Superman

I just read this thing. Begrudgingly. Do as you wish, but be warned: It's a complete waste of time. Long story short, the Colts don't have a great roster this season. Didn't we know that already? We have a rookie QB. This season is almost entirely about determining whether or not that QB is good enough to build around. Without that questioned answered, the quality of the rest of the roster is almost irrelevant. He leads in with a critique of the Taylor situation. And while he acknowledges that the RB market is in flux, he also finds a way to take issue with the Colts for doing something that's entirely justified by the market. Also, he spends however many paragraphs on Chris Lammons, a late July pickup at a questionable position. Lammons is a typical roster churn player, added to the team right when camp was starting. This kind of move is never representative of a team's roster building intentions. He probably has a 50/50 shot at making the final roster, maybe less given his upcoming suspension. Why is this even worthy of consideration? (Something like 35% of the guys on the roster right now won't be here in a month.) It's just nonsense, top to bottom. Typical of Doyel. Going on about perceived weak spots on a team that's basically doing a reset this season seems unnecessary. Unless the goal is to stir up drama. And that's probably what he was going for.

All good. I hope that's the way it goes, and we get some normalcy at some point this preseason.

Bruh... You have ruined my day. You really are Dark Superman.

An animal needs to be moved, but the operation is cost prohibitive. Someone steps in to foot the bill, now the operation can proceed. What's the problem here??? Please don't tell me people are saying Irsay is fine spending $20m to move an orca, but won't pay Jonathan Taylor. Please tell me people are smarter than that...

Wait, is this being presented as a negative thing by someone?

Generally speaking, I agree with the bolded. Let me ask you this, though. Prior to the start of training camp, is there any indication that the Colts did anything to contribute to this drama, other than telling JT 'no extension, not right now'? I ask because this thing went from tepid to scalding in about 30 seconds, at least that's how it looks from the outside. To me, it seems like JT and his side were ready for a cage match, because they wanted to make the Colts uncomfortable. Recent reports about the Colts asking JT to come in early for a checkup actually make the Colts seem more than reasonable -- initial prognosis was a month of recovery, but he didn't participate in any offseason activities, and six months later he's still not cleared? Something is up, and the team wants to know his status. Taylor responds by reporting 25 minutes late, and then he's surprisingly placed on PUP. That either means that the team was right to be concerned about his ankle, or that he's using the ankle as a ploy for leverage to get an extension offer. And of course, there are bigger issues at play with the market in general, not specific to the Colts and Taylor, but he's (apparently) decided to make himself a poster boy for the larger cause. That's his right and his choice, but it's not an indication that the Colts did anything wrong. So yeah, the team probably hasn't been perfect. I certainly think Irsay stepped in it a couple times recently, but his tweet and comments only came after JT showed up already disgruntled. So the majority of the acrimony, IMO, has come from Taylor. By the way, this is business, sometimes it gets ugly. It doesn't matter whose side I'm on, and I'm not too concerned with the blame game. But I'm also thinking that JT's stance is about more than him feeling like he hasn't been treated fairly by the Colts, specifically.

The Panthers had also paid CM's signing bonus, so the Niners are actually only paying him something like $12m/year. We're not getting anything for Taylor, realistically. What team would make a strong enough offer for him right now, when he's still not practicing several months after ankle surgery, yet trying to get a big extension? No one is going to touch him unless we give him away, and we're not going to give him away. I think his side has badly mishandled this situation. I like Taylor and don't mind us giving him a reasonable contract, but about half of the NFL has moved on from investing big money for RBs. So Taylor just happens to be with one of the few organizations that's actually willing to pay a RB on a second contract, but they're not ready to yet because a) he's not willing to show that he's fully recovered from the ankle, and b) we have a new HC. Not only that, his side has been pretty confrontational about it. The more info that comes out, the more it seems like the Colts have been pretty reasonable all offseason, while Taylor has kept them at a distance and in the dark, while asking them to blindly make a huge investment that probably won't pay off. Aside from Irsay's tweet and an insensitive comment to the media, the Colts have been pretty clear about what the plan is. All that's left is for JT to get to work and play out the season. Because if I'm the Colts, I'm not budging. He wouldn't get an extension this year, and I wouldn't trade him without a huge windfall.

Or Free Willy...

I think it's clear. Through all the conflicting information, there's at least one constant: Taylor had routine ankle surgery in January, no one expected the injury to linger into July, and he's surprisingly (based on comments from Irsay and Ballard) on PUP. No one will ever admit it, but he's obviously using the ankle as an excuse to avoid being on the field, so he can report but not practice without fear of being fined. The other alternative is that his ankle is much worse than anyone realized, and I don't think that's the impression JT, his agent, or the RB clan in general wants to be projecting right now.

Right. I'm wondering if JT makes it to 2026, he doesn't care about the next CBA, nor should he.

Rumors? As in, something people are saying on the Internet with no valid evidence? Is there anything substantive to back any of these rumors? We all watched last season. He got hurt against the Titans, the next game was on Thursday night and he wasn't able to go. On this board, everyone hoped he'd be ready the next week, he still didn't play. He came back for two games, didn't look great, then sat out a third game against the Pats. That's three games missed in five weeks. And the team was floundering that entire time, by the way -- OC got fired, QB benched, HC on the hot seat. IMO, that Denver game was pivotal -- four games in, we're 0-2-1 against divisional opponents, and just got spanked by the Titans, again. To me, Reich was on the hot seat already, and I still believe that if we lost to Denver, he would have been fired that week. We barely eked out a win. Then we have another divisional opponent in Week 6. If we're forcing JT to play injured, isn't it going to be somewhere in there? Instead, a few weeks later, Reich sits JT against the Pats, we lose, Reich gets fired. Then Saturday comes in, JT plays against the Raiders and has a great game. He played the next three games, and wasn't awesome, but had decent games, and was on the field for his typical 80-90% of snaps. And then we saw JT get hurt again vs the Vikings, and he never came back. The narrative doesn't track to me. JT had an ankle injury that the team called 'not overly serious' the day after it happened, then he missed two games while the season was already falling apart. Saying they forced him to play while injured seems like revisionist history.

