For Jonathan Taylor, what's fair and what's real are two different things

The Colts running back deserves to be one of the highest paid, if not THE highest-paid running backs in the league. But it's unlikely it's going to happen.

Jonathan Taylor came along at the wrong time. Poor guy -- well, not poor; he’s going to make $4.3 million this season before becoming a free agent at season’s end. But by any coherent measure, he deserves to be one of the highest-paid running backs in the NFL, if not THE highest paid.

But what he deserves and what he’s going to get are going to be two entirely different things.

I deserve a yacht, too, but you don’t see me throwing on my deck shoes and knocking back a Dramamine.

We are in the age of the incredible, devaluing running back, an age where the average salary for kickers is higher than it is for Taylor’s ilk. (That is not a misprint). Years ago, when running backs were highly valued as centerpieces for run-heavy offenses (remember those?), a player like Taylor could be naming his number and establishing the salary scale for the running back market. But now, for all his excellence – he broke Edgerrin James’ single-season rushing mark two years ago – Taylor is a dime a dozen.

All these guys, a dime a dozen.

Replaceable. Eminently so.

Dalvin Cook, who rushed for 1,173 yards and caught 39 passes for Minnesota, is a free agent right now. Dallas’ Tony Pollard (1,007 rushing yards) ended up signing a franchise tag. The Giants’ Saquon Barkley (1,312 rushing yards and 57 receptions) and the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs (1,653 rushing yards and 53 catches) will likely do the same, having failed to come to an agreement on a long-term extension – although Barkley has made some public noise about sitting out camp and possibly some of the season.  

Right now, Colts management has Taylor over a barrel. He’s got one more year left on his rookie deal and is looking for a long-term extension before he hits free agency. And chances are, he’s not going to get that extension. Why would the Colts spend money they don’t need to spend? They can get Taylor this year for north of $4 million per year, and they can franchise tag him not only next year, but the year after that. That’s just good business.

If I’m Taylor, I’m beside myself and am contemplating my options. Ballard has done right by his top, homegrown talent, re-signing Braden Smith, Ryan Kelly, Quenton Nelson and Shaq Leonard to long-term extensions. But there’s a chance that won’t happen with Taylor for all the aforementioned reasons.

Look at it this way: The year Taylor went crazy and broke the franchise rushing record, the Colts went 9-8 and missed the playoffs. A running game is nice, but it’s not required for teams to win. Ask the Tennessee Titans, who had the remarkable Derrick Henry in their backfield but never reached the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl-winning Chiefs? Their leading rusher last year was seventh-round pick Isiah Pacheco, who finished with 830 yards and 13 receptions.

If I’m Ballard, and I’m inclined to play hardball, I’m buying as much time as I can with Taylor. That means doing nothing this year, then franchising him next year and possibly the year beyond. Understand, Taylor has a lot of miles on those tires, having been a workhorse at Wisconsin before arriving in the NFL, then rushing 332 times in 2021 for the Colts. Worse yet, he’s coming off an injury-plagued season when he played just 11 games and ran for a career-low 861 yards.

The smart move is to bide your time, get as much out of Taylor as humanly possible, then move on down the road to a cheaper, healthier model with far fewer miles. Simple, harsh economics. Fair? No. Reality? Yes.

In the past, I’ve been critical of Ballard for being too sentimental, or at least for acceding to Jim Irsay, who has a strong sentimental side. They stuck too long with Adam Vinatieri when he couldn’t kick it in the ocean off the end of a pier. They resigned T.Y. Hilton long after his expiration date.

Ths is not the time to be sentimental.

Look, I’m all for players getting what they can get, especially running backs, who take an unfair share of physical abuse during their too-short careers. But it simply makes no sense to give runners long-term extensions. Virtually every team who has done so – like the Rams with Todd Gurley or the Cowboys with Ezekiel Elliott – has regretted it.

Almost without fail, by the time running backs reach the point where they can make the big(ger) money, their production and health are starting to slip. Let’s just say, you don’t see second acts for NFL running backs. Just one of 27 backs who rushed for more than 800 yards is 30 or older (Miami and former Purdue back Raheem Mostert).

Remember former Colts back Marlon Mack? He ran for 1,091 yards for Indy in 2019. A year later, the Colts drafted Taylor. Mack is now a free agent.

Nothing owners and GMs love more than cost certainty. The franchise tag was negotiated in the 2011 collective-bargaining agreement, and largely, it was meant to impact quarterbacks. That hasn’t been the case. Running backs, in particular, have taken the brunt of it, failing to make the kind of big money they would have made years ago, before analytics and pass-happy offenses and coaches like Mike Shanahan using plug-and-play runners who all went for more than a thousand yards.

Remember Olandis Gary and Reuben Droughns?

As you might figure, running backs are not happy about the way they’re  being treated in this modern-day NFL.

San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey noted the contract situations of Jacobs, Barkley and Pollard and tweeted, “This is criminal.”

Henry tweeted, “Just take the running back position out of the game then.”

The Chargers’ Austin Ekeler wrote, “Everyone knows it’s tough to win without a top running back and they act like we are discardable widgets.”

They act that way because, well, most running backs are discardable widgets.

Yeah, that will make Taylor and all the other running backs terribly unhappy – some of them, like Barkley, are threatening to sit out camp and possibly some games – but this is football economics in 2023.

I don’t own a yacht, either.

Life isn’t always fair.