According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, and his annual league survey conducted by league executives, coaches, and scouts, Indianapolis Colts star running back Jonathan Taylor ranks among the top five players at his position:
5. Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts
Highest ranking: 2 | Lowest ranking: Unranked
Age: 27 | Last year’s ranking: 7Taylor was pumping out top-three votes this year in appreciation of a stellar six-year campaign despite shaky quarterback play around him. He appeared on all but one of the ballots, and nearly 30% of his votes were within the top three.
Taylor has 69 career rushing touchdowns. Only Derrick Henry (84) has more since 2020.
“Really special in space,” an NFL coordinator said. “Once he hits the second and third levels with some space to operate, he’s uniquely talented.”
That showed in 2025, when Taylor’s four rushes of 40 or more yards trailed only Gibbs.
The presence of Daniel Jones has helped Taylor, both in play-action and in the passing game. Taylor caught a career-high 46 passes last season.
Once sitting at 8-2, and Taylor in the midst of a career year in 2025, the Colts’ star workhorse was a bonafide NFL MVP candidate, not just a realistic NFL Offensive Player of the Year candidate.
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However, second half of the season injuries to starting quarterback Daniel Jones derailed Taylor’s once promising MVP bid, as with Jones hobbled and/or out of the Indy lineup, Taylor failed to eclipse 100 total rushing yards in the Colts’ last 7 games—which rather uncoincidentally, were all team losses for Indianapolis.
That being said, when looking at his complete body of work for the 2025 campaign, it was still mightily impressive. Specifically, Taylor rushed for a league-leading 18 rushing touchdowns, to go along with the NFL’s 3rd most rushing yards at 1,585 total rusing yards and his also league-leading 323 carrites during all 17 starts.
Taylor was named a Pro Bowler for a consecutive season.
As a result, Taylor ascended in these rankings, having been surprisingly placed at 7th last season overall.
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At 27-years-old, and arguably the Colts best player on both sides of the football, he’s still possesses a tantalizing combination of speed, power, and vision. If you give him a crack of daylight, he can take it to the house instantly.
Entering a contract year and realistically projected to be in the back end of his playing career prime, giving the shorter shelf-life of the running back position historically, and Taylor should be expected to be extra motivated to have another monstrous year—having shown no imminent signs of slowing down quite yet.
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