This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Mike Sykes.
Boy, I feel bad for Colts fans this morning.
This team is on its way to losing the services of its Jonathan Taylor all because the owner just doesn’t really know how to stay out of the way. It’s Jim Irsay. He can’t help himself.
If there’s one thing Irsay is going to do, it’s ruin the relationship between his team and the team’s best player.
It happened when he ran Peyton Manning out of town. He called the best player in his team’s history a “politician” and told him to keep his team’s dirty laundry “in house.” That was before he publicly made clear that the only way he’d be a Colt and fulfill his dream of playing for one team his whole career was if he took a pay cut to do it.
We know how that played out.
Now, it’s Jonathan Taylor’s turn. He’s the team’s best player by a country mile. All he wants is a shot at negotiating a new contract, which he’s well within his right for as a third-year player on a rookie deal.
Irsay isn’t giving him that opportunity, which stinks. But, as the team’s owner, that’s his choice. Instead of letting it simply be just that, though, Irsay is putting his foot in his mouth.
Taylor is asking for more money and Irsay’s response is, basically, him telling his star running back that no one cares about him. The team followed that up by pointing to a back injury that Jonathan Taylor says he doesn’t have and never reported, which — if the running back is telling the truth — could be a way for Indianapolis to withhold his salary for the year.
All this from the team that the owner claims treats its players better than anyone else does in the NFL.
I wonder if Peyton Manning has thoughts about that after he put his body through the ringer for Irsay’s team. Maybe Andrew Luck does, too, after he retired at 29 years old because he was so beaten and battered by the game with the Colts failing him.
Let me let you in on a dirty little secret: This is the Jim Irsay playbook. It’s the playbook for every NFL owner out there, quiet as kept. The strategy is to use these players up until there’s nothing left. Then they cast them aside and move on because nothing is bigger than the team.
The owners truly don’t care about these players — only the production they offer. And, even then, if it comes at too steep a cost then they don’t want it. This is the dirty underbelly of the conversation surrounding the league’s running backs. Jonathan Taylor is now plainly in the center of it all and all he’s asking is to be paid what he’s worth.
Jonathan Taylor is disrupting that by simply asking to be paid what he’s worth. What we’re seeing is Irsay’s reaction to that. Now, you can see his true colors clearly.
Don’t ever forget what this looks like.
Quick Hits: Clinching scenarios for USWNT … the best sneakers ever … and more
— Caroline Darney outlined every clinching scenario for the USWNT to get into the World Cup’s knockout stage here.
— I ranked the 20 best signature sneakers in the history of sports. Deion Sanders is included.
— The MLB’s trade deadline is inching closer and closer and here are 10 players who could be dealt. Charles Curtis has more.
— Steph Curry had these incredible stories about Kobe Bryant on his Hot Ones appearance and Andrew Joseph has the video.
Have a great week.