[lawrence-newsletter]When Jonathan Taylor met with members of local Indianapolis Colts media on a video press conference soon after being drafted at No. 41 overall, a reporter pointed out that the Colts have a “run the damn ball” mantra. Coming from a place like Wisconsin, where running the football is a way of life, that slogan sounded pretty familiar to the two-time Doak Walker award winner.
“Its kinda like a seamless transition in a sense,” said Taylor when asked about the mantra. “Coming from the University of Wisconsin where we wanna focus on taking pride and dominating the line of scrimmage up front, its the same thing with the Indianapolis Colts. I feel like I am just seamlessly transitioning from one culture to the next, but its the same exact culture.”
As a pure runner, many felt that the Salem, New Jersey native was the best in his class. The production that Taylor put up behind a tremendous offensive line at UW proved that in each of his three years. The Wisconsin standout finished with 6,174 rushing yards during his time as a Badger. He even added a receiving element to his game as a junior, finishing with 252 yards through the air and five receiving touchdowns in 2019 alone. Taylor was asked about his improvement as a receiver in his video press conference:
“Yes, thats def something I wanted to do. Coach [Paul] Chryst (UW Head Coach) made it a conscious effort to implement that into the scheme just because he knew I had the ability. Coach Chryst is definitely a players coach. He wants what is best for his players and he definitely knew that that would help me in the future. I wanted to continue to improve on that as well as routes; just being able to run the entire route tree so that whenever I am either in the slot or split out wide I’m able to run a plethora of routes.”
Pass protection was one of the major question marks about Taylor that draft scouts had coming in to the league. He was asked about that aspect of his game by a Colts reporter and had this to say:
“When we first came through at, UW Coach [John] Settle (UW running backs coach), the first thing he said is we are not gonna go over anything with a ball. He said the first thing I wanna go over is pass protection because that stuff is the largest jump between high school and college. Thats something I am going to keep in mind because this is another step above.”
One of the greatest running backs in Wisconsin football history is ready to step into Indianapolis and show that he is a complete, three-down back in the National Football League.