@csmopar Another relevant situation, more recently, was Deebo Samuel. With his contract eligibility approaching, he made a big point of not wanting to continue being used out of the backfield in the Niners offense. I always assumed that his position status was a factor. If he started getting more carries than catches, the team might try to tag him as a RB. The point is that, if something like that goes to an arbitrator, they actually look at the way the team uses the player, among other things.

I don't know how you get there. That seems unsubstantiated. In fact, JT wasn't even active for Reich's last game. He missed 3 out of Reich's 9 games, and 3 out of Saturday's 8 games. I don't know if there's a link to be found there. If anything, I think JT wanted to have an amazing season, knowing he'd be asking for an extension after Year 3. He would have been personally motivated to perform, just as much as anyone else on the team.

Neither do I. This whole thing got big and ugly, seemingly out of nowhere, but this happens every season with some player, somewhere. And the usual outcome is the player gets back to work eventually. Just have to wait out the drama.

His last game was the Vikings game, he played two snaps. So a total of five games after Reich was fired, and 11 total game appearances. He was dealing with the injury all season, but he didn't get shut down until Week 15.

Anyone giving me a first and a useful young player has my attention. I don't need it to be a RB, either. I'd take Tampa's 2024 first + OL or DB. I'd like to see a great runner like JT on the Chiefs, to test my theory that he wouldn't have a ton of volume playing next to a great QB. And you're absolutely right, if no team is knocking my socks off with a trade offer, I'm not trading JT.

I don't think there's a separate tag for RB vs FB, just like there's no separate tag for OT vs OG vs C. And if there were, I think the NFLPA would sue, and win. The only times this has come up in the past, from what I remember, is something like when an edge player wants to be classified as a DE instead of a LB, and I don't think any of those situations ever went far enough to established a precedent. The other one was Jimmy Graham, who wanted to be considered a WR instead of a TE for franchise tag purposes, and he had a reasonable argument IMO, although it was a losing one. The arbitrator ruled that he was a TE, and part of the reasoning is that both he and the team had always classified him as a TE, up until he wanted to influence his franchise tag value. I think that same reasoning would hold true if a team tried to change a player's position to reduce his tag value. (The arbitrator also went over the typical duties of a TE, viewed video of plays, examined Graham's usage by the Saints, etc. Graham had argued that, when split out wide, he wasn't blocking defensive linemen; the arbitrator stated that TEs don't block only DL, and in fact there was video of Graham blocking DL and LBs and DBs from a wide split. So it was pretty detailed from a football standpoint.) Long story short, no chance that would hold up, even if there was a separate tag level for FBs.

Mod note: Just removed a bunch of personal bickering from this thread. Please stay on topic, and avoid taking personal shots at other posters.

Saw a stat recently, Herbert has the more completions through his first three seasons than any other QB, ever. Number 2 is Andrew Luck, and Herbert is ahead by 254 completions. Saw another stat: His first coach was Anthony Lynn, who got fired right away. His coach now is defensive minded Brandon Staley, who has a tenuous grasp on game management. He's on his third OC in four years, and maybe the guy he has now will be able to maximize the incredible weapon they have in Herbert. I think the dude is everything you want in a franchise QB, and right now he's experiencing the Andrew Luck intro to the NFL, with a coaching staff and front office that aren't quite locked in. And because the team hasn't had more success, the shortcomings are being laid at the feet of the QB.

I think we all need to have a big discussion about Herbert. The guy is checking all the boxes IMO, but there seems to be this prevailing opinion that he's coming up short. I don't get it. But even he wasn't expected to start right away. Tyrod Taylor got hurt in Week 1, the lung thing happened, Herbert started Week 2, and that was all she wrote. But the plan was for Herbert to be QB2 for a while. And he was miles ahead of Richardson as a rookie.

Richardson also needs to work on footwork and mechanics, especially as he's working through progressions. That can be drilled, and should be. But I don't know if that needs to hold him back from playing. To me, I keep saying, the timeline should be based on when Richardson can handle game speed and run some version of the passing game that works in the modern NFL. The timeline is not about a comparison with Minshew, it's not really about Richardson's accuracy either. It's whether he can function and run a somewhat competent offense. And while I agree that playing is generally the best way for him to get better, I also think it's possible to harm his development if he gets thrown to the wolves too soon. There should be no rush, and even if Minshew starts and is awful, it doesn't justify pushing Richardson out there before he's ready.

That part too, probably sitting in the parking lot on facetime with his agent the whole time.

I'm still questioning whether the Colts threatened it in the first place... But yeah, if they did, that would indicate it's still an option. Or maybe they discussed it a week ago, and decided against it, and there's some detail that's not being reported so far.

No, it would not. Assuming the structure is typical of NFL contracts, it wouldn't break the team. But so far, the Colts haven't even made an offer. It's not like they're a couple million apart. The Colts haven't even engaged, they've asked JT to wait before even beginning negotiations, and he doesn't want to.

I've agreed with that all along. In fact, the very obvious (to me/us) stupidity of it is why I'm having trouble accepting that JT's side would be behind it at all. It's so clearly a bad move, they'd have to know better than to try it... right?