Player
Jonathan Taylor
RB · IND Colts
Running backs almost never reclaim a peak after two injury-compromised seasons; the position's aging curve is a one-way slide. Taylor's rebuilt seasons came with rising per-carry efficiency, not just restored volume, which is the part injuries usually take permanently. That reshapes his 2026 outlook from aging-back-on-borrowed-time to a player whose underlying skill never actually declined.
The second peak
Two injury-wrecked years said the 2021 peak was gone. Taylor built a second one.
TrendTaylor year by year (regular season)
| Season | Games | Rush yds | YPC | Rush TD | PPR/game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 15 | 1,169 | 5.04 | 11 | 16.9 |
| 2021 | 17 | 1,811 | 5.45 | 18 | 21.9 |
| 2022 | 11 | 861 | 4.48 | 4 | 13.3 |
| 2023 | 10 | 741 | 4.38 | 7 | 15.6 |
| 2024 | 14 | 1,431 | 4.72 | 11 | 17.5 |
| 2025 | 17 | 1,585 | 4.91 | 18 | 21.3 |
The 2022-23 stretch, 21 games, 4.4 yards a carry, an ankle that never healed, looked like the classic running back cliff arriving early. Instead the numbers have climbed every season since: yards per carry up three straight years, and a 2025 line, 1,585 yards and 18 rushing touchdowns in all 17 games, that mirrors the 2021 season everyone assumed was the once-in-a-career peak. He did it at age 26, in his sixth NFL season.
Why it matters. Running backs almost never reclaim a peak after two injury-compromised seasons; the position's aging curve is a one-way slide. Taylor's rebuilt seasons came with rising per-carry efficiency, not just restored volume, which is the part injuries usually take permanently. That reshapes his 2026 outlook from aging-back-on-borrowed-time to a player whose underlying skill never actually declined.
Two seasons of 18+ rushing touchdowns: a club whose only other members are LaDainian Tomlinson and Priest Holmes.
RareMultiple seasons of 18+ rushing TDs, 1999-2025
| RB | Seasons | TD counts |
|---|---|---|
| LaDainian Tomlinson | 2005, 2006 | 18, 28 |
| Priest Holmes | 2002, 2003 | 21, 27 |
| Jonathan Taylor | 2021, 2025 | 18, 18 |
Since 1999, dozens of running backs have produced one monster touchdown season. Exactly three have done it twice: Tomlinson, Holmes, and Taylor. The other two names on the list are a Hall of Famer and the defining fantasy back of the early 2000s. What separates Taylor's pair: four full seasons and two major injuries sit between his two 18-touchdown years.
Why it matters. Repeating an extreme touchdown season is far harder than posting one, because touchdown totals are the most regression-prone stat in football. Doing it twice, four years apart, on two different offensive schemes, is evidence that Taylor's goal-line dominance is a durable skill-plus-role combination rather than one charmed season. That is precisely the profile the two other club members had at their peaks.
MYTH TEST: "Taylor is only an RB1 because of touchdown luck." Delete all 20 touchdowns and he is still RB5.
2025 PPR/game with every touchdown removed (min 8 games)
| RB | PPR/game | Rank | No-TD PPR/game | No-TD rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christian McCaffrey | 24.5 | 1 | 18.5 | 1 |
| Bijan Robinson | 21.8 | 2 | 17.9 | 2 |
| Jahmyr Gibbs | 21.6 | 3 | 15.2 | 4 |
| Jonathan Taylor | 21.3 | 4 | 14.3 | 5 |
| De'Von Achane | 20.2 | 5 | 15.7 | 3 |
The touchdown-luck story has a testable form: strip the 6 points for every touchdown from every running back's 2025 line and see who falls. Taylor barely moves: RB4 with touchdowns, RB5 without them, riding 115.5 scrimmage yards a game and 21.7 touches. The top five is nearly the same list in both columns, because backs who score 18 times are also the backs who carry the offense between the 20s.
Why it matters. The right worry about an 18-touchdown season is that the touchdowns regress; the wrong conclusion is that the player regresses with them. Separating the two is exactly what the no-touchdown ranking does: it isolates the yardage-and-reception base that repeats from the scoring bursts that may not. Taylor's base production alone was a top-5 fantasy back in 2025.
The workload ledger
90.5 rushing yards per game for a career: the highest rate of any back in the last quarter century.
MilestoneCareer rushing yards per game since 1999 (RBs, min 60 games)
| Rank | RB | Games | Rush yds | Yds/game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonathan Taylor | 84 | 7,598 | 90.5 |
| 2 | Clinton Portis | 113 | 9,923 | 87.8 |
| 3 | Derrick Henry | 152 | 13,018 | 85.6 |
| 4 | Curtis Martin | 108 | 9,015 | 83.5 |
| 5 | Edgerrin James | 148 | 12,254 | 82.8 |
Across 84 career games Taylor has averaged 90.5 rushing yards, the best career rate of any running back since 1999, ahead of Portis, Derrick Henry, and two Hall of Famers. The number absorbs his injury seasons, the games where he played hurt, everything. Over a 16-game slate that pace is roughly 1,448 yards, a total only a handful of individual seasons reach in any given year.
Why it matters. Career per-game rate is the harshest test of a runner's true level because it cannot be inflated by one healthy peak or a friendly stretch of schedule. Leading that list while sandwiching two injury years between two 1,800-yard-pace peaks says the baseline, not the peak, is what is exceptional. The names directly behind him are the benchmark for what this profile ages into.
Nobody carried the ball more in 2025, and the men behind him needed passing-down work to keep up.
