Jonathan Taylor’s Injury History Makes Executing Trade Complicated

Personnel execs weigh in on what it would take to deal for the Colts’ disgruntled running back. Plus, more on joint practices, Devon Achane, Joe Burrow’s recovery and Josh Jacobs in Albert Breer’s Tuesday notes.

With my travel finally slowing down a little, we’re back to the Tuesday notes. Let’s go …

• There’s a mistake folks always make in situations like the one unfolding in Indianapolis right now—they look at just one aspect of a potential trade of a disgruntled player and ignore everything else. Yes, Jonathan Taylor’s a really, really good football player. Maybe, when healthy, the best back in the league.

The problem, for both Taylor and the Colts, now that Indy has granted him permission to seek a trade, is everything that comes attached. It’s not just picks another team would be giving up to get him. It’s also, presumably, a contract with no assurances that he’ll return to his 2021 form. And with it, you’re assuming he’ll stay healthy coming off ankle surgery, and five years of high mileage, including college.

It’s complicated. Really complicated.

Taylor’s worth is likely a Day 2 pick, or the equivalent of one, presuming he checks out medically :: Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar/USA TODAY NETWORK

So what’s Taylor worth to a team, if a big contract is a prerequisite (the money you’d have to give up absolutely affects his trade value since he’s in a contract year)? I asked a handful of executives from teams unattached to the situation.

Conor Orr: Jonathan Taylor’s Search for a New Team Is a Doomed Mission

One AFC exec said he’d ballpark it at a third- and a fifth-round pick. Another AFC exec said a third- or fourth-rounder. An NFC exec said he’d consider a package carrying the value of a second- or third-rounder. A second NFC exec said he’d put the value at a fourth-rounder with play-time triggers to make it a third. A third NFC exec said a second- or third-rounder (“Less than [Christian] McCaffrey,” he added). A fourth NFC exec said “maybe” a Day 2 pick. A third AFC exec said a third-rounder. A fifth NFC exec said “possibly” a Day 2 pick, and a fourth AFC exec said a second-rounder. And an AFC GM also pegged it at a second-rounder.

All those estimates are in the same general area—a Day 2 pick, or the equivalent of one. And a couple of these guys emphasized that’s presuming he checks out medically.

Where this could get ugly is if Taylor finds a team willing to give him a contract, but that team and the Colts have differences on his trade value. At that point, Taylor wouldn’t be guessing about his financial worth. He would know it, and the Colts preventing him from getting it would, obviously, only further inflame the situation.

Then again, it’s fair to ask whether the Colts and Taylor have already reached the point of no return, in which case it’s possible, in time, that Indy decides to just get what it can get. Either way, it’s hard to see the Colts getting what they want here.

• I could come up with only two historical comps for this one, where a team traded for a back and gave him a big contract in the process. One happened in 2004, when Denver dealt Clinton Portis to Washington for Champ Bailey and a second-round pick, and Washington gave Portis an eight-year, $50.5 million deal. The other was in ’15, when new Bills coach Rex Ryan dealt Kiko Alonso for LeSean McCoy, and Buffalo gave McCoy a revised five-year, $40 million deal (it actually represented a pay cut from an average-per-year standpoint).

Then, of course, there is the example of Christian McCaffrey last year—he didn’t get a big contract as part of his trade from Carolina to San Francisco, because he was already on one.

There are, of course, reasons why these sorts of deals are rare. And one big one is that typically the bulk of a running back’s prime is going to come while he’s on his rookie contract, so if anyone is going to pay him, it’s probably going to be his original team. Which is why all eight backs making at least $10 million per year are still with the teams that drafted them.

• It’s interesting to see NFL teams backing out of joint practices the past couple of weeks.

After the Panthers canceled a joint practice with the Jets two weeks ago (due to weather), the Jets turned around and canceled one with the Buccaneers last week. There were supposed to be five sets of joint practices this week, but now there will be only three, with the Patriots having canceled on the Titans in light of the scary Isaiah Bolden situation Saturday night. And the Texans and Saints called off their practices due to Houston’s being a little too beat up.

