Why Did The Colts Bench Jonathan Taylor?

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INDIANAPOLIS – Amidst one of the strongest games of his NFL career, Jonathan Taylor was relegated to the bench for all of Sunday’s fourth quarter.

The mysterious usage of Taylor to close Sunday’s loss to the Packers came not due to injury, Shane Steichen retreated on Monday.

No, instead, starting with a monumental 3 ^rd -and-1 decision to have Trey Sermon get his first carry of the season, the Colts opted to keep the explosive Taylor on the sidelines.

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Let’s begin with the 3 ^rd -and-1 to start the 4 ^th quarter.

On the Colts’ finest drive of the afternoon, it was Taylor eating up yardage via an 18-yard catch and run to start the series, which immediately was followed by a 29-yard JT run.

That run pushed Taylor past the 100-yard mark on just 11 carries. His yards per carry number of more than 8 was one of the best of his career.

And as the Colts returned from the quarter break, they faced a massive 3 ^rd -and-1, from the Green Bay 28-yard line, trying to cut the deficit back to a one-score game for the first time since late in the first quarter.

Eerily reminiscent of last year’s 4 ^th -and-1 decision in the season finale against the Texans, Steichen had Taylor on the bench for the 3 ^rd -and-1.

It was Trey Sermon, who played 2 of 45 snaps in the season opener (while Taylor was getting the 4 ^th quarter/obvious passing situation reps), getting his first carry of the entire season upon receiving the pitch from Richardson. On a speed option play, the Colts went with Sermon, their slowest running back, who has had some ball security issues this offseason, as he bobbled the pitch, before getting drilled for a loss of 4.

On Monday, Steichen repeated that health was not at play in having Taylor on the bench for the 3 ^rd -and-1 play, mentioning the star running back would have gone back onto the field for a possible 4 ^th down, had the Colts not lost 4 yards on the play, which brought out the field goal unit.

“Whether Trey was in there or JT, they did a good job on that play,” Steichen said on Monday. “And that’s on me. It wasn’t a good play, and we lost yards.”

Beyond this play, it was the start of Taylor not playing a single snap in the final quarter.

In Sunday’s 4 ^th period, beginning with the questionable 3 ^rd -and-1 decision, Taylor was not on the field for any of the 22 offensive snaps. Sermon played 14 and Tyler Goodson played the other 8. Sermon getting 14 of the 22 snaps during a pass happy 4 ^th quarter (the Colts called 2 run plays in the final quarter) might be the bigger mystery.

While Taylor has had pass catching inconsistencies in his career, Sermon is by no means a Darren Sproles clone out of the backfield

Yes, Taylor had a drop and a fumble on his 4 receiving targets from Sunday. Prior drops have been there. But Steichen said on Monday that Taylor’s history in the passing game wasn’t a reason for his lack of playing time in the 4 ^th .

“Not necessarily,” the play caller said. “We wanted to get Trey some reps. That was it.”

Of course, the Colts don’t appear to have much of a threat in that area. Certainly not since Nyheim Hines was with the team.

While Steichen doubled down on wanting to see Sermon in the 4 ^th quarter, there’s no history there of a strong pass catcher. Sermon dropped 50 percent of his targets last season, and he has just 7 career NFL catches in his 27 games played.

“I think in that 4 ^th quarter we were throwing the football and we weren’t really scheming up passes for the running backs there in the 4 ^th quarter when we were throwing it,” Steichen added on Monday. “So we had Trey in there. I thought he did a good job. I think we only ran it twice.

“We were down 16-3 with 10 minutes left and had the ball on the minus 30 and we had to go a little bit and throw it. That’s what happened. We were throwing it.”

On Monday, veteran Colts center Ryan Kelly described Taylor as “the best back in the league.”

The Colts are certainly paying Taylor to be that. And you saw plenty of reasons why on Sunday.

But the Colts decided to go away from that on one of the most important moments of the game, and then opted for vastly inexperienced and unaccomplished options in the pass game for their comeback attempt.

If you are making the list of reasons why the Colts lost on Sunday, this one is not in the top-5, but it is still puzzling to hear the rationale, and see another “Taylor on the bench” moment fire up again in a critical short-yardage situation.

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