The Colts Just Made the Most Predictable Mistake in Modern Football, and Jonathan Taylor's Extension Proves the NFL Still Hasn't Learned Anything

Here we go again. The Indianapolis Colts have decided that Jonathan Taylor deserves $44 million over two years, making him one of the highest-paid running backs in football. This is madness. Not because Taylor is a bad player. He is not. This is madness because the Colts have proven once again that franchises across this league still do not understand basic economics, positional value, or how to build a championship team in 2025. They are about to pay a premium price for a depreciating asset, and they will regret it. This is not contrarian thinking. This is basic football logic that the NFL collective intelligence keeps rejecting.

Let me be direct about what just happened here. The Colts extended a running back when they should have been evaluating whether he fits their future at all. That is the fundamental problem. Not the money itself, though the money is bad enough. The problem is the philosophical commitment. When you hand a running back north of $20 million per year in this era, you are making a statement. You are saying this player is central to your identity. You are betting your championship hopes on his contributions. You are willing to sacrifice cap space, draft flexibility, and roster construction to keep him in the fold. That is a losing bet. It has been a losing bet for every franchise that has made it, and the Colts are no exception.

Taylor had a fantastic 2023 season. He rushed for over 1,500 yards and caught passes out of the backfield. He looked every bit like a franchise-level talent. But here is what people refuse to acknowledge: one good season does not warrant a $20 million annual commitment at running back. It just does not. The research on this is overwhelming. Teams that have invested heavily in the running back position, teams that have prioritized it with elite draft capital and premium contracts, have not won championships at a higher rate than teams that treat the position as fungible. This is documented. This is real. Yet the NFL keeps making the same choice over and over, and now the Colts are doing it again.

The Colts' situation is even more problematic because they are not a championship contender right now. They have a young quarterback in Anthony Richardson who needs developmental time. They have needs across their defensive line. Their secondary needs help. Their offensive line is in transition. These are the things that should matter more to Indianapolis than locking in a running back. Instead, they have decided that stability at running back is the priority. This tells you everything you need to know about how they think. They are building from the outside in instead of the inside out. They are trying to make the team more comfortable for a player instead of asking the player to fit the team's needs and timeline. That is backwards organizational thinking.

Compare this to what successful franchises are doing. Teams that have won recently or are built to win in the future are being aggressive in free agency at defensive line, secondary positions, and offensive line. They are spending draft capital on impact players who affect games at the line of scrimmage. They are not tying themselves down to running backs in extension negotiations. This is not complicated. The data supports it. The champions support it. The Colts are choosing to ignore it, and they will pay for it in the standings.

Now, there is also the matter of Taylor's production trajectory to consider. He had an elite 2023 season, yes. But running backs are uniquely vulnerable to decline. Their knees, their legs, their overall durability wear down faster than other positions. By the time Taylor gets to the later years of this extension, there is a very real possibility he is not the same player. The Colts will be paying premium prices for a version of Jonathan Taylor that no longer exists. They will be eating dead money or trying to trade him at a loss. This is what happens when you extend running backs too early and pay them too much. The market always punishes these deals eventually, and the Colts will be standing in line for that punishment.

There is also a precedent problem here that the Colts are not thinking about. When you pay Taylor this much, when you make him one of the highest-paid backs in the league, you are sending a message to your other players. You are saying that your organizational priorities are set. You are saying that if you want to be paid like an elite player, you should bet on yourself as a running back, not invest in becoming a tackle or a pass rusher. You are shaping your roster composition through incentives, and those incentives are all wrong. The Colts should be the franchise that says, "We do not overpay running backs. We build through the draft and find capable backs late. We invest our money where it matters." Instead, they are the franchise that blinks first and pays the asking price.

The comparison to Bijan Robinson is instructive here, though not in the way the Colts might think. Robinson is also overpaid relative to positional value, and his contract will probably also hamstring his franchise at some point. But at least Robinson came off a strong season and signed his deal early enough in his career that there is some hope he matures into it and the salary cap grows around him. Taylor is already in his prime window. He is not ascending. The window is closing. Extending him now instead of waiting or letting him play out his deal is poor timing on top of poor strategy. The Colts are compounding their mistake by executing it at the worst possible moment.

There is also the matter of what this says about the Colts' confidence in their coaching staff and general management. If they believe in their ability to develop running backs, to find contributors late in the draft, to scheme players into success, then they do not need Taylor at $20 million per year. If they do not believe in those things, then they should be focusing their resources on fixing their developmental processes, not locking in expensive talent. Instead, the Colts are signaling that they neither trust their development nor want to invest in improvement. They are choosing the path of least resistance, which is also the path of mediocrity.

Let me also address the argument that Taylor is worth it because he is healthy and productive right now. That is the worst argument in modern football. Yes, he is productive now. That does not mean you pay him like a tackle or a wide receiver. Production at running back is the most easily replaceable production in the NFL. Any reasonably competent offense can generate 1,200 rushing yards and 50 receptions with multiple capable backs in rotation. The Colts could draft a back in the fourth round, develop him, and get 80 percent of Taylor's production for a tenth of the cost. That is not a controversial statement. That is how every analytically rigorous franchise approaches the position now.

The Colts had an opportunity to reset their thinking here. They could have let Taylor test the market, could have made a calculated decision about whether to match offers, could have invested in other areas. Instead, they chose comfort. They chose the easy narrative of "keeping the band together" instead of the hard work of building a sustainable roster. They chose to be reactive instead of proactive. They chose to extend a player because he had one really good season instead of asking whether one really good season was enough to tie up that kind of capital. These are the decisions that separate winning franchises from spinning-their-wheels franchises.

The verdict here is simple and unshakeable. The Colts made a mistake. They paid more than they should have for a position that should not command premium contracts in this era. They did it at exactly the wrong time in Taylor's career and in their own rebuilding cycle. They are going to regret this extension. Not immediately, maybe, but certainly within two to three years when the cap consequences become real and Taylor's production starts to decline at the rate that running backs always do. The Colts had the blueprint for how to build a championship roster. Every successful franchise in the league has provided it. They looked at that blueprint and decided to draw their own. That is going to cost them.