After the Colts’ 41–15 drubbing of his old team, and in the middle of the euphoria of his postgame speech, Frank Reich held a game ball up and asked his players, “How many touchdowns was it? Can we do this together?”
And in all his excitement, amid that chant, there was something the Indianapolis coach neglected to mention. Turns out, he only actually saw four of Jonathan Taylor’s touchdowns live.
Reich missed the second one, and for good reason. On the play, a second-and-5 from the Bills’ 23, the Colts’ workhorse carried out a play-action fake, got in a pass rusher’s way, leaked out into flat to Carson Wentz’s left, then turned upfield. Wentz, under pressure, threw it short. Taylor adjusted, cut inside Taron Johnson, caught flat-footed at the 12, and made for the goal line with corner Tre’Davious White and linebacker A.J. Klein closing quickly on him.
“I saw he had to adjust to the ball because Carson was under pressure, and the ball was a little bit him behind him,” Reich said from his office, on Tuesday afternoon. “So Jonathan adjusts, and he got down near the goal line, looked like he was going down, I thought he was going down, I actually looked down at my call sheet, looking for what play I was gonna call next because I thought it was going to be on the 1- or 2-yard line.”
Reich laughed, mostly at himself.
“I didn’t think he was gonna get in. It didn’t look like he was gonna get in. But he found a way to get in,” he continued. “It shouldn’t have surprised me. But it didn’t look to me, from where I was standing, like he was going to have a chance to get in. And next thing you know, they’re signaling touchdown.”
To his coach, Taylor’s effort, and ability, on the play signified his value to the Colts, and what he meant on a day like Sunday, beyond the gaudy numbers, turf-bound defenders and happy fantasy football owners he left in his wake. And in a certain way, it also showed that a well-worn narrative in the NFL— one that’s existed since Mike Shanahan seemed to be running 1,000-yard rushers off an assembly line in the ’90s—could be challenged.
Is the idea of the star tailback’s driving a championship-level team really dead?
Or does it just take a player like Taylor to revive it?
