Stampede Blue
The Indianapolis Colts are no strangers to running back Jonathan Taylor’s superstardom, yet somehow, he has once again exceeded expectations. It wasn’t long ago that Taylor burst onto the scene with an OPOY-caliber season in just his second season. Nowadays, he’s replicating his career-best season, and then some. The NFL’s Most Valuable Player of the Year Award has become a glorified QB Award over the years, but if anybody outside of Saquon Barkley’s 2024-25 campaign were to threaten that normalization, it’s 2025-26 Jonathan Taylor.
Against the Los Angeles Chargers, Jonathan Taylor became the first Colts player in history to log three separate performances with 3 rushing touchdowns in a single season, totaling 94 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns on 16 carries (5.9 ypc) while also hauling in all 3 of his targets for 38 receiving yards — we are just now wrapping up Week 7, mind you.
His emergence in the passing game as both a receiver and pass protector has been well-documented, but that’s merely a fraction of the whole pie. Jonathan Taylor has also seemingly evolved into an immortal rusher of the football and, as a result, has earned him early Hall of Fame talks.
Leading the position in every statistical category, box-score watching alone will accurately paint the picture. Watching the film, however, invites football fans from far and wide to see why it is that Taylor has unlocked a part of himself that seemed otherwise untouchable, given his previously reached heights. He is more confident, concise, and has even showcased a newfound sense of footwork that’s added more explosiveness to his game.
Although Taylor’s dominance certainly mimics that of his aforementioned sophomore campaign, even that OPOY-worthy season doesn’t hold a candle to what he’s doing in his sixth season. Teams used to load the box to slow him down, but even that’s not working nowadays. His ultra-efficiency as a rusher has come on the heels of personally unprecedented broken tackle numbers as well as explosive rushes. Taylor is currently on pace for less rushing yardage (~1,600 yards compared to his 1,811 in 2021), but would surpass his single-season highs in rushing touchdowns (24 pace, 18 career-best), and receiving yards (449 pace, 360 best).
As alluded to, the rushing prowess from Taylor has always been on display, but another level appears to have been reached through seven games thus far. When it comes to the aforementioned Hall of Fame talks regarding Taylor, they’re warranted. According to Next Gen Stats, Jonathan Taylor (90.2 ypc) is one of five players to average 90+ rushing yards per game in their career (min. 50 games), and after five seasons and seven games played in the sixth, there’s simply no reason to believe that he’s slowing down anytime soon.
Huge thanks are in order for Indy’s dominant run-blocking unit, which features one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, as well as a tight end room that’s more complete than ever before. Regardless, Jonathan Taylor’s early-season dominance has proven to be...
