Much to the chagrin of fantasy football managers, the Indianapolis Colts don’t care that they will be splitting the workload amongst multiple players in the backfield.
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Despite having Marlon Mack coming off of a season in which he had nearly 1,100 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns, the Colts traded up for the uber-talented running back prospect in Jonathan Taylor.
Envisioning a 1-2 punch in the backfield, offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni sees this crowded backfield as an opportunity to get even more production from the No. 7 rushing attack in 2019.
“We know we want to run the football. We know we want to run the football. We know a lot of the good running teams in this league and in the past have had good one-two punches. It feels like it’s just a one-one punch though because we have two such exceptional backs,” Sirianni told reporters this week. “I think that’s a fantastic problem to have, is to have two guys like that you can feed the football to. It’s only going to help our running game.”
Behind the Colts’ elite offensive line, Mack and Taylor shouldn’t have any problem finding success in 2020. It might be difficult to figure out which player will be seeing the majority of work from week to week—a fantasy manager’s nightmare—but the unit as a whole will be successful.
It will be interesting to see if this might turn into a “hot-hand” approach between Mack and Taylor. Both have the capabilities to take over the backfield with a big game, but it truly remains a mystery right now what the approach will be.
The other problem that fantasy managers will run into is the passing game. While Mack and Taylor likely split the load on early downs, it’s hard to see them seeing a ton of targets with Nyheim Hines there. The latter of the three is far and wide a better pass-catcher and even Sirianni said to expect Hines to be targeted.
The Colts are going to lean heavily on the run game even with Rivers under center and while fantasy football managers are going to pull their hair out wondering which back to play each week, Indy couldn’t be happier with their backfield situation.
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