It’s looking like Daniel Jones will be starting ahead of Anthony Richardson at the beginning of the season. This changes the way I look at Jonathan Taylor.
With Jones at quarterback, I expect Taylor will get a few more carries around the goal line. When Richardson is healthy and doing his thing, he’s an effective ball carrier in that part of the field. He’s scored 10 rushing touchdowns in his 15 starts as a pro.
Admittedly, this theory hasn’t really held up over the last two years. Taylor has scored 8 rushing touchdowns in his nine full games with Richardson at quarterback; he’s scored only 4 in his seven full games with others at quarterback.
Receiving production, however, looks very likely to improve when Jones is filling in. In his nine full games with Richardson, Taylor has caught only 8 passes (as in, less than a catch per week). In his seven full games with other quarterbacks, he’s caught 15 passes – slightly more than 2 catches per game. I think Jones has more ability/tendency to dump the ball off short.
With Richardson being a runner, one school of thought is that things should open up for Taylor (as a runner). But that hasn’t really happened. He’s averaged 4.5 yards per attempt with Richardson or without him. In the 2023-24 seasons, he averaged 3 more attempts and 14 more rushing yards when Richardson wasn’t playing.
The 16 mentioned games appear below; I’ve got the non-Richardson games in bold. I’m including only games where Taylor was a clear featured guy (which I’m arbitrarily defining as having been on the field for more than two thirds of the team’s plays – when he first returned in 2023, he was sharing time with Zack Moss).
In PPR leagues, Taylor has been over 10 percent more productive when Richardson hasn’t been playing.
| TAYLOR WITH AND WITHOUT RICHARDSON | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Result | Rushing | Receiving | PPR |
| 2024 | Ten. | W, 38-30 | 29-218-3 | 0-0-0 | 39.8 |
| 2023 | Hou. | L, 19-23 | 30-188-1 | 2-8-0 | 27.6 |
| 2024 | at NYG | L, 33-45 | 32-125-2 | 2-11-0 | 27.6 |
| 2024 | Chi. | W, 21-16 | 23-110-2 | 1-25-0 | 26.5 |
| 2024 | Jac. | W, 26-23 | 34-177-1 | 1-3-0 | 25.0 |
| 2024 | Pitt. | W, 27-24 | 21-88-1 | 3-20-0 | 19.8 |
| 2024 | at Hou. | L, 20-23 | 20-105-1 | 1-12-0 | 18.7 |
| 2023 | at Car. | W, 27-13 | 18-47-0 | 5-22-1 | 17.9 |
| 2024 | at N.E. | W, 25-24 | 25-96-0 | 1-7-1 | 17.3 |
| 2023 | at N.E. | W, 10-6 | 23-69-1 | 1-6-0 | 14.5 |
| 2024 | Buff. | L, 20-30 | 21-114-0 | 2-8-0 | 14.2 |
| 2024 | at Den. | L, 13-31 | 22-107-0 | 1-4-0 | 12.1 |
| 2024 | Hou. | L, 27-29 | 16-48-1 | 0-0-0 | 10.8 |
| 2024 | at Min. | L, 13-21 | 13-48-0 | 3-11-0 | 8.9 |
| 2024 | at NYJ | W, 28-27 | 24-57-0 | 1-3-0 | 7.0 |
| 2024 | Det. | L, 6-24 | 11-35-0 | 0-0-0 | 3.5 |
Richardson had a setback with the shoulder he originally injured in 2023. He won’t be ready for the beginning of training camp. The hope is that he’ll return during camp, but Jones has been logging all of the reps with the first-unit offense. I’m thinking that makes Jones the favorite to start in Week 1.
With this quarterbacking change, I think a slight upgrade of Taylor is merited. This could be enough to tilt things in his favor relative to guys like Ashton Jeanty and Kyren Williams. I like Taylor a little more now than I did a few weeks ago.
A quarterback change would also slightly upgrade the Indianapolis pass catchers – especially Michael Pittman, Josh Downs and Tyler Warren. But not so much Alec Pierce (Pierce caught a bunch of long balls last year, but Jones has never been much of a deep-ball thrower).
—Ian Allan