NFL teams are coming down to the wire when it comes to the trade deadline, needing to make trades for the remainder of the season by 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
At this point, teams have positioned themselves as buyers or sellers, and the Indianapolis Colts are the latter. And all eyes are on them to see what happens with All-Pro running back Jonathan Taylor.
Will he remain in a Colts uniform for, at least, the rest of the year? Or will a contender finally hit the asking price needing to send him elsewhere?
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Owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon, who gave the nod to trade guard Quenton Nelson and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner already, is reportedly taking calls on Taylor as well as quarterback Daniel Jones and wide receiver Josh Downs. But Taylor has been the cream of the trade buzz crop since the Colts cemented themselves as a team in rebuild mode.
So, should Irsay-Gordon and interim GM Ed Dodds pull the trigger on a Taylor trade? That question was posed to former Colts quarterback Nick Foles, who has been watching the situation unfold very closely, by OutKick during a recent interview look ahead to his role as an analyst on Netflix for the first-ever NFL Thanksgiving Eve game later this month.
“Man, now I have to put on a business mind, right?” he responded. “As a person who was his teammate, I would never trade him ‘cause I know just what he brings to the team as a leader and as a player. But as a personnel decision maker, he’s getting older as a running back, and if you can get something super value like a high draft pick for him – you are in rebuild. You’ve already shown that. I feel like you’re going to do it.
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“That pains me to say.”
If the Colts do decide to part ways with the 27-year-old running back, he did have one request.
“Please send Jonathan to a team that’s a contender,” he said emphatically. “Give him that opportunity, right? Like he deserves that opportunity.
“If they do, he will be dearly missed in Indianapolis because of the quality of human being, teammate, and player he is. But I can definitely see her doing it from a business perspective in this rebuild to just get some draft capital.”
If the Colts are going to trade Taylor, they reportedly want a steep asking price met – something like the San Francisco 49ers gave the Carolina Panthers for Christian McCaffrey. That was a second-, third, and fourth-round pick in 2023 and a 2024 fifth-round pick in the famous 2022 deadline deal.
A contender with that type of draft capital could justify the move knowing Taylor would be locked in through the 2028 season. It wouldn’t just be a trade for the 2026 campaign, but two years in the future before a possible extension.
Among the teams being aggressive on the trade market are the New York Giants, as the John Harbaugh-led squad owns the top spot in the NFC East in his first season there, and they could use an elite running back to add to their offense now and for the future. The Denver Broncos, Minnesota Vikings and others have been rumored to be in the Taylor market, but the clock is ticking and time is of the essence.
Who will bend first, if at all? This is why the deadline is so intriguing for NFL fans, including Foles who can’t wait to see where teams stack up after it.
Foles also can’t wait for his duties on Nov. 25 when he and fellow ex-pros Clay Matthews and Michael Irvin join Elle Duncan as part of the broadcast crew for the historic matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Green Bay Packers. U2 will also celebrate 50 years together from the 50-yard line, as they perform at halftime with special guests during this new NFL holiday tradition.
Teams will look different at that point, though, and the coming weeks will show if those trade deadline moves paid off or not.