This situation is bound to get even more toxic if they don’t move on from one another soon. The Indianapolis Colts are in a very sticky situation as their face of the franchise, RB Jonathan Taylor, has demanded a trade after owner Jim Irsay refused to give him a contract extension.
I just don’t understand why teams suddenly view running backs as Hester from The Scarlet Letter.
Despite being the best player on the Colts roster these last three seasons, Jonathan Taylor was pretty coldly snubbed by owner Jim Irsay over a new contract extension…which has led the running back to demand a trade.
The retirement of Andrew Luck really must have completely devastated the Colts organization to its core as it’s not only been one of the worst performing franchises in football, but it’s also been one of the worst run as well. Now, those two statements almost always go hand in hand when it comes down to these poorly run organizations, but the utter chaos from the top of the Colts down through the team has been pretty evident since Andrew Luck retired.
Prior to Luck’s retirement, the Colts and owner Jim Irsay were relatively normal (with Irsay it’s pretty up and down when it comes to normality, but he had a stable grip on the team and an interesting owner is always a good one in my eyes) as the team reached four playoff appearances (and a 2014 trip to the AFC Conference Championship game…which they got smashed 45-7 by the Pats) in eight seasons with Andrew Luck at the helm and had 11 playoff appearances (including 1 Super Bowl victory in SB XLI and a SB loss in SB XLIV) in 14 seasons under Peyton Manning’s legendary stewardship.
Given how the Colts had one of the Top-10 best QBs of all-time for 14 seasons and then were blessed with one of the most gifted QBs of the 2010’s generation (QBs drafted 2010-19), the Colts had tremendous success and were successfully able to garner the support of the Indiana crowd after the team’s EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL move from Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1983.
Anyways, in the five years since Luck shockingly retied at the young age of 30, the Colts have been an utter dumpster fire with the team seeing two head coaches (Frank Reich, Jeff Saturday) come and go, seven QBs start under center for the franchise (Jacoby Brisset, Brian Hoyer, Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Sam Ehlinger, and Nick Foles), and are now coming off the worst season the franchise has suffered since the 2017 4-12 season when Andrew Luck was out the entire year with a shoulder injury that partly forced his early retirement.
The Colts last season were just an utter disaster with Matt Ryan getting replaced, benched, thrown back into games, and getting utterly destroyed on nearly every possession given how awful the offensive line played, while Sam Ehlinger couldn’t throw the ball to save his life and Nick Foles only threw the ball to defenders. It really is a miracle the Colts managed to win four games last year…and that’s mainly down to the play of Jonathan Taylor.
Sure, Taylor had his worst season in his career thus far as he only managed to rush 192 times for 861 yards, 4 TDs, and injuries restricted him to just 11 starts, but he had 71 yards and 21 carries in the Colts first win of the season against the Chiefs and a season-high 147 yards and 22 carries in the Colts fourth and final win against the LV Raiders.
If it wasn’t for Taylor, the Colts would have had their worst season (2-14-1) since 2011…the disaster year Peyton Manning missed the entire season due to his neck injury and Andrew Luck was drafted 1st overall.
Yet, for all of Taylor’s services last year and his monstrous 2021 season where he rushed for a league-high 1,811 rushing yards, 18 TDs, lead the league in both categories, made the Pro Bowl, and made the 1st Team All-Pro, owner Jim Irsay publicly said, “If I die tonight and Jonathan Taylor is out of the league, no one’s gonna miss us. The league goes on,” when asked about Taylor’s contract extension demand.
Now, that’s true, the league does “go on” without even the most vital players and personnel if they call it a career (or drop dead) as he’s said, but it’s really a dumb thing to say when you’re trying to keep your best player happy and content on a poor, rebuilding franchise. I mean, the guy’s already only being paid $4.3M this season despite being one of the Top-5 best RBs in the league, and he’s had to run behind a poor offensive line these last few years.
The least Irsay could have done was say that the Colts wanted him to stay LOL!
Anyways, I like Jim Irsay and I think he’s done a good job with the Colts team thus far, but I really think he’s mishandling this Taylor situation badly. Just give the guy a new contract as it’s not like there’s too much else going on for the Colts these days.
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