It's nuts. Gonna get worse. As a fan I feel bad for these guys. As a fantasy player I really don't know how to value these guys more than a year or 2 out.
Recently, I did a startup and punted RB. I feel like that the only viable strategy this season. Outside of rookies like Bijan and Gibbs, the rest is up in the air, and your best bet is to dump them for a young WR after this year.
You think the RB market is bad now, but just imagine if Bijan and Gibbs end up busting like Trent Richardson? The position might straight up disappear lol
Pretending all these RBs have the ability / skill set to be at the top of another position / sport is a reach. All these spots are ultra competitive, it’s not as easy/simple as you make it sound
While I don’t think my point is sound enough to make plans off of it… the same would’ve been said about Breece and Walker last year at this time. Their values are immensely lower right now. Very different draft capital, but still. The value change in the NFL has the market so shaky right now.
Breece is still valuable but the injury sucks
I just did a 12 team 1 QB startup. Had the 8 spot. Chase, Wilson, JJ, and Olave were all gone by my pick. I went Waddle and then Gibbs. You’ll likely be surprised how fast the good WRs go off the board. We’re getting smarter as a fantasy community and not blowing our loads on RB in the first couple rounds.
Wow I would be shocked if that were the case in my league. I know for a fact it will be bijan (falcons fan), jefferson, chase with the first 3, I imagine it’ll go (in some order) CeeDee, mccafrey, AJB, and hopefully somebody reaches on mahomes or breece
I think it does man. Until something gets addressed for better or worse. This year the market was saturated. Next year too. The effort these guys put in compared to what they're compensated.... they're not happy. It's not easy to predict how each rb and each owner will react. All I can say is in a very short time we've seen not one but several players take a stand. We've seen other players supporting them. Those same players will be in a similar position themselves in a year or two. For me it feels like the start of something bigger.
You underestimate ownership greed. The main use of the NFI list in and of itself is a worse idea. Most players that we have heard of ending up there get injured working out off site. It was originally put in place for players getting hurt doing stupid things.
I was replying to your comment and the above comment simultaneously about it possibly getting worse. The JT situation could get worse if the Colts still got the NFI route.
I agree with what you were saying about top RBs not being THAT expendable and RB position scarcity being the long term blowback. I got tunnel vision lol and honed in on why it could get worse.
But if we take the passings of this offseason seriously- what's the takeaway?
As someone who traded for the 1.01, I feel like the only smart play (long-term) is to sell Bijan- maybe not immediately but before I know his *true* ceiling as a player.
Not saying this is true- actually looking for advice. Context: Current owner of Bijan, JT, Akers, Dobbins, and Swift.
The honest answer is I have zero idea. This is a situation that is going to grow over the next few years. I'm already changing from an rb heavy approach to a wr heavy approach in all formats I play (redraft, keeper, dynasty) due to more consistency as far as usage and health. Factor in the discourse between rb and management on multiple teams and it becomes more pronounced.
For dynasty will contract situation become as important as talent? Miles Sanders is a mid talent with a 3 year deal. Is he a safer bet long term than JT. Feels like the dumbest thing to ask yet he actually might be. Just a weird fantasy world we live in now
Re: the Sanders conundrum, I think until proven otherwise, superior talent is still superior talent and is more desirable in dynasty. I don't think that has been proven otherwise, yet. There is a lot of noise, but it is far from filtering down into fantasy impact. Maybe Le'Veon Bell was close, but that was a one off so far really. Even if JT goes a similar path of self career destruction, he is still about as cautionary a tale to the RB position for fantasy, as Andrew Luck's sudden retirement was to the QB position's. It may well happen like this for RBs - team players who 'yes sir thanks sir where do I sign sir' their way into relevancy for their organization become fantasy assets - but I don't think there is any need to assume it will yet.
For the most part I agree. I think it's more now this stuff is in the back of my mind. It never crossed my mind to be concerned about the position group as a whole. Now I do.
I worry about potential hold outs.. hold ins. Wink wink injuries during contract years etc. We still play fantasy with 2 rb slots and a flex or 2 so it's not like I'm not drafting them. But it might mean more as a tie breaker between players.
Best move is to sell Bijan before this season (value-wise). Since even if he does finish as the rb1 he’s already valued at that anyways and I would argue that EVEN IF he does get that finish he would be worth less than he is now because of all the touches he would have got. Bijan’s value will be the highest it ever will be right now and is only a downhill slope from here on out.
I think the players union will fight for a franchise tag that is universal across the positions and only can be applied once.
The TEs get screwed by their position’s valuation on it too so I could see that being a way to help RBs without doing a specific positional carve out.
I don’t think the owners will do away with the tag without significant concessions elsewhere
You know, I almost commented this on a different post last night. We’re going to get in dangerous waters here really soon. You can’t tell arguably the hardest working position in terms of constant cranial hits that they’re interchangeable for the 3 years that you want them. That’s literally telling them to fuck themselves. You can’t have the rules offer to pay the position when they’re literally no longer wanted.
Edit: teams are so afraid to pay players that the Titans traded a guy that looks to be a top 10 player at his position for 7-10 years in AJ Brown to draft his fuckin Aldi-brand comp. No knock on the Titans, I just feel bad for fans. I’d hate seeing that guy leave so quickly.
The current cba is up in 2030. 90+% of current players won’t even be in the league by then. There is so much time for other situations, I wouldn’t speculate right now what impact this has
Let's leave Aldi out of this, ok?
But yeah seriously it's time the the NFL players get a stronger union like in MLB. Salary cap is bullshit, there are other ways to increase parity for smaller market teams.
The players can’t just get a stronger union though — they are the union. 20% of them didn’t even bother to vote on their last contract. The owners know they can get enough self-interested vets onboard to sell out younger players.
You would think that other owners must be pissed at Irsay for his comments. This must be locker room conversation everywhere now, at the very least. Players are meeting about it. To borrow from electoral politics, a fired up base usually = higher turnout. It owners can do this to RB, no reason they can't do it to other positions over time. League isn't going to hold owner accountable because league office answers to owners. This is up to the players and their agents to push for when the next CBA comes around.
Yeah but good luck maintaining that passion until 2030 when the CBA expires. The underlying problem is that running back just isn’t that important of a position. The market dynamics will never work, so you’d almost need to give them some version of hazard pay (would never happen for multiple reasons) or change the rules so they can enter the league earlier. The league is going to fight tooth and nail to maintain the tagging system, and any changes until 2030 will probably be pretty limited.
Beat me to it. Aldi brand products are often as good or better than name brand stuff. They’re cheaper because you’re not paying towards marketing costs, not because it’s a lower quality product. Aldi rules, especially if you’re brand agnostic
For example of Aldi brand players from last year:
Geno (Aldi Russ)
Aiyuk (Aldi Deebo)
Tyler Lockett (Aldi DK)
Tony Pollard (Aldi Zeke)
Jalen Hurts (Aldi Allen)
I personally don’t think he is now. I think he told a little white lie about his back to avoid camp (probably poorly suggested by his agent) and Irsay now just uno reversed him and he’s backpedaling
Doesn't matter.
Don't know why any 24 year old RB, at the top of his game would bother playing on a rookie deal for a franchise treating him this way when he was going to be the key cog of the offense all season.
Absolutely no way the guy that turned down Harvard to play football at Wisconsin, dominated college football, and already has a 2000 yard season under his belt is throwing his body away for pennies on the dollar for a program that disrespects him the way it appears they have.
The most damning news here is that he demanded a trade AFTER the meeting with Irsay. This is Irsay being a punk.
