Jonathan Taylor no longer wants to be an Indianapolis Colt. This is understandable but unfortunate. For the franchise for whom he’s been a rare bright spot on offense. For a running back who appears destined to be a case study on how doomed NFL tailbacks’ contracts are.
Taylor requested a trade Saturday night, early in the training camp process before the 2023 preseason. He did so after meeting with team owner Jim Irsay, the perpetually online, eternally caffeinated billionaire who’d taken to Twitter days before to suggest running backs that had the gall to ask to be paid like the league’s most visibile stars were, in fact, “inappropriate.”
The meeting went poorly.
Sources: #Colts star RB Jonathan Taylor has formally requested a trade after meeting with owner Jim Irsay. pic.twitter.com/BH7dhZAzUD
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 30, 2023
Like, really poorly.
#Colts owner Jim Irsay: “If I die tonight and Jonathan Taylor is out of the league, no one’s gonna miss us. The league goes on. We know that. The National Football (League) rolls on. It doesn’t matter who comes and who goes, and it’s a privilege to be a part of it.”
— James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) July 30, 2023
This entirely-too-online interaction suggests this will not be a Saquon Barkley situation where $900,000 in playoff-laden incentives will fix things. Taylor was 2021’s rushing leader. He struggled through injury in 2022 as Irsay deemed Jeff Saturday an appropriate NFL head coach, simultaneously offering his fans a film canister of beloved home movies in one hand while flipping them off with the other.
Irsay is above reproach, because he owns an NFL team and the only thing that can hurt you at that point is overt racism, sexism, or a combination of the two over two decades. He does not have to change because there is no penalty for running your team into the ground. He’d have to get several magnitudes worse to approach Dan Snyder, who received a $6.05 billion severance package to stop infecting the rest of the league with his irredeemable [expletive].
Irsay walked through a season in which Saturday went 1-8 as an interim head coach — a season in which he vouched for Saturday as a full-time option multiple times — without lasting damage to his reputation. Now he’s taking on Taylor, a superstar for sure but one who plays a position whose peak generally lasts about five seasons. NFL history suggests Irsay will sail through this firestorm unscathed. Taylor’s future, however, is much less certain.
Indianapolis has no onus to trade Taylor without a sweetheart deal. He’s under contract for 2023 at a bargain $4.3 million base salary. He can be franchise tagged for 2024 at what’ll likely be less than $12 million — less than five percent of next season’s projected $256 million salary cap. He’s liable to fall into the same trap Barkley fell into this season and remain with a franchise whose praise begins and ends with words, not cash.
There isn’t much Taylor can do in retaliation. Holding out isn’t a realistic option. Since he’s on his rookie contract, each practice missed in training camp will cost him $40,000. Missing time would serve to dent his value after a disappointing 2022, particularly in a league that has repeatedly shown it doesn’t value star running backs when there’s a glut of talent on rosters, in the draft and on the open market each offseason.
He could play out 2023 and threaten a holdout in 2024 if he’s franchise tagged. That’s the reality Le’Veon Bell stared down in 2018. While he secured a four-year deal with $27 million guaranteed from the New York Jets after sitting out the entire season, he clearly wasn’t the same player. Bell didn’t have a single 100-yard game in the three seasons that followed and spent 2022 out of the NFL.
That’s what Taylor is facing if his low percentage trade demand fails. The Colts don’t need to move him, even if he holds in and opts out of practices after officially reporting to camp. There’s still a lot that needs to happen before this relationship hits a breaking point, and Barkley’s pre-camp change of heart was more evidence running backs have no leverage in their quest to be paid commensurate to their workload.
Pending a sweetheart deal in a league that doesn’t respect its star tailbacks, Taylor’s only move is to be drastic. He’d need to forego years of his prime and millions of dollars in order to bet on himself with another team. It’s a low percentage play for anyone, let alone a player with more than 1,700 carries over the last six years.
But it’s his only move, barring a surprising change of heart from a billionaire who has no reason to change his mind. Taylor has been backed into a corner. Requesting a trade is his first jab at fighting his way out of an impossible situation. Things might get drastic from there — or he might have to settle for the crap sandwich the NFL keeps feeding its star running backs, knowing there won’t be anything better on the horizon.
Update: See!
Text from @Colts owner @JimIrsay on Jonathan Taylor’s trade request (as reported by @RapSheet): “We’re not trading Jonathan… end of discussion. Not now and not in October!”
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) July 30, 2023