I don’t know whether it’s because the toll of the summer has gotten to players, or what seems like an uptick in fights at these sessions. Whatever it is, it’s worth filing away and seeing iwhether we see fewer of these sessions next year.

• While we’re on the subject, I heard a consequence one team has for fighting at joint practice that I love. Browns coach Kevin Stefanski’s rule is that if a starter gets into a fight at a joint practice, then he has to play in the preseason game to follow. Meanwhile, if a backup battling for a roster spot gets into a fight, he can’t play in the preseason game (thus missing an opportunity to make his case to make the team).

One such example came in 2021, when Troy Hill got into a fight at a practice with Sterling Shepard, and had to play in that weekend’s game as a result.

Genius idea, if you ask me.

• Devon Achane’s shoulder injury bears watching. Back in March, the Dolphins came close to doing a trade for Dalvin Cook with designs on giving their backfield a big-play spark. When that fell through, Miami turned to the draft and got the explosive, lightning-quick Achane in the second round, with the idea being that he’d be a handful running underneath Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle.

The issue with Achane was size, and how he’d hold up. So that he’s already hurt isn’t the best news and one reason why Miami might be interested in Taylor.

• One thing I can say, building on what Zac Taylor said Monday about Joe Burrow’s recovery from a calf strain (“he looks great”), is that everything has gone according to plan. Burrow has spent practice time rehabbing, and the rest of his time with his teammates, and I haven’t sensed a ton of concern that he’d miss regular-season snaps.

Cincinnati’s gonna be careful with him, but he’s in a good spot.

• Josh Jacobs would be doing the right thing by showing up before Week 1—and not just for the Raiders but also for himself. To this point, he hasn’t lost a dime by staying away. Starting Labor Day, that’ll change, with each missed week costing him $560,555. I respect the guy making a point on his value. But that’s cash, as a running back, that you’re not getting back.

O’Connell has the look of a player who’ll be in the league for quite some time :: Candice Ward/USA TODAY Sports

• While we’re on the Raiders, the Las Vegas brass isn’t surprised in the least with how rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell has played. From the start, the Purdue product has impressed everyone with his intelligence, command at the line of scrimmage and accuracy. How good he can get is an open question. But he has the look of a player who’ll be in the league for quite some time.

• Shame to see the Bears’ offensive line problems mounting, with Teven Jenkins and Cody Whitehair both banged up. Over the first few weeks of camp, and into the team’s preseason opener, Chicago’s investment in its front seemed to be paying off with the unit taking on a more athletic look from tackle to tackle. Which, of course, figured to be huge for Justin Fields. And, if they can get healthy again, still could be.

• We’ll wrap with two Hall of Fame notes. The first is on last week’s contributors vote, which effectively will put Buddy Parker in—a decision that elicits a resounding Who? from the football-watching public.

The problem isn’t Parker, who has a good case. It’s how things went the past five years. In 2019, the Centennial Class was created to clean up cases such as Parker’s, guys from the pre–Super Bowl era who were forgotten, and had little chance of being honored otherwise. The problem, from there, was that instead of following those guidelines, the committee voting took the opportunity to put modern-day candidates such as Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson in, guys who presumably should’ve gone head to head with Mike Shanahan and Robert Kraft.

So that’s left the contributors and seniors committees with the same issue that the Centennial Class was created to clean up, which is too bad.

• And the other Hall of Fame really is a statistic that Broncos PR man Erich Schubert offered up on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Monday—the 1977 Broncos are the only team of the 74 that played in the first 37 Super Bowls to not have anyone enshrined in Canton, Ohio, with the other 73 averaging six enshrinees per roster. Schubert said it, of course, in support of Randy Gradishar, who’ll be considered by the seniors committee Tuesday.

Gradishar has a very vocal group of supporters who’ve made a strong case for him. I’ve heard that case, and I’d agree he has a place in Canton (and I promise I’m not just saying that because he’s a former Buckeye).