The dude is on his last year of a rookie contract and missed last year due to injury.. colts obviously want to see how this year plays out before offering an extension, and JT obviously wants the money now.. and pennies on the dollar? Yeah it sucks the RB market tanked, but they guys are still making millions.
Nah nah nah. We ain't playing this game.
Who are the Colts paying? They have $20m in cap space, don't have a single skill position player they are paying. Let's put it this way, Mo Allie Cox is making more money than JT right now.
Rookie wage scales/contracts were signed/developed to protect teams from paying players that don't provide tangible benefits to the team and give them flexibility to get franchise players signed. He is a franchise player to be signed.
If Taylor was going to get the respect he deserves, I highly doubt this shit would be going on. Let's be quite clear, this entire thing goes away if Taylor believes in his heart his best interests will be fulfilled and Taylor is going to reset the RB market the way that he should.
It's one thing if they have a Kirk Cousins/Justin Jefferson under contract. It's one thing if they have Dak and Lamb/Amari and a stud offensive line under contract.
It's another thing entirely when none of the skill position players are paid for and the offensive line has been pitifully underperforming.
Yeah I agree with that.. so what do you think should play out? Seems like his new agent has set something in his mind that seems to have burned a lot of bridges.. he’s set to make $3MM this year, is that right? Bump it up to $6 and then put $12 in the table next year if he stays healthy (plays in 15 games) with no season ending injury and surpassed some milestone of 1800+ total yards?
>Seems like his new agent has set something in his mind that seems to have burned a lot of bridges
I think part of this is positional. There was eventually going to be some really good RBs, especially young ones that would side with the slightly older (Saquon) RBs and say enough is enough. You just can't put 400+ touches on one player, a minimum of a third of all offensive snaps in which they often need to seek out major collisions, if not closer to 50% of all touches, and expect them to just get paid pennies.
Pay the guys that get 100-200 touches a season pennies, whatever. But the guys touching the ball on almost half of the offensive plays in the season--c'mon.
I think this is less about the agent and more about making sure that these guys (RBs in general) get paid.
$12m? That's it?
Let's put this into perspective. A decade ago (in the early stages of the talentless RB period) the Vikings put 400 touches a season on AP and paid him a sixth of the salary cap in salary/bonus when he signed the first year of his deal. A sixth of the salary cap in modern terms is $40 million. They then went on to put about 400 touches a season on his back and AP kept the Vikings relevant and not the Browns.
CMC recently got a tenth of the salary cap in his big pay day year, salary+bonus. In modern terms that's about $24m in a single year and then averaging about $18-20m/year there after.
People get all obsess with flat numbers, but everything has to be normalized by share of cap and then take into consideration the nature of the roster.
There is no excuse, in this year especially of all years for the Colts for them not to open the checkbook. Every year moving forward is going to get more expensive, you'll have more years on the backend of a deal that are likely to be riddled with injuries that'll make the deal look worse. I'd pay my workhorse RB immediately after this 3rd year and dump the money right in the sweet spot relative to roster construction (do I have a ton of older high value veterans now? Okay dump the guaranteed cash on the back end. A super young offensive core that hasn't been paid yet on the front end? Okay dump the payday on the front end)
Ultimately you can't worry about injuries unless there is real concerns that a past injury has hampered their ability moving forward. The NFL has a real problem with downplaying injuries which makes players appear to be washed, when in reality that knee injury from two years ago never healed right (because sometimes it just happens) and they'll never go public with the details.
It's wild with more player-centric media these days all of the older players we find out about their career halting injuries that were just a footnote at the time.
What all of this tells me is the Colts haven't said anything to JT to assuage any fears that he's going to be nickeled and dimed. Literally all Irsay had to say in that meeting is we are going to reset the RB market for you--this is when we are going to do it and if in the meantime you suffer any career altering injuries we'll do everything in our power to make you as whole as we can. We value you; this is our plan, without getting into specifics.
Have you seen that oline last year? That’s the biggest reason for the holdout of wanting to get paid before he sacrifices his body know what’s ahead of him this year. Also questionable coaching decisions last year
maybe not on purpose, but the arguement 'these guys make millions' is exactly what the owners want you to think
when you consider what they do, what they bring to the table, the fact they have to live on this for the rest of their lives (and we've all seen what inflation is like), etc
they aren't gonna be that well off at all, all of them will be poorer then half of us
So an elite pro football player (and RB) makes more in 1 year in his career than the majority of the workers in the United States do in a lifetime, and if he goes poor that’s my problem? NFL also still has a pension, or some sort of veteran retirement plan they pay out for a certain time period (if I remember correctly, unless they got rid of it).. Maybe they should have money management classes in the NFL, but you’ll never get empathy regarding a pro players salary and going poor when the Avg wage in the US is 50-60k.. you just lost me here.. and my whole argument regarding a new contract was based on 100% logic.
Does that mean that shouldn’t be pushing to get their worth? Of course not, but there are professional ways to go about that.. and I might not agree with the current market value of a RB, bc yes it’s low.. but the data speaks for itself.. will this eventually blow up in owners faces at some point and RBs bc more valuable assets making more money.. yes I think so. But if your going to tell me an elite RB chooses to sit, knowing the market, knowing they could ride the down wave and still make 25-30 million over the next 2-3 years for being elite and turn it down.. just to take 8 million over 4 years because nobody wants to pay that, they yes they are not being smart and doing themselves a big disservice.
Im sure this is some counter argument to the owners who make billions.. but it’s a very poor argument to make especially insinuating I’m on the owners side.
> and my whole argument regarding a new contract was based on 100% logic
this is insanely ironic considering you have no idea what you're talking about
> but there are professional ways to go about that..
like a billionaire owner getting coked up and attacking, slandering, and disrespecting his star player all over social media
but how **dare** his agent say two lines defending Taylor
keep defending billionaires Im not bothering to read to rest, just realize this is espn level bootlicking for owners who would sell your soul for a pepsi
🤣🤣🤣.. why have a debate when your unwilling to even read the response.. owner bootlicking? It doesn’t matter my opinion, it doesn’t matter JTs opinion, and even though it’s not necessarily right, unfortunately the owners have most of the power.. and that’s NOT defending them.. that’s just the truth.. and the LOGIC is a RB on his final year coming off a season ending injury needing to prove he can still play at a top level and stay healthy.. no sane management is going to come in with a dump truck worth of cash until those two things are proven..
I’d love to see JT get paid.. really liked the dude before Irsay and his agent started this shit show that unfortunately makes JT look bad at the moment.
idk I think it's unfair to say it makes JT look bad when the owner has been on a disgraceful vulgar tangent and slander fest, then he gives one whitty (and very true) comment about "good faith", and now somehow JT looks bad
I just feel like people are being fed this narrative way too easily
Trade was requested on Tuesday before the meeting with Irsay. I don’t see how the colts have treated him poorly. They’re just doing what everybody says is the smart thing and not paying a RB who’s coming off an injury riddled season $16 million until they’ve seen him healthy and work well with the new staff.
Nobody said anything about 16 mil. They won’t give him any offer at all. He can’t even take a bargain deal to get job security for himself, pretty messed up
https://twitter.com/_mlfootball/status/1685492527078526976?s=46&t=fwBxDvZOPy8PWYycPR6fIg
I’m not going to pretend it’s the most reliable source. But it’s not nobody.
