making a move?
That’s what we call a threat.
And Taylor's denial only muddies these dirty waters.
It’s not a coincidence that these prickly measures come after that hour-long conversation on the bus. Words aren’t working anymore. They haven’t all offseason, as Taylor hasn’t received a single contract offer. And they certainly haven’t this week, as Irsay and Taylor’s agent, Malki Kawa, have exchanged Twitter shots about the state of the position and Taylor’s lack of an offer.
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor fell to 861 rushing yards last season while missing six games, one year after he won the NFL's rushing title with 1,811 yards.
5. This play also comes one day after Irsay told IndyStar and other outlets, “We will not trade Jonathan Taylor. That is a certainty. Not now, or not in October.”
Taylor went the trade route because it’s one of his final cards to play in a brutal landscape for running backs, even ones as talented as he is. It's not a strong one, because a team trading for him will have to give up enough draft compensation to convince the Colts to diminish their backfield support for Richardson while likely agreeing to the type of extension Taylor wants. With Dalvin Cook and Zeke Elliott available to sign for no draft picks and a lot less money, that’s not an enticing market.
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It becomes even less enticing if the player in question isn’t practicing due to an injury situation. Especially a running back. Especially in 2023.
6. There’s so much noise right now, but this much we know: Taylor and the Colts could not be further apart in their desires and expectations.
Taylor wants a multi-year deal, with security for possible injuries like the high-ankle sprain that caused him to miss six games last year, plus a pay rate that hits market value for his All-Pro and rushing title abilities, which based on current deals would be at least in the $12 million-16 million annual range.
The Colts want him to play this year out to see how he rebounds from the ankle before deciding on anything. They know they have the franchise tag in their hand as free agency approaches. That’s why they hold the aces here, and Taylor is left playing a 10.
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) makes his way around the field Friday, July 28, 2023, during an indoor practice at Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana.
7. I've seen numerous fans ask why Taylor doesn't just play this season out and trust that it'll all work out, the way others have in a contract year. Life as a running back is just tenuous right now. The gold pot doesn't seem to be there at the end of the rainbow because of the franchise tag and a saturated free agent market.
But it's also about risk.
A quick story: In 2015, I was covering the Bears when they spent a fourth-round pick on Michigan State running back Jeremy Langford as a possible heir to Matt Forte. The next fall, with Forte gone, Langford suffered a high-ankle sprain much like Taylor did last season. But he rushed back from the injury, trying to gut it out for the opportunity while hoping it'd all work out like it seemed to in college. He reinjured the ankle, causing structural damage. And he averaged just 3.2 yards per carry that season.
The Bears stumbled into a 1,300-yard rookie running back in Jordan Howard that year, so they cut Langford, and suddenly he had an ankle that scared teams and mediocre film from the weeks of trying to play at a fraction of himself. He signed with four different teams to fight for low-end roster spots but suffered two hamstring and one pectoral injury, and he played just one more game after that 2016 season. These days, as a small-business owner, he regrets not taking more of a business approach of understanding his tape was his resume and his body was his only asset of any power.
Taylor is a much more accomplished and talented player, but that has yet to lead him closer to that pot of gold. He saw last year how hard it was to escape the scrums of giant bodies crowding his ankle behind this offensive line. If he could sniff that pot of gold, maybe he could have the faith to suit up and do it again. But the Colts are making it sound as fictitious as the ones in the fairy tales right now.
8. It’s interesting that the Colts haven’t used that leverage in the form of a lower-ball offer. It would give Taylor a panic move to make if he runs out of cards and grows uncomfortable with the negative spotlight every day at camp. That’s what the Giants used with Saquon Barkley, and he eventually came around to a one-year, $11 million deal that was only slightly above the franchise tag number due to incentives.
The Colts have said they are just letting all contracts play out with a new coaching staff right now, and that appears true, but the inaction invites Taylor to take the volatile route, which is what changing agents in late May and going to Twitter is. Asking Taylor to practice and play 17 more games of a brutal position behind the same starting five offensive linemen he got bottled up and hurt behind last year is obviously going to upset him, especially after he watched Quenton Nelson, Shaquille Leonard, Ryan Kelly, Braden Smith, Kenny Moore II and Nyheim Hines all receive a life raft from the same owner and general manager at this stage in their rookie contracts.
Those emotions are running white-hot now.
9. I had thought a possible compromise could be to schedule a contract meeting in, say, late September, once Taylor has healed up and shown his fit in Steichen’s RPO-heavy backfield with Richardson. If the two can meld their explosive upside into a dual threat to be feared, the Colts should be encouraged to lock that up since all that ultimately matters is raising Richardson’s floor and tapping his upside anyway.
The franchise tag is why they don’t have to, but the animosity has risen so high, you wonder whether promises can work again.
They tried the bus meeting once already. I'm not sure if it has any gas left.
10. It’s safe to say two sides could have handled this so much better. The sub-tweeting, the pouting, the threats and the demands can weigh heavy on any team that is kicking off a new season, but especially one with a rookie head coach and rookie quarterback. I don’t sense we’re close to a resolution, and for as long as that is true, the work of Steichen and Richardson and the energy they create is not going to light the momentum this franchise so desperately needed after last year's went up in flames.
Irsay and Taylor are two good men who have done tremendous acts in and away from the game of football. They’re also intense competitors in a win-now league and billion-dollar industry, staring each other down in the most bizarre time in history for a running back standoff.
Buckle in. We have turbulence now.
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07-31-2023, 09:05 AM
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