What’s Next for Jonathan Taylor?
The Indianapolis Colts and Jonathan Taylor have been on a bit of a roller coaster this offseason. All signs pointed to Taylor being moved and the Colts receiving draft capital for him in return. As the deadline approached, the team decided to keep Taylor due to “not receiving an offer of fair value,” according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.
The Colts never wanted to trade Taylor at the beginning of all this, so seeing it play out this way shouldn’t be surprising. The Colts became motivated to move him when the nature of the relationship became public and extremely messy.
Aside from Taylor not being moved, the most interesting thing about all this is Taylor remaining on the Physically Unable to Perform list. Taylor will now have to miss the first four weeks of the season due to a lingering ankle injury that he suffered last season.
Taylor, while upset about the contract situation, has to be angry that the procedure he had early in the offseason hasn’t fixed his injury. While it’s unclear if Taylor will be rehabbing with the team or independently, if he’s continuing to show up to practice and games, I don’t know how he won’t be a distraction to the team.
The next major deadline is October 31st, which is the NFL trade deadline, and the Colts have until then to find a new home for Taylor. He will have time to be reactivated off PUP by then and can either play or hold out a couple more weeks before he has to make a decision on what he will do this season. This has been a long week since the Colts gave Taylor permission to seek a trade, and we are basically back at square-one with the entire thing.
I’m sure Taylor and his agent will continue to push for a trade while the Colts front office still wants to see if he can truly get healthy and back to the player he was in 2021.
The Colts hold all the leverage here, considering they can control Taylor’s rights for basically the next three years. While the outcome of this situation is still a bit murky, today has bought the Colts and Taylor some much-needed time to try and fix all this.
If they don’t, I’m sure it’s possible to get much messier if anything else becomes public.