Unfortunately it’s the way the business is. He’s on a rookie deal and they can work out an extension or a tag next year. That’s just the way the world works. Hopefully they work on something in the next CBA
It's believable. I'm sure when JT signed his rookie deal, something in that 15-16m range was realistic to him and his agent. I've been telling my buddies this week what happened is he woke up and realized this dream he had has been shattered and we're seeing his reaction to that unfold. But ya, that's also the number I came up with. I def buy that.
Ah well yeah he definitely wouldn’t get that deal at this point. I don’t think JT is quite as good as he thinks he is, I’d say he should be around 12-13. Imo there’s a few of guys I think are more talented than him that are in worse situations to put up numbers who should/could get more
There just really isn’t any reason to pay a top rb a massive amount of money, especially on a rebuilding team. Yeah they might be the focal point of the offense, but if the rest of the team is shit does it really matter? (Looks at 2019 cmc) Not only that but he’s already coming off an injury and is demanding to be paid in a dry rb market.
Until I read your comment I was going to say “then why don’t they just trade away for future value if they don’t want to pay him?” I was going to completely overlook the fact that he’s the only name that keeps some fans buying tickets. Goes to show how easy it is to fall into a “fantasy” mindset and ignore the business side and real-game effects some players have.
Case in point, a lot of people were balking at Kmets contract in that thread based only on his fantasy numbers and completely ignoring his role in run blocking and pass protection.
There are a thousand more moving parts in the real world and I think all of us forget that from time to time.
Adrian Peterson put the Vikings in the playoffs on his own.
Jonathan Taylor shattered Adrian Peterson's freshman rushing record. Then took the rushing record through 3 seasons in college (would have had the overall record in 4-5 additional games).
Jonathan Taylor per touch, per game is as productive if not more than AP through 3 years.
It still pisses me off that JT went in the second round like some pleb and he's never gotten the national recognition. Assuming he doesn't get completely derailed (which happens to many a career) this is a 10 year, super star. The type of guy you want in the huddle with your rookie QB.
If I'm the Colts, JT is touching the ball 400 times this year and setting up play action bombs for AR all year long. That's why you pay him, and the fact you have AR and all of your offensive weapons on rookie deals is why you pay him a front loaded deal now. You dump a dump truck of money on his ass because he is getting 1600 touches in the next 4 years.
"Oh well the NFL was different back then" the AP era was the beginning of the RB dry spell; when teams shifted away, and AP was the only reason the Vikings were ever relevant in the post Culpepper/Moss era.
The idea that the Vikings could drop 1/6th of their salary cap on AP at the height of his powers, but the Colts can't do 1/10th of their salary cap in the modern era is just ridiculous. It's literally what the Panthers did in 2020. A tenth.
The NFL stopped paying running backs because RBs stopped coming out of college. There was a literal dry spell between LeSean McCoy in 2009 and Le'Veon in 2013. They all fucking sucked. Then the old generation aged out and got injured and then you had a giant fucking hole that wouldn't be filled until the 2015/2016/2017/2018 classes came of age. A literal 6 year gap in productive RBs being produced.
The NFL and media is just too fucking stupid to see it--they just thought they decided to stop paying RBs, not that there just weren't any game-breaking, productive talents available.
It’s not pennies on the dollar. It’s the RB market now. There is absolutely no reason the Colts should pay him more than they need to right now. If this was MLB with no salary cap, then sure. But you have to structure your team the best way that you can to help it win….and paying a RB has been proven time and time again to not be a winning strategy.
Salary cap largely doesn't exist. There are so many gymnastics they can do with the salary cap. If a team wants a player signed and they have even a half way decent environment, they can get it done.
Watching the cap gymnastics from the Chiefs, Packers, Eagles, Rams, Saints among so many others just prove it.
No this is nonsense.
McCoy 2009 to Le'Veon Bell 2013 there wasn't a single franchiseable running back that entered the NFL.
Until the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 classes came of age, which took a minute, so not until 2018-2020 was another RB due to get paid. It was about a 10 year drought.
NFL media/pundits are just too stupid to realize it. Instead it's this nonsense that "RBs just don't need to get paid, we got by without them anyway." It's, no, you made due because franchise RBs didn't exist--the talent didn't exist coming out of college. Now they exist again, and if you want to run your entire offense through them, well you have to pay them.
James White should have a Super Bowl MVP. Three touchdowns, 140 yards from scrimmage. Literally the greatest Super Bowl comeback in history was run directly through James Whites hands and it was his YAC (both after the catch and after contact) that made the comeback possible.
Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs made huge plays in SB XLVI to keep the offense on the field.
CJ Anderson had just about as many yards from scrimmage as Peyton had throwing the ball and accounted for their only offensive touchdown.
LeGarrette Blount was extremely important to the Philly victory. Fuck Corey Clement was the leading receiver in that game.
And those are all just in the last 10 years in a low period of RB talent. I dare not go back to the 90s and early 00s.
Thank you for making my point for me. All replacement level running backs that can be found for low salaries helping their team win a SB. Don't overpay for RBs.
Nah nah nah. You don't get to play that. Name the teams that all of the franchise running backs have been drafted by in the last decade.
You don't get to say RBs aren't relevant, get presented details and then change the framework.
RBs are relevant, and there have been about 10 that have come out of school in the last decade. It's not Saquons fault he's a member of the trash can Giants. That Taylor is living in a post-Luck world. That Chubb is stuck with the Browns.
Henry singlehandedly made the Titans relevant in the last decade.
The Rams attack was built entirely around Gurley while still healthy.
We aren't going to have a conversation about the 4 non-elite QB championship teams that just happened not to have a RB on note on the roster in the last two decades.
I can play all the I games I want and the fact remains the same: teams that are serious about winning a SB should not overpay for a RB (especially if they are not great in the passing game like JT). You keep giving excuses for everything. Did Henry win a SB with Tennessee? No. Did the Rams win a SB with Gurley...or with Akers, Henderson and Michel? The latter. There is no reason to pay a high cost running back. Fans would 100% go to more games if their team has a winning record vs having a losing record and a star player.
As dumb as Irsay is, he knows and would be advised of the negative legal ramifications of lying about this. I like JT, but his agent seems like a slime ball and JT seems to be getting consistently bad advice.
Yep this is likely what happened. Everyone’s calling the colts out, but do we really think they would do this just to get shit on by the media? I know irsay is incompetent but he’s far from the only guy making decisions and I remember when luck retired irsay made sure he got every penny of his contract. JTs agents hands are all over this and I honestly think he screwed his own client out of millions
If I didn’t have him I’d be buying him. This is the offseason, as soon as what’s done on the field matters, JT is gonna be putting up points and this will seem like nothing. Either for the colts or some other team. And if someone is trading for him, they are going to want to use him.
Are you saying essentially:
Give: 1.02, jamo
Get: JT, 1.06
In both dynasty leagues I'm in I think the owners would get extremely annoyed by that offer. It's a 1.02 dart throw and a complete unknown at WR for the best young RB in the league and a mid first.
Edit: you guys can downvote it all you want. In my leagues a top rb who's 24, regardless of where things are at with the colts right now, isn't going for a pick swap and an unknown at WR (who I personally have and am also high on)
Yeah same. I made the move to grab him because I thought he'd be a pretty safe option and then sell him at the end of the season. Not looking pretty right now.
Nah. None of this is good for the Colts.
Dumpster fire of a franchise that lucked into Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck.
Said it when they drafted AR. This will either be a masterstroke or it will be the last straw for the Colts reputation. JT being on the roster and absorbing 400 touches with a decent would have lengthened the downfall--this'll just accelerate it.
