Colts need Jonathan Taylor, Daniel Jones to provide the horsepower for a finishing kick after bye

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Colts running back Jonathan Taylor has provided glitzy, breakaway runs routinely. Daniel Jones has been the consistent, gritty quarterback Indianapolis desperately needs.

Together, they’ve just kept winning.

After traveling to Berlin and beating Atlanta in overtime last weekend, the Colts enter their bye week with the league’s top rusher, the league leader in yards passing, the league’s highest scoring offense and a 2 1/2-game lead in the AFC South.

Things couldn’t look much better for Indy (8-2) as Taylor and Jones hear their names mentioned as MVP candidates. Surprised? Not in this organization.

“Even when we went back to the spring and training camp, you could feel the vibes,” coach Shane Steichen said. “To win close games, I think it says a lot about our football team and where we’re at from a collective unit. Finding ways to win at the end are huge in this league.”

Taylor is having his best season since winning the NFL’s 2021 rushing and scrimmage yard titles. He averages a league-best 6.0 yards per carry, is tied with James Cook of Buffalo for most 100-yard games this season (five) and at this rate would top 1,900 yards and may even challenge LaDainian Tomlinson’s single-season record for total touchdowns (31). He already has five games with three total TDs and needs just one in Indy’s last seven games to tie Tomlinson’s single-season record.

How good has he been?

Indy’s new franchise leader for TD runs also has the longest run of the season, a spectacular 83-yard go-ahead TD midway through the fourth quarter Sunday. He then capped Indy’s final, seven-play drive with the last of his six carries being the decisive 8-yard TD run.

If he does win the rushing title, he would be join a short list of players who had gaps of three or four years between their titles — Adrian Peterson, Barry Sanders, Bill Dudley and Cliff Battles.

“He’s the best running back in the NFL and he still doesn’t take the credit for it,” left tackle Bernhard Raimann said in Germany. “That’s just the kind of human he is, the kind of competitor he is, and he’s still one of the hardest workers on the team. He’s leading us. As an offensive line, it just makes it fun blocking for him.”

Jones, meanwhile, is having his own career year just 12 months after requesting and being granted his release from the New York Giants. Steichen was plotting the possibilities from the moment Indy signed Jones as a free agent in March.

Steichen named Jones the starter over injury-prone Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in 2023. And while Richardson again landed on injured reserve, all Jones has done is win. His eight victories are one short of a career high and he’s on pace for career bests in yards passing, completion percentage and TDs.

The lingering question, though, is whether Jones can keep playing this well?

He’s shown some cracks over the past two games when he was responsible for seven turnovers and took 12 sacks. So getting a chance to refresh and reset now could be just what he needs.

The Colts also have a manageable schedule with trips to Kansas City (5-4) and Seattle (7-2), a home Monday night game against San Francisco (6-4) and four games against Jacksonville (5-4) and Houston (4-5).

But if the dynamic duo that has fueled Indy’s strong start provides the horsepower for a finishing kick, the Colts could continue to be a surprise contender.

“We’ve got a good football team, we’ve got a really good running back, that’s for sure,” Jones said Sunday. “But I think across the board, when you look at a lot of those things today, we hurt ourselves in some key spots that we can’t afford to do, and that’s on me. Obviously, we’ll look to correct that, but the fact we were able to win anyway and to battle through a number of those situations, I think, says a lot about our team, says a lot about our fight, our mental stamina, our mental toughness.”

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