The Colts didn't just re-sign Jonathan Taylor this month, they bet the entire ground game on him staying upright. Indianapolis handed him a deal bigger than any running back has gotten on a third contract, then sat him out of the preseason opener entirely rather than risk a rep. Behind him is a hamstring case in DJ Giddens and a seventh-round rookie in Seth McGowan getting first-team snaps almost by default. Taylor isn't sharing a backfield so much as guarding one.
What makes that bet defensible is how Taylor actually plays. He's not a scheme back who needs a hole opened for him, he creates the hole himself, pressing the line, setting up a defender with a jab step, and turning what should be a 2-yard gain into a chunk play through contact balance most backs his size don't have. Indianapolis runs him downhill in a gap-heavy scheme built to protect Daniel Jones, and with Jones back healthy at quarterback, Taylor gets the play-action window that turns a good rushing day into a game the offense never has to abandon. He's the closer, not just the starter, still fresh enough on third-and-short and inside the 5 to be the answer both times.
The honest risk isn't talent, it's math. A guy who's carried this kind of workload for years eventually finds the one game he can't finish, and Indianapolis has done nothing this summer to suggest McGowan or Giddens is ready to take over if that happens. Taylor also still isn't the passing-down weapon some of the backs around him are — Indianapolis leans on him to grind clock and finish drives, not to run option routes on third down, so if the Colts ever fall behind and start throwing 40 times a game, his ceiling shrinks with the score.
Bijan Robinson just got paid too, days earlier, and it's the pairing worth thinking through. Robinson is Atlanta's every-down weapon, catching out of the backfield as much as he runs between the tackles, in an offense that's built around spreading throws his way. Taylor is the more one-dimensional load, but it's a dimension he dominates: nobody in that backfield conversation runs through arm tackles or finishes drives at the goal line the way he does. If the season comes down to which team trusts its back with the ball in the red zone without blinking, that's Indianapolis, and that's Taylor.