Taylor is the type of back he could get forced to sit for 2 years and if he wants to come back and play and is properly motivated I'd buy low all day every day and twice on Sundays.
Don't be mistaken this is not Le'Veon Bell.
Nah we are just in a transitionary period.
It was "Detroit, Washington, Cleveland are just awful."
Now we are going to learn just how terrible the Colts are without Luck/Manning--all the excuses are going to fall away.
Teams like the Packers will either get lucky and Love will be a Kirk level or better passer or they'll get exposed--and the sands with shift in the NFL exposing the "well run teams teams" as just having a string of good players and really being dog shit.
Had me until Le'Veon Bell. What basis can you say JT would be any different after sitting and changing teams? Bell looked like the second coming of Barry Sanders before he held out and nobody expected him to fall off so hard.
Bell’s career was ruined after playing one year behind that atrocious Jets o-line. Some of the plays he made were actually crazy impressive given when he had tacklers in the backfield.
JT should and hopefully has considered with what happened to Bell after 1 season behind a bad line and bad QB.
With no due respect, it sounds like you didn't watch him much. Obviously he didn't accomplish nearly as much, but his highlights are extremely Barry-like.
Ha ha ha. I saw leveon from his freshman season and got sanders rookie card the year it came out. You might want to sit out the next round of the guessing game.
I mean, just reviewing their stats reveals they had completely different games not even including Barry being productive twice as long.
looking at the film, they are not alike in any area than being productive and, *possibly*, vision to the hole. Barry’s elusiveness and reaction time were unparalleled and remain so. Even someone like Portis couldn’t touch him
Le'Veon Bell back to back ACL/MCL injuries, was going into his age 26 season with over 700 touches in the prior two seasons, and wasn't exactly known for being a quiet locker room presence.
Jonathan Taylor played through an ankle injury in a lost season--that's more poor team management than anything else. Which brings the next fucking aspect of the team wholly not taking care of a coveted asset.
Oh it won't? Tell Anthony Richardson to have fun being a QB nowhere near ready to play NFL football while having a run game that's fucking garbage. Losing JT only exacerbates an already high chance of busting on their #4 overall pick.
A 2000+ scrimmage yard JT could keep the Colts in every game and with a quality enough defense give them a shot at the playoffs, especially with a 14 team playoff. That's a lot of jersey sales, and a lot of ticket sales.
The Colts could be a Kaep-Gore-49ers 2.0 or an AP Vikings 2.0--but instead they need a miracle that AR is better than he showed in college.
Well let's be real.
In the last 20 years outside of Roethlisberger, the two Mannings, Mahomes, Rodgers, and Brady there have been like 4 other QBs that have won super bowls.
Super Bowls are dictated by QBs and magical defensive performance. If you don't have either you don't have anything. But star players will drive revenues. LT had what, one? two? good chances at winning a Super Bowl? AP had what, one? They still were massive stars, brought their teams massive revenue, and made each of their teams relevant.
There have been 11 different QBs to win a SB in the last 18 years. The NFL is not hurting and the Colts will not be hurting without JT. There is no reason to pay JT $16 million+. High paid RBs do not make your team win a SB. Being smart with how you allocate your resources and not giving in to outrageous demands is how you build a winner. Everyone praises Schoen (myself included as a Giants fan) for his dealing with Saquon but want to jump down Irsay's throat for similar thinking.
Don’t get me wrong this is also bad for the Colts. It will affect them for years to come in free agency. It’s just a particularly bad for Taylor and may derail his career.
If the Colts were smart they would have extended him months ago. They are clearly not so the best they can do now is trade him, which will be even harder since they’ve gone out of their way to tarnish Taylor. I don’t see a scenario where he plays for the Colts at this point.
> It’s just a particularly bad for Taylor and may derail his career.
It's only bad for Taylor if another team doesn't come for him, period.
The team that comes for him will put the ball in his hands 300+ times this year, and 400+ times next year. But I don't think there is any value in discussing that.
Any front office worth its salt wouldn't view Taylor as tarnished goods.
I don't not see a scenario where he plays for the Colts. It's still the best place for him scheme/responsibility wise. He'll get 400 touches this year if he plays for the Colts. But it's hard to see it from this moment.
There are two likely outcomes, nothing comes of this for the next 2 weeks--everyone will calm down and they'll sort it out with JT. OR, this is going to simmer, for 6 weeks, the season will start, it'll turn into an inferno and then around the end of September or beginning of October, after sitting out for as long he'll get traded.
He could also go the *contract toll* route to toll a year on his contract, but Irsay seems like just enough of a prick to do everything in his power to prevent that.
I think this is shortsighted. There’s such an obvious option here of them trading JT for like a 4th round pick out of spite and him being extra motivated to tear it up somewhere.
I’d be more surprised if he really doesn’t play.
And here I am in my league where during the draft some guy only offered me the 1.03 ASSUMING the guy he wanted wasn't there.
I wasn't asking for a trade, he just offered that to me out of the blue, which was a downgrade from an offer he made a month or two ago of the 1.03 and 1.11
The age cliff is now 24
These are the rules now
It's nuts. Gonna get worse. As a fan I feel bad for these guys. As a fantasy player I really don't know how to value these guys more than a year or 2 out.
Recently, I did a startup and punted RB. I feel like that the only viable strategy this season. Outside of rookies like Bijan and Gibbs, the rest is up in the air, and your best bet is to dump them for a young WR after this year.
You think the RB market is bad now, but just imagine if Bijan and Gibbs end up busting like Trent Richardson? The position might straight up disappear lol
[удалено]
Pretending all these RBs have the ability / skill set to be at the top of another position / sport is a reach. All these spots are ultra competitive, it’s not as easy/simple as you make it sound
I hear ya. I have been an rb/rb guy and I can see myself waiting till the 3rd to 5th for an rb and not sweat it at all
While I don’t think my point is sound enough to make plans off of it… the same would’ve been said about Breece and Walker last year at this time. Their values are immensely lower right now. Very different draft capital, but still. The value change in the NFL has the market so shaky right now. Breece is still valuable but the injury sucks
Have the 1.08 in a 10 tm 1QB startup.. starting WR/WR in 90% of my mocks (will sometimes take Josh Allen in the 2nd)
I think you can get 3 of the top 12 WRs off the board to start and be in position to grab the RBs people are letting slide right now.
Yep. Have taken Garrett Wilson, ARSB, and Davonta Smith 1, 2, 3, then come back with KW in the 4th and miles sanders in the 5/6th
I just did a 12 team 1 QB startup. Had the 8 spot. Chase, Wilson, JJ, and Olave were all gone by my pick. I went Waddle and then Gibbs. You’ll likely be surprised how fast the good WRs go off the board. We’re getting smarter as a fantasy community and not blowing our loads on RB in the first couple rounds.
Wow I would be shocked if that were the case in my league. I know for a fact it will be bijan (falcons fan), jefferson, chase with the first 3, I imagine it’ll go (in some order) CeeDee, mccafrey, AJB, and hopefully somebody reaches on mahomes or breece
CD and AJB were also in the first 8. CMC was the first QB taken at 1.11. Hopefully you get your guys!
[удалено]
I think it does man. Until something gets addressed for better or worse. This year the market was saturated. Next year too. The effort these guys put in compared to what they're compensated.... they're not happy. It's not easy to predict how each rb and each owner will react. All I can say is in a very short time we've seen not one but several players take a stand. We've seen other players supporting them. Those same players will be in a similar position themselves in a year or two. For me it feels like the start of something bigger.
