NEW: Jim Irsay is Considering Not Paying Jonathan Taylor Because of a Back Injury That Taylor Says is Fake News
Source - NFL Trade Rumors - Mike Chappell reports that the Colts are considering placing RB Jonathan Taylor on the non-football injury list due to a back injury he suffered while working out on his own in Arizona.
Taylor is currently on the active/PUP list while rehabbing from January ankle surgery.
If Taylor suffered the injury on his buck, the Colts could choose to withhold pay. Beyond that, Taylor wouldn't complete his rookie contract, which means he wouldn't qualify to be an unrestricted free agent next year.
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I'm not sure how much longer I can go on blindly supporting everything Jim Irsay does. I've always sort of done it as a joke, but I do think he is an overall pretty great owner to have. He clearly cares about his team winning, you can tell how much it hurts him when the Colts are bad, he loves the city of Indianapolis, and most importantly, he's fucking hysterical. But idk, Jim. I kinda feel like this might be a bad look for the franchise.
But anyways… I'm still Team Irsay. He hasn't lost me yet. My good friend White Boy Rick and the people at Barstool Indy (I'm not sure if it's only him or if there's others who run that account), were quick to remind me of all the good Jim Irsay does for the city of Indianapolis.
Just one of many examples of Jim Irsay being a legend by handing out cash to anybody wearing a blue hat in the greater Indianapolis area.
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And that's just a completely unrelated Jim Irsay quote about powerlifting that I included to remind myself how much I love him.
If I'm looking at this very surface level, I'd be fully on board with this move by Irsay. Jonathan Taylor doesn't want to be here. The front office obviously doesn't plan to have him be a part of the Colts future. So if they have this option to save millions of dollars by putting JT on the non-football injury list, then that seems like a no-brainer. Seems like an obvious business move really.
Jonathan Taylor apparently got this non-football back injury while working out outside of football in Arizona over the off-season. He didn't get it popping wheelies on a motorcycle, or going 70 mph on a jet ski, or trying to give a porn star a flying piledriver like Dennis Rodman did that one time and broke his penis. I have to assume Jonathan Taylor was working out so that he could be in shape for football. Whether or not the Colts approved the workout is aside the point from me. Every great player in the league is working out on their own time. And even if teams "say" they don't want them to. That's bullshit. They want their players to be in the best shape possible.
You can disagree with that, and I'd totally understand. If JT wasn't working out on his own in Arizona, he wouldn't have gotten that back injury, and would be in better shape to play this year. He could have worked out safer. He did this to himself. But is that really a precedent you want to set as an owner? That if your star player injures himself of the field in a situation where he's trying to make himself into a better player, you're going to use all the tools at your disposal to make sure he isn't paid at all? Maybe I'm wrong about how exactly that injury went down. I don't think Taylor has ever actually spoken on it. But I feel like that isn't the best look for the Colts franchise. Jim Irsay brags about how the Colts treat their players better than any other franchise. Apparently he literally told Taylor that to his face at their most recent meeting. However, this move sure wouldn't point to that being true.
The problem is probably more-so the running back market than anything else. Which Irsay has now made himself the face of. And honestly, if Irsay puts himself in the bad graces of every other running back in the league with this move, than so be it. I said in an earlier blog that the Colts would be perfectly fine picking up a speedy crack head off the street and starting him at RB1. According to the news I've been hearing lately, most able bodied American's would make perfectly fine NFL running backs. But if Irsay isn't careful, he's going to alienate more than just the running backs. I think the Colts front office has a pretty decent reputation. But moves like this aren't going to help. The Colts are going through a full re-build right now. They're gonna need to convince some more players to come play for them eventually. Maybe this move will save the Colts a few million, but Irsay can't go full villain on this. It's not like central Indiana is a destination spot for free agents. The Colts NEED to treat their players better than anyone if they want to keep attracting talent.
Just trade him Jim. Get something in return, draft another running back in the 3rd or 4th round next year and get on with the program. I still love you Jim. And if you'd like to cut me a $2000 check I'll never write a bad word about you again. At least not until after I blow through the money.
Additionally, if I'm going to keep blindly supporting everything the great Jim Irsay does, I'm going to need to come up with some more Jim Irsay jokes. I can only reference alcohol, Vicodin's, and powerlifting so many times. So either get you shit together Jim, or do some more crazy shit to give me material.
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Annnnnd since I finished writing this, the Colts continue to do things. Now Jonathan Taylor is tweeting.
So if I'm understanding this situation correctly, Jonathan Taylor 100% failed his physical. That's not up for debate. From what I've read, it was a combination of both an ankle injury he had sustained last year, and this new mysterious back pain.
ESPN - Taylor failed his physical, the source said, because of a combination of a previous ankle injury for which surgery was performed earlier this year and the back injury. The team's medical staff had not previously discussed a back issue with Taylor, and the Colts were unaware of the problem until Taylor reported on Tuesday, the source said.
There's some belief that the back issue stems from an old injury, but Taylor continues to complain of discomfort, according to the source.
May I just say, the best part of the NFL (to me) is watching a billion dollar business be conducted over Twitter X.com. I can't imagine anybody's lawyer would recommend this strategy, but they just can't help it.
So again, if I'm understanding this correctly, this all comes down to whether or not Jonathan Taylor injured himself over the off-season. Based on that tweet, it looks like he's denying it ever happened. Maybe he has some back pain that stems from a football injury last year, but it appears JT is taking the "deny, deny, deny, you can't prove it route". I guess I can't blame him when you're staring in the face of losing out on $4 million. I'm not sure how they're going to be able to prove exactly where the pain came from. The part were missing is what exactly JT told the team he did over the summer. This mystery back injury while training in Arizona couldn't have just come out of thin air right?
Or maybe it did. Maybe Jim Irsay is an evil mastermind who's so vindictive that he's willing to fuck his star player out of $4 million by any means necessary. I have a hard time believing he's really that crazy. But who knows. And the order of which this all came out really makes it seem like Jim Irsay is making this 'non-football injury list' decision out of spite. He'd probably tell you the fact that Taylor requested a trade, and the fact that he's going on this list are mutually exclusive, but the timing of this sure makes it seem like Irsay got pissed that one of his players wanted out, and is using his power to "teach him a lesson". Or maybe this is all just a rumor. Who fucking knows. It's hard to take a stand on something when all the facts aren't out.
I'm sure more information on this will come out. I'm very curious to learn more about this mystery injury, and how JT managed to hurt or not hurt his back in Arizona. In the meantime, don't fuck with Jim Irsay I guess.