The best part about fantasy football is that Everyone He has an opinion about the players pool. I went to my mom’s house that day. She told me, “You better not formulate that Jonathan Taylor this year. This damned Colts coach won’t give him the ball 350 times like last year.” Consider my 82-year-old mom is in a hurry and is legally blind. She has no idea what fantasy football is, and the scope of the football fan base is limited to when the Patriots are in Super Bowl: Sometimes, she might have some juice at a game with the soccer field.
I don’t know where I heard this information from, but it’s something that has been brought up about Taylor over the past couple of weeks following Frank Reich’s comment.
Colts coach Frank Reich told ESPN’s Stephen Holder that the goal is to win a championship, not make Taylor a better player or quick leader. If they need to downsize in order to make it happen, so be it. “You don’t see teams that have this ground-and-pound game winning championships,” he said. “Our best formula is to be balanced. I’m not saying he’s not going to lead the league with touches, because you never know how it’s going to go. But I almost don’t want him to do that.”
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In the National Fantasy Football Championship from June 1 to August 1, Taylor has a 1.3 and no less than third place. The only players selected first in the 81 draft online tournaments were cooper cup (ADP – 2.9, Justin Jefferson (ADP – 3.17) and Christian McCaffrey (ADP – 3.4).
Over the next two weeks (61 drafts), Taylor had no change in ADP (1.3), while McCaffrey moved to 2.6 on Kupp’s account (3.5). After publicizing the potential for Taylor’s lower workload, McCaffrey outperformed Taylor in ADP (1.3 to 2.5) in the NFFC Primetime (10 drafts) event. More drafters were also willing to push Jefferson (ADP of 2.7) ahead of Taylor in more drafts.
So in just two short weeks, with more money at stake in the NFFC, McCaffrey is suddenly an asset more reliable after losing 23 games over the past two seasons. I understand its cap given its capture value, but Taylor’s chance reading seems wrong. Ponies don’t want to bury him with touches, but when you’re a beast, you’re a beast. Indianapolis needs to win games, and they need Taylor to do well to achieve this feat. He’s a big, fast and powerful runner that fits the role of an RB1 Foundation with a tee. Just look at last year’s numbers:
- 21 landing
- 5.5 yards per lunge
- 14 tracks of 20 yards or more with five buggies up to 40 yards
- 9.0 yards per catch
- Five were caught over 20 yards (one over 40 yards)
- Catch rate 84.4% so far in his career (76 vs 90)
I received my draft boxes for a high stakes event about a month ago. Unfortunately, I failed to get my first overall pick, so I thought I had no chance at Taylor. Building on the recent draft trend, I’ve had a chance at every draft in NFFC, and I’d gladly take advantage of the restart feature.
Last year, the Colts’ running appearances for 2,899 yards were combined with 23 touchdowns and 82 hits on 527 touches. They’ve run the ball 49.4% of the time, falling with what Indianapolis wants to do in attack again this season.
Reading between the line in Reich’s previous comments, there is a clear role for Nyheim Hines, and Andy knows they need to pass the ball better. Taylor will be the bell runner when he plays from the lead in the second half. Colts will have two to three chances per match by pass based on their previous success. Indianapolis has questionable receiving options in WR2, WR3 and TE, giving Hynes a better window to pick up balls. There will be many plays when the best two of their backs are on the field at the same time.
In the end, I draft Taylor whenever I get the chance. I want to get a stake or two from McCaffrey and Jefferson, but I’m not going to pass them on in drafts. Taylor is checking all the boxes I look for in the RB1, and the track is still up.
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