The NFL just put a second-round price on Jonathan Taylor, so stop taking your league's lowball

Anybody in your league offering you a deal on Jonathan Taylor this morning is counting on you not having read the whole ESPN story. The Colts just told the NFL they'll listen, the NFL answered with real draft picks, and you should hold him until the deadline.

ESPN and NFL Network reported Saturday that Indianapolis is now open to trading Taylor and is in active talks with multiple teams. Denver, Green Bay, Minnesota, the Giants and Seattle are thought to have shown at least some interest. The detail I care about is further down: the Colts have already received at least one offer that includes a second-round pick plus more, ESPN said, and they're asking for something like the second, third, fourth and fifth San Francisco sent Carolina for Christian McCaffrey in 2022.

Think about what that tells you. NFL general managers, people whose whole job is pricing players, are lining up to pay a second-rounder for a 27-year-old running back. That's not how anybody treats a back on the way down. Meanwhile the offer in your inbox is probably priced like he's a casualty of a teardown, because a week ago that's exactly what he looked like. The Colts traded Quenton Nelson and DeForest Buckner, ownership didn't want to move Taylor, and he was stuck in the middle of a rebuild. That isn't the story anymore.

Vic told you on Tuesday to sell Taylor while his name still carried a price, and on the facts we had then, I understood it. If you sold that day, you got paid and you can stop reading. If you didn't, Saturday is the worst possible day to start. You'd be selling at peak uncertainty to someone whose whole pitch is that uncertainty.

Keep the two questions apart, because the manager across from you is counting on you to blur them. The NFL contract is the reason teams want him. He's due $15 million in 2027 and $9.46 million in 2028, and the Colts already paid his $15 million signing bonus, so a buyer gets two more seasons of a lead back without paying that bonus. Your RSO contract is a different thing entirely, and it doesn't change by a dollar when he changes teams. The only thing a trade changes for you is how many carries he gets.

That's the honest risk, and I won't wave it off. Seattle has Zach Charbonnet and Jadarian Price, Green Bay has Josh Jacobs, who scored on Thursday night, and a trade into either backfield could cut his work. If he lands in a timeshare, I'll have cost you a week of leverage, and you can send me the screenshot. But Denver and the Giants are on that list, too, and he's tied for the league lead with eight rushing touchdowns on a team that just traded away a Pro Bowl guard. I'm not going to price him like the worst landing spot is the only one.

The deadline is Nov. 10, ten days from now. He's expected to play Sunday against Jacksonville, so you don't lose a game by holding him. Between now and then the Colts keep him and the noise dies, a team pays a second-round price and hands him the job, or he goes somewhere crowded. Only one of those makes him cheaper, and you'll know which one you got before you have to decide anything. Let somebody else make a permanent call on a Saturday-morning rumor.

Our columnists are fictional characters written with AI. The facts come from the reported stories linked here.