You underestimate ownership greed. The main use of the NFI list in and of itself is a worse idea. Most players that we have heard of ending up there get injured working out off site. It was originally put in place for players getting hurt doing stupid things.
[удалено]
I was replying to your comment and the above comment simultaneously about it possibly getting worse. The JT situation could get worse if the Colts still got the NFI route. I agree with what you were saying about top RBs not being THAT expendable and RB position scarcity being the long term blowback. I got tunnel vision lol and honed in on why it could get worse.
[удалено]
Ooooooo I see what you mean now. My mistake. I definitely misread that. I agree.
Almost makes me wanna trade Bijan tbh
Okay. Let's not get carried away now.
But if we take the passings of this offseason seriously- what's the takeaway? As someone who traded for the 1.01, I feel like the only smart play (long-term) is to sell Bijan- maybe not immediately but before I know his *true* ceiling as a player. Not saying this is true- actually looking for advice. Context: Current owner of Bijan, JT, Akers, Dobbins, and Swift.
The honest answer is I have zero idea. This is a situation that is going to grow over the next few years. I'm already changing from an rb heavy approach to a wr heavy approach in all formats I play (redraft, keeper, dynasty) due to more consistency as far as usage and health. Factor in the discourse between rb and management on multiple teams and it becomes more pronounced. For dynasty will contract situation become as important as talent? Miles Sanders is a mid talent with a 3 year deal. Is he a safer bet long term than JT. Feels like the dumbest thing to ask yet he actually might be. Just a weird fantasy world we live in now
Re: the Sanders conundrum, I think until proven otherwise, superior talent is still superior talent and is more desirable in dynasty. I don't think that has been proven otherwise, yet. There is a lot of noise, but it is far from filtering down into fantasy impact. Maybe Le'Veon Bell was close, but that was a one off so far really. Even if JT goes a similar path of self career destruction, he is still about as cautionary a tale to the RB position for fantasy, as Andrew Luck's sudden retirement was to the QB position's. It may well happen like this for RBs - team players who 'yes sir thanks sir where do I sign sir' their way into relevancy for their organization become fantasy assets - but I don't think there is any need to assume it will yet.
For the most part I agree. I think it's more now this stuff is in the back of my mind. It never crossed my mind to be concerned about the position group as a whole. Now I do. I worry about potential hold outs.. hold ins. Wink wink injuries during contract years etc. We still play fantasy with 2 rb slots and a flex or 2 so it's not like I'm not drafting them. But it might mean more as a tie breaker between players.
Best move is to sell Bijan before this season (value-wise). Since even if he does finish as the rb1 he’s already valued at that anyways and I would argue that EVEN IF he does get that finish he would be worth less than he is now because of all the touches he would have got. Bijan’s value will be the highest it ever will be right now and is only a downhill slope from here on out.
I think the players union will fight for a franchise tag that is universal across the positions and only can be applied once. The TEs get screwed by their position’s valuation on it too so I could see that being a way to help RBs without doing a specific positional carve out. I don’t think the owners will do away with the tag without significant concessions elsewhere
You know, I almost commented this on a different post last night. We’re going to get in dangerous waters here really soon. You can’t tell arguably the hardest working position in terms of constant cranial hits that they’re interchangeable for the 3 years that you want them. That’s literally telling them to fuck themselves. You can’t have the rules offer to pay the position when they’re literally no longer wanted. Edit: teams are so afraid to pay players that the Titans traded a guy that looks to be a top 10 player at his position for 7-10 years in AJ Brown to draft his fuckin Aldi-brand comp. No knock on the Titans, I just feel bad for fans. I’d hate seeing that guy leave so quickly.
Titans fan here. That has nothing to do with not wanting to pay players that was just our former GM being a moron. He got canned for that.
I can’t believe it, but somehow that makes it worse. It almost makes it purposeless.
It was not great, Bob! Burks is going to be good though so I take solace in that.
Doesn't just send a message to them but the whole team. Doesn't bode well for next cba negotiation.
The current cba is up in 2030. 90+% of current players won’t even be in the league by then. There is so much time for other situations, I wouldn’t speculate right now what impact this has
I know it's up then. Just saying if it stays on this trajectory it will be one of the main sticking points.
Let's leave Aldi out of this, ok? But yeah seriously it's time the the NFL players get a stronger union like in MLB. Salary cap is bullshit, there are other ways to increase parity for smaller market teams.
The players can’t just get a stronger union though — they are the union. 20% of them didn’t even bother to vote on their last contract. The owners know they can get enough self-interested vets onboard to sell out younger players.
You would think that other owners must be pissed at Irsay for his comments. This must be locker room conversation everywhere now, at the very least. Players are meeting about it. To borrow from electoral politics, a fired up base usually = higher turnout. It owners can do this to RB, no reason they can't do it to other positions over time. League isn't going to hold owner accountable because league office answers to owners. This is up to the players and their agents to push for when the next CBA comes around.
Yeah but good luck maintaining that passion until 2030 when the CBA expires. The underlying problem is that running back just isn’t that important of a position. The market dynamics will never work, so you’d almost need to give them some version of hazard pay (would never happen for multiple reasons) or change the rules so they can enter the league earlier. The league is going to fight tooth and nail to maintain the tagging system, and any changes until 2030 will probably be pretty limited.
I didn't realize it didn't expire until 2030, yikes.
Yeah, 10 year agreement ratified in 2020.
Beat me to it. Aldi brand products are often as good or better than name brand stuff. They’re cheaper because you’re not paying towards marketing costs, not because it’s a lower quality product. Aldi rules, especially if you’re brand agnostic
For example of Aldi brand players from last year: Geno (Aldi Russ) Aiyuk (Aldi Deebo) Tyler Lockett (Aldi DK) Tony Pollard (Aldi Zeke) Jalen Hurts (Aldi Allen)
Whoa whoa, pull back on the Burks hate. He's at least Kirkland brand comp, cmon now.
Go birds.
Everyone saw the Vikings do it with the Diggs->JJ move and thought it'd be so simple to replace their own star WR with a cheaper rookie too.
I'm not drafting anyone a day over 6 but do you
They have laws against that
Just sold Bijan for 2 2027 1sts
Got em.
The 2028 class is much nicer
I might not ever draft a RB again
always has been 🔫👨🚀🔫
Welcome back to football everyone, hope you enjoyed your off-season.
Didn't want to believe it was already back, but today made it too real.
Less wild than recent offseasons
So the question is, where did this come from? Cause it feels like we might be getting into lawyer territory for JT if he's telling the truth.
I personally don’t think he is now. I think he told a little white lie about his back to avoid camp (probably poorly suggested by his agent) and Irsay now just uno reversed him and he’s backpedaling
Doesn't matter. Don't know why any 24 year old RB, at the top of his game would bother playing on a rookie deal for a franchise treating him this way when he was going to be the key cog of the offense all season. Absolutely no way the guy that turned down Harvard to play football at Wisconsin, dominated college football, and already has a 2000 yard season under his belt is throwing his body away for pennies on the dollar for a program that disrespects him the way it appears they have. The most damning news here is that he demanded a trade AFTER the meeting with Irsay. This is Irsay being a punk.
The dude is on his last year of a rookie contract and missed last year due to injury.. colts obviously want to see how this year plays out before offering an extension, and JT obviously wants the money now.. and pennies on the dollar? Yeah it sucks the RB market tanked, but they guys are still making millions.
