3 - Jonathan Taylor is not close to a feature back
- 52.4% of backfield touches
- 49% of snaps
- 8.3% of team targets
- 11.4 routes per game
- 19 red zone looks
- Colts rank 32nd in rushing success rate
If you had asked me after Week 1, not only would I have said that Clyde Edwards-Helaire was going to be an easy top-five to top-eight running back in fantasy football, I would have said Jonathan Taylor was going to join him. Yet, after five weeks, Taylor has also been just all right. He ranks at RB14, ironically just one spot behind his fellow rookie.
The logic for that aggressive prediction was easy. Marlon Mack was sent to IR after Week 1, leaving the uber-talented Taylor the vast majority of the early down rushing work for a team with a hulking offensive line. Add in his six catches from the Colts opener and it looked like a clear path ahead to fantasy stardom. Taylor’s absurd 28 touches in Week 2 against the Vikings, with 20 coming in the first half, only seemed to cement matters.
It hasn’t been so exciting since. Taylor hasn’t cleared 18 touches since Week 2 and has gone under 15 twice. Peeling back the layers to the more advanced usage numbers only serves to heighten the alarm. The Colts have basically split the backfield three ways. We expected Nyheim Hines to be involved and have a clear role, but he’s run more routes per game (15) than Taylor and has 44 touches on the year, with 13 coming in the red zone. However, seeing Jordan Wilkins chip in with almost 10 touches per game between Weeks 2-4 was unsettling. We did see Wilkins fade to the background in Week 5 with just a single carry but Taylor not dominating the workload here has been a big problem.
Perhaps even more concerning for Taylor’s rest-of-season outlook is that the Colts just straight-up don’t look like a good offense. Their 32nd ranking in rushing success rate shows they’ve had trouble moving the ball and that doesn’t even touch on the fact they have a Philip Rivers problem. If Rivers is going to be a liability — and to this point, he has toed that line — the rest of the skill-position group beyond Taylor just doesn’t have enough juice to keep the scoring unit in favorable positions.