The Colts Sold Four Starters for a Third, Two Fourths, Two Fifths and a Sixth, Then Turned Down "a Second-Round Pick and More" for Jonathan Taylor. The Next Offer Comes With a $15 Million Guarantee Attached.

At 3:15 on Tuesday afternoon, 45 minutes before the deadline, Tom Pelissero reported that the Colts would keep Jonathan Taylor. Two sentences followed, per the Indianapolis Star's live file: "Multiple teams offered a second-round pick and more for Taylor," and "the Colts wanted a blockbuster offer to even consider it."

That refusal came from a front office that had spent two weeks saying yes. Since October 27, interim general manager Ed Dodds has traded guard Quenton Nelson to Seattle for a 2027 third-round pick and a 2028 fifth, defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to San Francisco for a 2027 fourth, receiver Keenan Allen to the 49ers for a 2027 sixth, and receiver Josh Downs, with a seventh, to Kansas City for a 2027 fourth and fifth. Four starters, six picks, none higher than the third round. The only player on the roster who drew a second-round bid is still on it.

Why keeping him this year is defensible

Indianapolis is 2-7. Chris Ballard was fired on October 19 after 10 years and a 2-4 start, and Dodds holds the job on an interim basis. DraftKings has the Colts at +100000 to win the Super Bowl, the bottom price on the board, shared with six other teams.

A team in that position normally sells because losing improves its draft slot. The Colts do not have that incentive. They sent their 2027 first-round pick to the Jets in the 2025 trade for Sauce Gardner, the Star notes, so every loss between now and January improves a pick that belongs to New York. Taylor has eight rushing touchdowns. Keeping him costs Indianapolis nothing in April and may cost the Jets a few spots.

The sales fit the same logic. Nelson was on an expiring contract, per ESPN. Allen is 34 and in his 14th season. Downs is in the fourth year of a rookie deal and, per the Star, had asked out. Those are players whose value to the Colts ends in January. Taylor's does not: he signed a two-year, $44 million extension this year that runs through 2028, per Over the Cap. There was no clock forcing a decision on Tuesday, and there is a real argument that an interim executive should not be the one to trade the franchise's best player.

Why the price is the problem

The Colts' ask, per NFL Network as relayed by CBS Sports, was something in the "Christian McCaffrey realm." The McCaffrey trade of October 2022 was a second-round pick, a third, a fourth and a future fifth. "A second-round pick and more" is the first item on that list plus an unknown amount of the rest. We do not know how much "more" was, which teams bid, or whether any offer included a player. Pelissero's phrasing was that the Colts "didn't get an offer they liked."

Here is what the buyers were pricing. Taylor is 27, in his seventh season, with 656 rushing yards at 4.1 a carry this season, per Fox Sports. He has not had a 100-yard game this year and has 21 carries over the last two. And a team acquiring him on Tuesday would have owed him what remains of a $6.98 million base salary for 2026.

That last number is the one that changes. Over the Cap lists his 2027 base salary at $15 million, fully guaranteed on the fifth day of the waiver period, which it dates to February 25, 2027. A contender trading for Taylor in November was buying half a season at a discount and deciding about the rest later. A team trading for him in March is buying a 2027 season with $15 million already locked in, for a back with another year of carries on him. The same player becomes a more expensive asset to hold on a fixed date, and the Colts chose to hold him through it.

The market for the position said the same thing in a different way. USA Today's Nate Davis counted five running backs linked to deals this week: Taylor, Saquon Barkley, Tony Pollard, Derrick Henry and Breece Hall. None moved. Sellers wanted more than buyers would pay at every stop. When that happens five times in one window, the buyers are the ones telling the truth about the price.

The strongest case for Dodds, and where it stops

The best defence of Tuesday is not that Taylor is worth more than a second. It is that Dodds had no business finding out. He is an assistant general manager promoted three weeks ago, and the team has not hired a permanent one. Trading expiring contracts is housekeeping. Trading a three-time Pro Bowler who led the league in rushing touchdowns last season is a statement about what the 2027 Colts are, and that statement belongs to whoever is hired to build them. Add the Jets pick and there was no cost to waiting. Pete Prisco thinks they should have dealt him; a new general manager who wanted Taylor would have thought Prisco's version a disaster.

We accept nearly all of that. Where it stops is the calendar. The next general manager will probably be hired in January. He will have until February 25 to decide whether to pay a $15 million guarantee to a 27-year-old running back on a team without a first-round pick, or to trade him to a club that will pay it instead. Every team he calls will know that date. That is not the negotiating position Dodds had on Tuesday, when multiple teams were bidding against a deadline that was hours away.

The Colts did not decide to keep Jonathan Taylor. They decided that the person who decides should be someone else, and that the cost of deferring was acceptable. It may be. It is also the one decision of the fortnight where the interim label did the work, and the six picks they did collect show the same front office was willing to act when the stakes were a fourth-rounder.

What would prove us wrong

Taylor could do it himself. If the yards per carry climb back toward the form that led the league with 1,811 yards in 2021 and he finishes with three or four 100-yard games behind a line that no longer has Nelson, the February market improves and the refusal looks patient. So would a trade before the guarantee date that returns a second-round pick and a real second piece. Short of either, the best offer the Colts will see for him was the one they declined at 3:15 on a Tuesday.

Daniel Jones, on a two-year, $88 million contract, also stayed; Jordan Schultz reported the Colts listened and did not want to move him. That is a separate problem with a larger number on it.