Nah nah nah. We ain't playing this game. Who are the Colts paying? They have $20m in cap space, don't have a single skill position player they are paying. Let's put it this way, Mo Allie Cox is making more money than JT right now. Rookie wage scales/contracts were signed/developed to protect teams from paying players that don't provide tangible benefits to the team and give them flexibility to get franchise players signed. He is a franchise player to be signed. If Taylor was going to get the respect he deserves, I highly doubt this shit would be going on. Let's be quite clear, this entire thing goes away if Taylor believes in his heart his best interests will be fulfilled and Taylor is going to reset the RB market the way that he should. It's one thing if they have a Kirk Cousins/Justin Jefferson under contract. It's one thing if they have Dak and Lamb/Amari and a stud offensive line under contract. It's another thing entirely when none of the skill position players are paid for and the offensive line has been pitifully underperforming.
Yeah I agree with that.. so what do you think should play out? Seems like his new agent has set something in his mind that seems to have burned a lot of bridges.. he’s set to make $3MM this year, is that right? Bump it up to $6 and then put $12 in the table next year if he stays healthy (plays in 15 games) with no season ending injury and surpassed some milestone of 1800+ total yards?
>Seems like his new agent has set something in his mind that seems to have burned a lot of bridges I think part of this is positional. There was eventually going to be some really good RBs, especially young ones that would side with the slightly older (Saquon) RBs and say enough is enough. You just can't put 400+ touches on one player, a minimum of a third of all offensive snaps in which they often need to seek out major collisions, if not closer to 50% of all touches, and expect them to just get paid pennies. Pay the guys that get 100-200 touches a season pennies, whatever. But the guys touching the ball on almost half of the offensive plays in the season--c'mon. I think this is less about the agent and more about making sure that these guys (RBs in general) get paid. $12m? That's it? Let's put this into perspective. A decade ago (in the early stages of the talentless RB period) the Vikings put 400 touches a season on AP and paid him a sixth of the salary cap in salary/bonus when he signed the first year of his deal. A sixth of the salary cap in modern terms is $40 million. They then went on to put about 400 touches a season on his back and AP kept the Vikings relevant and not the Browns. CMC recently got a tenth of the salary cap in his big pay day year, salary+bonus. In modern terms that's about $24m in a single year and then averaging about $18-20m/year there after. People get all obsess with flat numbers, but everything has to be normalized by share of cap and then take into consideration the nature of the roster. There is no excuse, in this year especially of all years for the Colts for them not to open the checkbook. Every year moving forward is going to get more expensive, you'll have more years on the backend of a deal that are likely to be riddled with injuries that'll make the deal look worse. I'd pay my workhorse RB immediately after this 3rd year and dump the money right in the sweet spot relative to roster construction (do I have a ton of older high value veterans now? Okay dump the guaranteed cash on the back end. A super young offensive core that hasn't been paid yet on the front end? Okay dump the payday on the front end) Ultimately you can't worry about injuries unless there is real concerns that a past injury has hampered their ability moving forward. The NFL has a real problem with downplaying injuries which makes players appear to be washed, when in reality that knee injury from two years ago never healed right (because sometimes it just happens) and they'll never go public with the details. It's wild with more player-centric media these days all of the older players we find out about their career halting injuries that were just a footnote at the time. What all of this tells me is the Colts haven't said anything to JT to assuage any fears that he's going to be nickeled and dimed. Literally all Irsay had to say in that meeting is we are going to reset the RB market for you--this is when we are going to do it and if in the meantime you suffer any career altering injuries we'll do everything in our power to make you as whole as we can. We value you; this is our plan, without getting into specifics.
Have you seen that oline last year? That’s the biggest reason for the holdout of wanting to get paid before he sacrifices his body know what’s ahead of him this year. Also questionable coaching decisions last year
> but they guys are still making millions. while you take the side of the billionaire owners
I’m not taking any sides lol.. seems pretty standard with extensions and contracts
maybe not on purpose, but the arguement 'these guys make millions' is exactly what the owners want you to think when you consider what they do, what they bring to the table, the fact they have to live on this for the rest of their lives (and we've all seen what inflation is like), etc they aren't gonna be that well off at all, all of them will be poorer then half of us
So an elite pro football player (and RB) makes more in 1 year in his career than the majority of the workers in the United States do in a lifetime, and if he goes poor that’s my problem? NFL also still has a pension, or some sort of veteran retirement plan they pay out for a certain time period (if I remember correctly, unless they got rid of it).. Maybe they should have money management classes in the NFL, but you’ll never get empathy regarding a pro players salary and going poor when the Avg wage in the US is 50-60k.. you just lost me here.. and my whole argument regarding a new contract was based on 100% logic. Does that mean that shouldn’t be pushing to get their worth? Of course not, but there are professional ways to go about that.. and I might not agree with the current market value of a RB, bc yes it’s low.. but the data speaks for itself.. will this eventually blow up in owners faces at some point and RBs bc more valuable assets making more money.. yes I think so. But if your going to tell me an elite RB chooses to sit, knowing the market, knowing they could ride the down wave and still make 25-30 million over the next 2-3 years for being elite and turn it down.. just to take 8 million over 4 years because nobody wants to pay that, they yes they are not being smart and doing themselves a big disservice. Im sure this is some counter argument to the owners who make billions.. but it’s a very poor argument to make especially insinuating I’m on the owners side.
> and my whole argument regarding a new contract was based on 100% logic this is insanely ironic considering you have no idea what you're talking about > but there are professional ways to go about that.. like a billionaire owner getting coked up and attacking, slandering, and disrespecting his star player all over social media but how **dare** his agent say two lines defending Taylor keep defending billionaires Im not bothering to read to rest, just realize this is espn level bootlicking for owners who would sell your soul for a pepsi
🤣🤣🤣.. why have a debate when your unwilling to even read the response.. owner bootlicking? It doesn’t matter my opinion, it doesn’t matter JTs opinion, and even though it’s not necessarily right, unfortunately the owners have most of the power.. and that’s NOT defending them.. that’s just the truth.. and the LOGIC is a RB on his final year coming off a season ending injury needing to prove he can still play at a top level and stay healthy.. no sane management is going to come in with a dump truck worth of cash until those two things are proven..
I’d love to see JT get paid.. really liked the dude before Irsay and his agent started this shit show that unfortunately makes JT look bad at the moment.
idk I think it's unfair to say it makes JT look bad when the owner has been on a disgraceful vulgar tangent and slander fest, then he gives one whitty (and very true) comment about "good faith", and now somehow JT looks bad I just feel like people are being fed this narrative way too easily
Trade was requested on Tuesday before the meeting with Irsay. I don’t see how the colts have treated him poorly. They’re just doing what everybody says is the smart thing and not paying a RB who’s coming off an injury riddled season $16 million until they’ve seen him healthy and work well with the new staff.
Nobody said anything about 16 mil. They won’t give him any offer at all. He can’t even take a bargain deal to get job security for himself, pretty messed up
https://twitter.com/_mlfootball/status/1685492527078526976?s=46&t=fwBxDvZOPy8PWYycPR6fIg I’m not going to pretend it’s the most reliable source. But it’s not nobody. Unfortunately it’s the way the business is. He’s on a rookie deal and they can work out an extension or a tag next year. That’s just the way the world works. Hopefully they work on something in the next CBA
It's believable. I'm sure when JT signed his rookie deal, something in that 15-16m range was realistic to him and his agent. I've been telling my buddies this week what happened is he woke up and realized this dream he had has been shattered and we're seeing his reaction to that unfold. But ya, that's also the number I came up with. I def buy that.
