INDIANAPOLIS — Jonathan Taylor has always been the focal point.
Always had the defense’s undivided attention.
For three seasons at Wisconsin, then through most of three seasons in Indianapolis — save only for a rocky first half of his rookie year — Taylor has always been his team’s primary playmaker, the player the defense sets its game plan on stopping, or at least slowing.
Rarely has he ever taken a carry without the defense’s full attention.
But all of that might be about to change.
For the first time in his career, Taylor is about to share a backfield with a player whose physical gifts approach his own, who is just as capable of turning a base running play into a game-breaking highlight that sparks his team to a win and leads SportsCenter that night.
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Rookie Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson has questions to answer about his ability to throw with the precision required of an NFL passing game.
But there are no questions about the things Richardson can do when he carries the ball himself.
For the first time in his career, Taylor will be playing with somebody who can make defense hesitate.
“It’s definitely going to put another eye out, it’s definitely going to be in the scouting report,” Taylor said. “There’s nothing you can leave unnoticed, unaccounted for. If you do, you’ll definitely pay.”
Making the transition
Richardson is going to face a learning curve at the NFL level.
“We like what he can be,” Colts general manager Chris Ballard said after using the No. 4 pick, the highest pick of his tenure, to take Richardson in April. “We drafted him for what we think he can really be in the future.”
Ballard almost certainly wasn’t talking about Richardson’s running ability.
Nearly as big as Cam Newton — Richardson measured 6-4, 244 at the NFL scouting combine; Newton was 6-5, 248 — and faster in the 40-yard dash (4.43 seconds) than all but three quarterbacks (Michael Vick, Reggie McNeal, Robert Griffin III) in the combine’s history, Richardson should be an explosive, dynamic presence in the running game from the start, regardless of how he’s coming along in the passing game.
The biggest transition a quarterback has to make as a runner is an easy: elemental adjustment.
“My first day practicing with the vets,” Richardson said. “I pulled the ball on a zone read one time, and the end was chasing me, he was right next to me. I was like: ‘OK, this is different.’”
Historically speaking, that adjustment happens right away.
The top two quarterback rushing seasons in NFL history—1,206 yards by Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson in 2019 and 1,143 yards by Chicago’s Justin Fields last year — were put up by quarterbacks in their first full seasons as starters. Newton and Griffin III won Rookie of the Year awards by running roughshod over the rest of the NFL.
Richardson has that kind of running ability.
In essentially two seasons at Florida, Richardson averaged 6.9 yards per carry, and last year, he had carries of 32, 45, 60 and 81 yards.
Richardson’s not just a runner.
The Colts rookie has the ability to turn just about any carry into a 440-foot shot to dead center.
"J.T.’s the best running back in the league."
Few running backs of Taylor’s caliber have ever been paired with a quarterback like Richardson.
Only two quarterback-running back duos in NFL history have ever produced 1,000 yards in the same season: Vick (1,039 yards) and Warrick Dunn (1,140) with Atlanta in 2006, Jackson (1,206) and Mark Ingram (1,018) in 2019.
In both cases, the running back half of the tandem was a savvy veteran, capable of taking advantage of defenses held hostage by the quarterback but far from one of the NFL’s most explosive runners at the time. A better comparison, in terms of running ability, is the 2014 Seahawks, who went to the Super Bowl with Marshawn Lynch (1,306 yards) at running back and Russell Wilson (849 yards) under center.
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) passes on the sideline Wednesday, June 14, 2023, during mandatory minicamp at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center in Indianapolis.
What makes the Colts’ pairing so potentially devastating is the explosive capabilities of both Taylor and Richardson.
“I mean, J.T.’s the best running back in the league,” Indianapolis linebacker Zaire Franklin said. “Period. When he’s on the field, what he brings to the team, the offense, those boys are pushing. J.T.’s going to find a hole, and he’s a home-run hitter.”
When Taylor was fully healthy and at the height of his powers in 2021, he had 50 runs of 10 yards or more, an enormous number, especially considering every defense on the Colts’ schedule was loaded up to stop their borderline MVP candidate.
“With those two back there, just with the athleticism and speed, that power, it’s definitely a problem for opposing defenses,” Franklin said.
What is Shane Steichen cooking up for Colts offense?
The mad scientist in charge of brewing the Taylor-Richardson concoction, new Colts coach Shane Steichen, hasn’t exactly been forthcoming on his plans for the two muscle cars he has at his disposal.
Steichen has steadfastly refused to answer questions about the offensive system he’s building, intent on keeping the element of the unknown as potent as possible for a Colts team that no one’s seen before under his direction.
But the goal of the new coach’s offense is clear.
