[Dam8610]

Taylor is entering his age 24 season, which will be his 4th in the NFL. Between college and the NFL, he has 1,838 touches (1,682 carries, 146 receptions) in his last 6 seasons for an average of 306 touches per season. This average was brought down significantly by his injury plagued 2022 season, in which he only had 220 touches, the first of those 6 seasons under 300 touches. Taylor's average for touches through 5 seasons was 324. So while Taylor is young, there's a lot of mileage on his legs. There is a lot of research that suggests that an NFL RB starts to decline once they reach between 2,250 and 2,500 touches in the NFL, but when college is also considered, 3,000 total touches appears to be pretty close to a "magic number" for decline. Age also plays a role, with the age 28 season being the one where most RBs start to decline. Of Taylor's 1,838 touches, 860 have occurred in the NFL. So, depending on which marker you wish to use, Taylor has somewhere between 1,200-1,600 NFL touches and 4 NFL seasons left before attrition begins to take its toll, statistically speaking. There's a chance Taylor could be the next Frank Gore, but that isn't a smart bet with limited resources in the NFL.

Having done this research, provided it was a team friendly deal with all guaranteed money paid by year 3, I wouldn't be opposed to a 4 or 5 year extension for Taylor. Should he not be interested in that, franchise up to twice and find his replacement.

All of the above said, what value might the Bears assign to Jonathan Taylor? I've seen a lot of ridiculous Bears/Colts projected trades, the least ridiculous of which was this year's Day 1 and 2 (1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks) and next year's 1. This was done by Brett Kollman, who fortunately also admitted that he was reflecting a "desperation price" for the Colts. He then stated the leverage the Colts have in negotiations with the Bears: they don't want to move back past 4, because doing so would not guarantee them one of Will Anderson or Jalen Carter, the two players the Bears are ultimately after. So, depending on how highly the Bears value Taylor, using him as a substitute for draft capital might be a great solution for both teams. An example of a fair trade IMO would be this year's 1, Taylor, and next year's 2 to move up to 1. That's valuing Taylor at about a late 1 to early 2, but, more importantly, not giving up next year's 1 when drafting a rookie QB. Even better IMO if Eberflus still likes him as much as when he was here would be this year's 1, Taylor, and Leonard. That would move a lot of uncertainty off of the Colts books and keep all of the draft capital in house, though I don't know how likely the Bears would be to accept that given they just traded Roquan Smith and Leonard's contract is one of the larger ones in the league for a LB, but would be much less for them because the Colts would eat all the guarantees.