Comparison2025 rushing volume leaders (regular season)
| RB | Carries | Total touches |
|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Taylor | 323 | 369 |
| Christian McCaffrey | 311 | 413 |
| James Cook | 309 | 342 |
| Derrick Henry | 307 | 322 |
| Bijan Robinson | 287 | 366 |
Taylor led the NFL with 323 carries in 2025 and stacked 46 receptions on top, 369 touches, 21.7 a game. The workload argument against him has always been its own answer: Indianapolis has no second act in its backfield, and the offense's identity, from the sneak package to the play-action shell, is built on defenses honoring his volume.
Why it matters. Touch volume is the most predictive single input for running back fantasy scoring because it is a coaching decision that persists, and Taylor holds the largest such commitment in football. The standard caveat cuts against him too: 320-carry seasons have historically preceded decline years often enough that the workload is both his moat and his main actuarial risk at age 27.
The forgotten third down role came back: 46 catches, his most since 2021.
SplitTaylor receiving by season (regular season)
| Season | Receptions | Rec yards | Rec TD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 40 | 360 | 2 |
| 2022 | 28 | 143 | 0 |
| 2023 | 19 | 153 | 1 |
| 2024 | 18 | 136 | 1 |
| 2025 | 46 | 378 | 2 |
From 2022 through 2024 Taylor's receiving role quietly died: 65 catches across three seasons, and with it the PPR floor that separates elite backs from touchdown-dependent ones. In 2025 it returned all at once: 46 catches for 378 yards, both his best marks since 2021. A catch is worth a point before the yardage starts; 46 of them is nearly three extra points a game of floor.
Why it matters. Receiving work is what protects a back's fantasy value in the games where the ground game stalls or the script goes negative. Taylor's three lean receiving years made him more boom-bust than his talent deserved; the restored role is why his 2025 floor held up even in Indy's losses. Whether the new quarterback situation preserves that checkdown volume is a genuine 2026 variable.
Pricing the crown
When Daniel Jones went down, Taylor's yards per carry fell off a cliff: 5.67 before, 3.12 after.
AnomalyTaylor 2025, before and after the QB injury (week 14)
| Span | Games | YPC | Rush yds/game | Rush TD | PPR/game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-13 | 12 | 5.67 | 106.8 | 15 | 24.8 |
| Weeks 14-18 | 5 | 3.12 | 60.6 | 3 | 12.9 |
Through week 13, with Daniel Jones running the offense, Taylor averaged 5.67 yards a carry and 24.8 PPR points a game, an MVP-conversation pace. From week 14 on, behind backup quarterbacks, the same runner behind the same line managed 3.12 a carry and half the fantasy output. Defenses stopped honoring the pass and started playing the run. His season-long numbers, remarkable as they are, contain a five-week stretch of proof about how much quarterback gravity he was benefiting from.
Why it matters. This is the cleanest quarterback-dependence experiment a running back can produce: same line, same scheme, same player, different passer. The size of the swing (2.55 yards per carry) says a healthy Jones is a real component of Taylor's first-round price. Drafters at pick 7 are buying the weeks 1-13 version and should track the QB's health as if it were Taylor's own.
The 18 touchdowns ran about 4 ahead of what his carries usually pay. That surplus rarely survives a season change.
What to watchTaylor 2025 rushing TDs vs field-position expectation
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Carries | 324 |
| Actual rushing TDs | 18 |
| Expected TDs (league rate by yardline) | 14.4 |
| Surplus | +3.6 |
Run his 324 carries through the league-average touchdown rate for each yard line they started from and you get 14.4 expected touchdowns. He scored 18. A +3.6 surplus is not outrageous, elite goal-line backs do out-convert the average, but history is clear that the surplus component specifically tends to reset toward zero the following season while the expected component (his goal-line volume) persists.
Why it matters. Splitting touchdowns into expected and surplus is how you avoid both mistakes drafters make with a 20-TD back: pricing in a full repeat, or panic-fading the whole profile. Taylor's expected 14.4 is itself elite, built on the league's largest short-yardage workload, so even full surplus regression leaves a top-shelf touchdown baseline. The card to pull from this: project 13-15, not 18, and not 8.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: the touchdowns come down, the volume does not. Taylor finishes top-8 among RBs in 2026.
Every 15+ rushing TD season, 1999-2024: what year two looked like
| Measure | Year one | Year two |
|---|---|---|
| Seasons in cohort | 45 | |
| Avg rushing TDs | 17.2 | 9.7 |
| Repeated 15+ TDs | 8 of 45 | |
| Avg scrimmage yards/game | 114.6 | 100.6 |
The 45 running backs since 1999 who scored 15+ rushing touchdowns averaged just 9.7 the following season, and only 8 repeated the feat, Taylor himself being one of the few to ever do it twice. But their scrimmage yardage held far better: 114.6 a game became 100.6. Applied to Taylor: pencil in roughly 100+ scrimmage yards a game, 46-catch receiving support, 13-15 touchdowns, and a first-round ADP whose floor history keeps validating. The gradeable call: Taylor finishes top-8 among RBs in PPR points per game in 2026.
Why it matters. This forecast deliberately projects Taylor down from his 2025 finish (RB4) rather than forward, because the touchdown component regresses and his is the largest in football. What is left after the regression haircut, league-leading volume, restored receiving work, the best career per-game rushing rate of the last 25 years, still prices out inside the top eight. The bigger risks are the ones no cohort table catches: a 369-touch odometer and a quarterback recovering from injury.
FanIQ answers any NFL stats question with receipts, on your phone.
Get FanIQ freeGet it on Google Play