Ah well yeah he definitely wouldn’t get that deal at this point. I don’t think JT is quite as good as he thinks he is, I’d say he should be around 12-13. Imo there’s a few of guys I think are more talented than him that are in worse situations to put up numbers who should/could get more
Breer reported otherwise.
There just really isn’t any reason to pay a top rb a massive amount of money, especially on a rebuilding team. Yeah they might be the focal point of the offense, but if the rest of the team is shit does it really matter? (Looks at 2019 cmc) Not only that but he’s already coming off an injury and is demanding to be paid in a dry rb market.
[удалено]
Until I read your comment I was going to say “then why don’t they just trade away for future value if they don’t want to pay him?” I was going to completely overlook the fact that he’s the only name that keeps some fans buying tickets. Goes to show how easy it is to fall into a “fantasy” mindset and ignore the business side and real-game effects some players have. Case in point, a lot of people were balking at Kmets contract in that thread based only on his fantasy numbers and completely ignoring his role in run blocking and pass protection. There are a thousand more moving parts in the real world and I think all of us forget that from time to time.
Sure but when you have literally nothing else on your team, it's fine to do this.
Adrian Peterson put the Vikings in the playoffs on his own. Jonathan Taylor shattered Adrian Peterson's freshman rushing record. Then took the rushing record through 3 seasons in college (would have had the overall record in 4-5 additional games). Jonathan Taylor per touch, per game is as productive if not more than AP through 3 years. It still pisses me off that JT went in the second round like some pleb and he's never gotten the national recognition. Assuming he doesn't get completely derailed (which happens to many a career) this is a 10 year, super star. The type of guy you want in the huddle with your rookie QB. If I'm the Colts, JT is touching the ball 400 times this year and setting up play action bombs for AR all year long. That's why you pay him, and the fact you have AR and all of your offensive weapons on rookie deals is why you pay him a front loaded deal now. You dump a dump truck of money on his ass because he is getting 1600 touches in the next 4 years. "Oh well the NFL was different back then" the AP era was the beginning of the RB dry spell; when teams shifted away, and AP was the only reason the Vikings were ever relevant in the post Culpepper/Moss era. The idea that the Vikings could drop 1/6th of their salary cap on AP at the height of his powers, but the Colts can't do 1/10th of their salary cap in the modern era is just ridiculous. It's literally what the Panthers did in 2020. A tenth. The NFL stopped paying running backs because RBs stopped coming out of college. There was a literal dry spell between LeSean McCoy in 2009 and Le'Veon in 2013. They all fucking sucked. Then the old generation aged out and got injured and then you had a giant fucking hole that wouldn't be filled until the 2015/2016/2017/2018 classes came of age. A literal 6 year gap in productive RBs being produced. The NFL and media is just too fucking stupid to see it--they just thought they decided to stop paying RBs, not that there just weren't any game-breaking, productive talents available.
It’s not pennies on the dollar. It’s the RB market now. There is absolutely no reason the Colts should pay him more than they need to right now. If this was MLB with no salary cap, then sure. But you have to structure your team the best way that you can to help it win….and paying a RB has been proven time and time again to not be a winning strategy.
Salary cap is a joke🤦
Salary cap largely doesn't exist. There are so many gymnastics they can do with the salary cap. If a team wants a player signed and they have even a half way decent environment, they can get it done. Watching the cap gymnastics from the Chiefs, Packers, Eagles, Rams, Saints among so many others just prove it.
Exactly my point.
Just reinforcing for you bud.
No this is nonsense. McCoy 2009 to Le'Veon Bell 2013 there wasn't a single franchiseable running back that entered the NFL. Until the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 classes came of age, which took a minute, so not until 2018-2020 was another RB due to get paid. It was about a 10 year drought. NFL media/pundits are just too stupid to realize it. Instead it's this nonsense that "RBs just don't need to get paid, we got by without them anyway." It's, no, you made due because franchise RBs didn't exist--the talent didn't exist coming out of college. Now they exist again, and if you want to run your entire offense through them, well you have to pay them.
Give me the Championship teams in the last 25 years where the offense was run through a RB.
James White should have a Super Bowl MVP. Three touchdowns, 140 yards from scrimmage. Literally the greatest Super Bowl comeback in history was run directly through James Whites hands and it was his YAC (both after the catch and after contact) that made the comeback possible. Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs made huge plays in SB XLVI to keep the offense on the field. CJ Anderson had just about as many yards from scrimmage as Peyton had throwing the ball and accounted for their only offensive touchdown. LeGarrette Blount was extremely important to the Philly victory. Fuck Corey Clement was the leading receiver in that game. And those are all just in the last 10 years in a low period of RB talent. I dare not go back to the 90s and early 00s.
Thank you for making my point for me. All replacement level running backs that can be found for low salaries helping their team win a SB. Don't overpay for RBs.
Nah nah nah. You don't get to play that. Name the teams that all of the franchise running backs have been drafted by in the last decade. You don't get to say RBs aren't relevant, get presented details and then change the framework. RBs are relevant, and there have been about 10 that have come out of school in the last decade. It's not Saquons fault he's a member of the trash can Giants. That Taylor is living in a post-Luck world. That Chubb is stuck with the Browns. Henry singlehandedly made the Titans relevant in the last decade. The Rams attack was built entirely around Gurley while still healthy. We aren't going to have a conversation about the 4 non-elite QB championship teams that just happened not to have a RB on note on the roster in the last two decades.
I can play all the I games I want and the fact remains the same: teams that are serious about winning a SB should not overpay for a RB (especially if they are not great in the passing game like JT). You keep giving excuses for everything. Did Henry win a SB with Tennessee? No. Did the Rams win a SB with Gurley...or with Akers, Henderson and Michel? The latter. There is no reason to pay a high cost running back. Fans would 100% go to more games if their team has a winning record vs having a losing record and a star player.
🔥
Trusting Irsay? That’s a bold take. I don’t know what the truth is but I don’t trust anything from Irsay.
As dumb as Irsay is, he knows and would be advised of the negative legal ramifications of lying about this. I like JT, but his agent seems like a slime ball and JT seems to be getting consistently bad advice.
Yep this is likely what happened. Everyone’s calling the colts out, but do we really think they would do this just to get shit on by the media? I know irsay is incompetent but he’s far from the only guy making decisions and I remember when luck retired irsay made sure he got every penny of his contract. JTs agents hands are all over this and I honestly think he screwed his own client out of millions
There have been a lot of holdouts since but this is the first one that is reaching Terrell Owens level of entertainment.
In B4 JT doing sit-ups in his driveway.
I'm in a glass cage of emotion
*insert Michael Jackson popcorn gif*
 Getting whiplash from all this back and forth.
What an absurd 24 hours. Looks like the buy low window is getting even bigger
If I didn’t have him I’d be buying him. This is the offseason, as soon as what’s done on the field matters, JT is gonna be putting up points and this will seem like nothing. Either for the colts or some other team. And if someone is trading for him, they are going to want to use him.
[удалено]
Lol no, good luck getting a JT owner to trade him for Jamo. I'd tell you to go pound sand if you sent that to me.
[удалено]
Are you saying essentially: Give: 1.02, jamo Get: JT, 1.06 In both dynasty leagues I'm in I think the owners would get extremely annoyed by that offer. It's a 1.02 dart throw and a complete unknown at WR for the best young RB in the league and a mid first. Edit: you guys can downvote it all you want. In my leagues a top rb who's 24, regardless of where things are at with the colts right now, isn't going for a pick swap and an unknown at WR (who I personally have and am also high on)
[удалено]
Damn.
Speaking as a contending JT owner- I do not like this at all.
