Spat between Colts, Jonathan Taylor is the biggest, dumbest story of training camp
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WESTFIELD – Jonathan Taylor is looking in from the outside, and feel free to call that a metaphor. But it’s a literal statement, one of the only accepted truths about the most convoluted development in the NFL – the disconnect between the Colts and their best player on offense.
Taylor isn’t practicing because he’s on the Physically Unable to Perform list, heretofore referred to as the PUP list, like this is a cute story that has lovable characters. It isn’t, and doesn’t. Based on what we know right now – you’ll hear that phrase again soon, right now, and you’ll bolt to attention – there isn’t anybody to love in this story. Nobody is cute here. No puppies.
What’s that line from “For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield’s anti-establishment song in 1966? Ah yes, here it is:
“Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”
Who’s right, in this standoff between Jonathan Taylor and Colts owner Jim Irsay? Nobody. Everybody’s wrong, and it’s possible more than one person is lying.
Only thing you can take to the bank is this: Taylor looks awfully alone right now.
Tens of thousands of Colts fans have been to camp at Grand Park, many of them wearing Taylor’s No. 28 jersey. I’m not telling you anything you’ve not seen already: Jonathan Taylor looking in from the outside, following the running backs around the field, standing behind them, peeking between their helmets or over their shoulders at the action on the field.
Taylor talks to nobody, and nobody talks to Taylor. For more than hour. Every day at camp.
And the people who are talking, well, they’re not making any sense.
Doyel:Jonathan Taylor joins Andrew Luck, Victor Oladipo as star athletes receiving bad advice
Facts are fungible, and someone's lying
Brief recap, for those new to the conversation:
Jonathan Taylor has been the Colts’ best offensive player for three years, and he’d like a contract extension before the fourth and final year of his rookie contract. The Colts tend to give such extensions to deserving players – Taylor is deserving – but this comes at an awkward time, with NFL teams concluding that running backs are replaceable. Add to that Taylor’s ankle surgery in January, the Colts’ uneven results even as he was running for a combined 2,672 yards and 22 touchdowns in 2021-22, and hints of an offseason injury Taylor suffered working out on his own.
Any extension talk is, shall we say, complicated.
And then it gets weird. Irsay goes on Twitter to lament the way NFL running backs are seeking special dispensation in contract negotiations, saying some agents are dealing in “bad faith.” Taylor’s new agent, better known for representing MMA fighters and professional wrestlers, fires back on Twitter again and again.
Then it gets really weird.
Someone from the Colts, and we all suspect the same person, leaks it Sunday night that Taylor injured his back during offseason workouts in Arizona, leaving the team to consider putting him on the Non-Football Injury list (NFI). That would allow the Colts to withhold his salary. That is a declaration of (negotiating) war.
Taylor fires back on Twitter, saying his back is and always has been fine.
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Insider: Taylor refutes reports that he suffered back injury away from Colts
This has become one of the biggest stories of NFL training camp, right up there with Broncos coach Sean Payton trashing former Denver coach Nathaniel Hackett. But the Payton story? That’s child’s play compared to this one. In Payton v. Hackett we know who said what. We know the truth. We can form an opinion and move on.
In Taylor v. Colts, we don’t know much. It’s like we’re in The Matrix, with one side describing the spoon in fine detail, and the other side saying, “There is no spoon.”
Facts are fungible here. I mean, either Taylor injured his back or he didn’t. More to the point, either he injured himself working out in Arizona … or not. Perhaps it’s not a back injury, but something else. Taylor said his back is not an issue. Is he hiding behind the real truth, which is another injury that the Colts “source” – and we all suspect who it is – bungled in the telling?
These are the questions you ask yourself, trying to make sense of things. Then you go to Colts coach Shane Steichen for help, and he does what he does.
He makes it worse.
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) stands near other running backs during drills Monday, July 31, 2023, during training camp at the Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana.
Shane Steichen talks, makes it worse
Quotes taken out of context? Not here. This is exactly what I asked Steichen at camp Monday, with italics provided to clarify the speaker:
Shane, I’m telling him, calling him by name because we’re tight like that, “when you’ve had guys hurt – (Julius) Brents, (Will) Mallory – you say: He’s got an ankle, he’s got a hamstring.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Shane says, hearing me loud and clear.
Well, what does Jonathan Taylor have?
“What’s that?” Shane says, all of sudden not hearing so well.
What does Taylor have?
“He’s just dealing with something right now,” Shane says, “and I’m going to refrain from getting into all that.”
See what I mean? Something’s up, but nobody will say what. We know Taylor’s ankle surgery in January was minor, that most players are fine within a month, that E.J. Speed had similar offseason surgery and has been on the field since camp started. What’s different about Taylor’s surgery?
See Shane shrug.
The Colts haven’t exactly distinguished themselves with transparency regarding injuries. We all remember Andrew Luck’s shoulder or calf or Os Trigonum, and Darius Leonard’s back or ankle or calf or something. Now they’re doing it again with Taylor.
They’re also doing it with quarterback Anthony Richardson, it should be said. The Colts announced Monday morning that Richardson had undergone a procedure “to correct his nasal septum” Sunday, nothing major, but it kept him out of practice Monday and could sideline him Tuesday as well, Steichen said. Which begs the question: Why now? Richardson was drafted April 27. Nobody knew about the septum issue for 2½ months?
Or did Richardson injure his septum during camp?
Reporter to Steichen: Is it pre-existing?
“Yeah,” said Steichen, who uses yeah as a verbal crutch, not an answer, “it’s something he had to get done in there. Yeah.”
Reporter: Any thoughts of doing it before camp?
“Yeah,” Steichen said, “no, just so he can breathe better. Didn’t want him to come in and not start camp, you know what we mean? So let’s let him get started in camp and do it on this (off) day.”
Sure, why perform this procedure in the 2½ months leading up to camp, giving your franchise QB plenty of time to recover? Much better to do it during camp, when the rookie franchise QB will miss a day or two.
Is that what we’re supposed to believe?
Do you see why it’s hard to trust the Colts with injury news?
Jonathan Taylor looks like an outcast
Here’s the most interesting thing Steichen said about Taylor, and again, we’re not taking this out of context. This is the context:
Reporter: Are you expecting J.T. to play this year?
Steichen: “Right now he’s on this football team. He’s on this football team, and when the medical staff clears him he should be out there.”
Right now…
Terrific.
Meanwhile, with Taylor declining to speak with reporters – players can and often do speak while on injured reserve or the PUP list, as Shaq Leonard has done – reserve RB Deon Jackson faced questions on Taylor’s behalf. Jackson verbally stood by Taylor, calling him “one of my closest friends” and saying of the locker room: “We’re all supportive of him. We’re all rallying around him.”
And maybe they are, behind closed doors. Reporters aren’t allowed into the locker room, so believe Jackson if you’d like.
In public, where Jonathan Taylor’s spat with the Colts is unfolding like a soiled pair of pants, teammates are ignoring him. Nobody talks to Taylor. He talks to nobody. And when practice ended Monday, as some players stayed on the field for extra work and others trotted to the bleachers to sign autographs, Taylor walked off the field by himself, toward the tunnel leading to the locker room, where his teammates are “all supportive of him.”
Maybe so. All I can tell you is what I see, which is Jonathan Taylor walking into the tunnel alone, heading into the shade, into the darkness.
He is going, he is going, he is…
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Doyle is so full of shit, he is enjoying every moment
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07-31-2023, 04:20 PM
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