In a salary-cap league like the NFL, finding building blocks is essential. As teams churn and burn the roster through the draft and bargain signings in free agency, it helps to find the players who are either a cut above the rest or can perform a task few others can. They relieve the pressure on everyone.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be ranking the 15 most essential players to the Colts‘ success entering the 2025 season. It’s a subjective process, weighing factors such as ability, positional value within a scheme, age, leadership and durability.
To make it simpler, we’re asking the following two questions about these players:
1. How difficult would he be to replace for more than a month?
2. What does the Colts‘ ceiling become in 2025 and beyond if this player hits his?
Unlike in recent seasons, the pressure appears to be ramping up on what this year’s Colts team needs to accomplish. Anthony Richardson enters a critical third season with plenty to prove. The team is under new ownership with Jim Irsay’s passing and the transition to his three daughters. And the Colts have now not made the playoffs for four seasons, with no playoff wins in six and no AFC South titles in 10.
Thus, these rankings will skew a little more toward 2025 importance than they have in recent seasons.
Here’s the list so far:
3. Bernhard Raimann, left tackle
4. Braden Smith, right tackle
5. DeForest Buckner, defensive tackle
6. Michael Pittman Jr., wide receiver
7. Charvarius Ward, cornerback
8. Camryn Bynum, safety
9. Quenton Nelson, guard
10. Tyler Warren, tight end
11. Laiatu Latu, defensive end
12. Daniel Jones, quarterback
13. Kenny Moore II, cornerback
14. Zaire Franklin, linebacker
15. Alec Pierce, wide receiver
Up at No. 2 is Jonathan Taylor.
Position: Running back
Age: 26
Experience: 6th season
Last year’s rank: No. 2
2024 stats: Ran for 1,431 yards and 11 touchdowns on 4.7 yards per carry with 13 starts in 14 games to reach the Pro Bowl.
Why he’s here: In a Colts offense that keeps a revolving door at quarterback, the upside and floor of the unit has lived through Jonathan Taylor.
Ever since he arrived as a second-round pick out of Wisconsin in 2020, Taylor has been the kind of runner who is downright electric when he’s on the field. He broke out with 1,169 yards as a rookie and then exploded with 1,811 yards and 18 touchdowns as the NFL’s rushing champion in 2021, when he dragged an offense with a collapsed passing game to the doorstep of the playoffs.
It’s been a strange couple of seasons since, as injuries doomed parts of his 2023 season before a contract dispute the next offseason. He stormed back with 1,431 yards, 11 touchdowns and his second Pro Bowl bid last season, though it also featured a few lows along the way.
Entering his sixth season, Taylor is pretty established in who he is. He’s one of the very best runners in the game, with a 4.9-yard career average and 51 rushing touchdowns in 67 games. No matter how bad the offensive line or passing game around him has been, Taylor has found efficiency and explosion as a rusher. In a league where defensive coordinators can use the math of bodies to take away run games, Taylor’s blend of 4.4-second 40-yard dash speed at 226 pounds with superhero vision has found a way to be an exception.
He has some knocks in some other areas that are part the life of a running back and also emblematic of a bit of a one-trick player. He’s not much of a receiver or pass protector. He’s missed 16 games over the past three seasons. And ball security can sometimes escape him, as it most notably did when he dropped the ball while crossing the goal line last season in Denver in a mistake that likely cost the Colts a wildcard playoff spot.
It’s arguable that those lacking details cap Taylor’s ultimate upside, in addition to the position he plays. But not every running back means the same to his team, and Taylor has emerged as the engine of the Colts’ scheme and realistic upside as an offense. And they have a very different offense when he plays compared to when he doesn’t.
Indianapolis put too much on Taylor last season by not adding any depth in the backfield, in addition to such an erratic passing game. This year, he should get more breathers, and if that makes him more available, he’ll have more cracks at the explosive runs that are hard to find but so valuable in a passing league.
If Taylor can be what he already is as a runner but with better availability and fewer gaffes, he’ll be the star of a Colts offense that needs to be a machine in the run game to find success in 2025. It’s the best friend imaginable to a developing young passer, and it’ll be important if more injuries strike Anthony Richardson and place another run-first quarterback in Daniel Jones on the field.
Taylor’s only surpassed on this list by the one player who holds the real keys to where this team and franchise are headed, for this season and in the future.
Get IndyStar’s Colts coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts most essential No. 2: Jonathan Taylor remains the engine