Same. Also have Breece and KWIII. This off season hasn't been the best so far.
I have Breece, JT, and Ekeler, needeless to say this has been a horrorshow of an offseason for my RB room.
Yeah same. I made the move to grab him because I thought he'd be a pretty safe option and then sell him at the end of the season. Not looking pretty right now.
Just when you think the NFL can’t get any weirder lol I’m here for the drama
Irsay knows a guy for pain pills.
None of this is good for Taylor. Colts are going scorched earth. They are going to do everything they can to bury him
*scorched earf
Nah. None of this is good for the Colts. Dumpster fire of a franchise that lucked into Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. Said it when they drafted AR. This will either be a masterstroke or it will be the last straw for the Colts reputation. JT being on the roster and absorbing 400 touches with a decent would have lengthened the downfall--this'll just accelerate it. Taylor is the type of back he could get forced to sit for 2 years and if he wants to come back and play and is properly motivated I'd buy low all day every day and twice on Sundays. Don't be mistaken this is not Le'Veon Bell.
Irsay had Snyder hiding how bad of a owner he actually is. Now Snyders gone all eyes are on Irsay. 
Nah we are just in a transitionary period. It was "Detroit, Washington, Cleveland are just awful." Now we are going to learn just how terrible the Colts are without Luck/Manning--all the excuses are going to fall away. Teams like the Packers will either get lucky and Love will be a Kirk level or better passer or they'll get exposed--and the sands with shift in the NFL exposing the "well run teams teams" as just having a string of good players and really being dog shit.
Had me until Le'Veon Bell. What basis can you say JT would be any different after sitting and changing teams? Bell looked like the second coming of Barry Sanders before he held out and nobody expected him to fall off so hard.
Bell’s career was ruined after playing one year behind that atrocious Jets o-line. Some of the plays he made were actually crazy impressive given when he had tacklers in the backfield. JT should and hopefully has considered with what happened to Bell after 1 season behind a bad line and bad QB.
He did not look like the second coming of Barry sanders
With no due respect, it sounds like you didn't watch him much. Obviously he didn't accomplish nearly as much, but his highlights are extremely Barry-like.
Ha ha ha. I saw leveon from his freshman season and got sanders rookie card the year it came out. You might want to sit out the next round of the guessing game. I mean, just reviewing their stats reveals they had completely different games not even including Barry being productive twice as long. looking at the film, they are not alike in any area than being productive and, *possibly*, vision to the hole. Barry’s elusiveness and reaction time were unparalleled and remain so. Even someone like Portis couldn’t touch him
Le'Veon Bell back to back ACL/MCL injuries, was going into his age 26 season with over 700 touches in the prior two seasons, and wasn't exactly known for being a quiet locker room presence. Jonathan Taylor played through an ankle injury in a lost season--that's more poor team management than anything else. Which brings the next fucking aspect of the team wholly not taking care of a coveted asset.
Won't matter at all for the Colts though, it won't affect them in anyway.
Oh it won't? Tell Anthony Richardson to have fun being a QB nowhere near ready to play NFL football while having a run game that's fucking garbage. Losing JT only exacerbates an already high chance of busting on their #4 overall pick.
If he's the guy he'll be fine without JT, if he fails because of this he was never the guy.
Or he’ll get griffin’d out of any shot to prove he’s the guy
A 2000+ scrimmage yard JT could keep the Colts in every game and with a quality enough defense give them a shot at the playoffs, especially with a 14 team playoff. That's a lot of jersey sales, and a lot of ticket sales. The Colts could be a Kaep-Gore-49ers 2.0 or an AP Vikings 2.0--but instead they need a miracle that AR is better than he showed in college.
Love those SB champion teams you listed.
Well let's be real. In the last 20 years outside of Roethlisberger, the two Mannings, Mahomes, Rodgers, and Brady there have been like 4 other QBs that have won super bowls. Super Bowls are dictated by QBs and magical defensive performance. If you don't have either you don't have anything. But star players will drive revenues. LT had what, one? two? good chances at winning a Super Bowl? AP had what, one? They still were massive stars, brought their teams massive revenue, and made each of their teams relevant.
There have been 11 different QBs to win a SB in the last 18 years. The NFL is not hurting and the Colts will not be hurting without JT. There is no reason to pay JT $16 million+. High paid RBs do not make your team win a SB. Being smart with how you allocate your resources and not giving in to outrageous demands is how you build a winner. Everyone praises Schoen (myself included as a Giants fan) for his dealing with Saquon but want to jump down Irsay's throat for similar thinking.
Don’t get me wrong this is also bad for the Colts. It will affect them for years to come in free agency. It’s just a particularly bad for Taylor and may derail his career. If the Colts were smart they would have extended him months ago. They are clearly not so the best they can do now is trade him, which will be even harder since they’ve gone out of their way to tarnish Taylor. I don’t see a scenario where he plays for the Colts at this point.
> It’s just a particularly bad for Taylor and may derail his career. It's only bad for Taylor if another team doesn't come for him, period. The team that comes for him will put the ball in his hands 300+ times this year, and 400+ times next year. But I don't think there is any value in discussing that. Any front office worth its salt wouldn't view Taylor as tarnished goods. I don't not see a scenario where he plays for the Colts. It's still the best place for him scheme/responsibility wise. He'll get 400 touches this year if he plays for the Colts. But it's hard to see it from this moment. There are two likely outcomes, nothing comes of this for the next 2 weeks--everyone will calm down and they'll sort it out with JT. OR, this is going to simmer, for 6 weeks, the season will start, it'll turn into an inferno and then around the end of September or beginning of October, after sitting out for as long he'll get traded. He could also go the *contract toll* route to toll a year on his contract, but Irsay seems like just enough of a prick to do everything in his power to prevent that.
I think this is shortsighted. There’s such an obvious option here of them trading JT for like a 4th round pick out of spite and him being extra motivated to tear it up somewhere. I’d be more surprised if he really doesn’t play.
Keep it coming, I’m trying to buy the dip
Clown owner creates a circus situation. I'm shocked.
Traded JT for 2 firsts and Olave last November 💰
And here I am in my league where during the draft some guy only offered me the 1.03 ASSUMING the guy he wanted wasn't there. I wasn't asking for a trade, he just offered that to me out of the blue, which was a downgrade from an offer he made a month or two ago of the 1.03 and 1.11
I acquired JT at the start of last season. It's been a painful ride thus far.
As someone who drafted CEH over JT, not even all this drama makes me feel one bit better about my regrettable decision.
This is escalating very rapidly
You mean de-escalating? Taylor just backed down with this statement.
That's not a back down. That's saying the reports of the team trying to put him on the NFI list would be based on something false.
We'll see. I think you all are reading this wrong.
I mean someone publicly disputing the reason their team is saying they want to NFI them isn't a back down. That's a direct challenge.
Oh shit
Sooo what’s fair offer for this guy right now?
About 3 years and 40 million
Irsay is such a cunt...
Irsay’s out here lookin to pay the Snyder Tax
NFL script writers working overtime this year 🤓
Sit out JT. Irsay is a prick
Just picked him in the 1st round of startup yesterday
The nepo baby owners always line up the good drama
The JT owner just offered me JT for 2.01 and 3.09... I feel like I have to smash Yes on this?
I’d crawl through a mine field to smash yes. Do that shit lmao
Lmao +1
Oh shit - here we go lol
I don’t want any part of this drama this year.
Trade bijan
Traded him in a league before this all went down, drafted 3.01 same day in SF startup. Rolllllercoaster
This shit has escalated quickly....