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“No. 1: Putting us in position to make explosive plays,” Taylor said.
Working with Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia allowed Steichen to test his explosive-play philosophy with a truly mobile quarterback at the helm, rather than the throw-first mentalities he’d worked with in his long career with the Chargers.
“When a guy can run and add that element to your offense, it’s a big plus,” Steichen said. “It puts stress on defenses.”
A stressed defense is a defense vulnerable to the big play.
When a defense can focus on one element of an offense’s game, it’s easier to take away explosive plays. A pass-only offense can be forced to take short completions with the umbrella coverages that have become all the rage over the past couple of seasons, and a rush-only offense can be gummed up by putting extra defenders in the box.
A mobile quarterback inevitably forces a defense to divide its focus, pick its poison.
Leaving itself vulnerable to another type of poison.
“It’s crazy, because even in the walk-through, when (Richardson) is in there, you’ve just got to be aware,” Franklin said. "It’s just like a whole, another element to our offense that you don’t necessarily have to think about with more of a traditional quarterback.”
Under Steichen, the Eagles offense led the league with 151 explosive plays — runs of 10 yards or more and passes of 20 yards or more — in 2022, and the stress Hurts put on defenses was on full display in Philadelphia’s win over Indianapolis, a game that stuck with Colts owner Jim Irsay throughout the offseason.
“When we tried to stop Philadelphia at home, they’re playing with four downs and 12 players,”Irsay said repeatedly this offseason. “Because their quarterback, he’s two players on that drive. He’s a running back, and a quarterback.”
From a running game standpoint, the tools Steichen has at his disposal in Indianapolis could be better than the ones he had in Philadelphia.
Eagles running back Miles Sanders posted a career-best 1,206 rushing yards last season, but Sanders isn’t on Taylor’s level.
Frustrated by a lingering high ankle sprain and a blocking unit that replaced three plus run blockers (tight end Jack Doyle, left tackle Eric Fisher and right guard Mark Glowinski) with inadequate replacements, Taylor rushed for just 861 yards last season, but he’s still only one season removed from the record-shattering, All-Pro campaign that nearly dragged the Colts to the playoffs in 2021.
Outside of identifying the right quarterback in the draft, Irsay put rehabilitating Taylor at the top of the franchise’s goals this offseason.
“Jonathan’s special,” Irsay said.
A healthy Taylor is a threat to take any run to the end zone.
“When you’ve got a guy that can break big runs, you know what I mean?” Steichen said. “There’s guys that can get three, four yards a pop, but when you’ve got a guy that can really hit it, created those explosives in the run game, I think that definitely helps your offense.”
Hurts rushed for 760 yards last season, and although it’s unlikely Richardson will be able to play at the Philadelphia star’s level right away, there are elements to his game as a runner that Hurts cannot replicate.
Namely Richardson’s size.
Hurts is 6-1, 222 pounds; Richardson can be a battering ram in ways that would be difficult for Hurts. When most teams are building a running game around a running back and a quarterback, they have to tailor it to each player’s strengths; one’s a speedster, one’s a power player up the middle.
Taylor and Richardson can be both.
Steichen is limited only by his own imagination.
“You see how they ran it in Philly,” Colts tight end Mo Alie-Cox said. “With J.T.? Respect him. Respect Anthony’s running ability, and then the defense will settle their feet a lot more, and it will get us open.”
Dynamic run game no guarantee of team success
Expecting Steichen’s Indianapolis offense to immediately eclipse Philadelphia’s attack, or guaranteeing a monster turnaround based on the capabilities of the Colts running game, is a mistake.
Richardson has to make big strides as a passer to fully realize everything Hurts did for the Eagles in the passing game last season, and an Indianapolis offensive line that struggled in 2022 has big strides to make to get back to the road-grading levels of Taylor’s incredible 2021 season.
Given the ankle injury, the ineffectiveness of the Colts offensive line and the way defenses loaded up to stop him, it’s remarkable Taylor was able to average 4.5 yards per carry last season, even if that’s more than half a yard worse than his career average of 5.1.
A dynamic running game is also no guarantee of team success, a lesson Indianapolis learned in 2021 and embodied by Chicago last season. Besides the questions about the Indianapolis passing game, the Colts appear to be painfully thin on depth and experience at cornerback and on the offensive line, two positions that could cripple a team’s chances to make a monster turnaround.
But the potential for an electric rushing game, the kind the NFL has rarely seen before, is impossible to ignore.And it could be awfully fun to watch develop.
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07-24-2023, 06:53 AM
Jonathan Taylor-Anthony Richardson tandem opens endless possibilities for Colts run g
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