Doyel: Wayward Colts RB Jonathan Taylor is back at the Colts complex, ducking the media
INDIANAPOLIS – It’s been so long, not to mention so weird, are we even going to recognize wayward Colts tailback Jonathan Taylor? Maybe not. Maybe it’s already happening. Allegedly he was at the Indianapolis Colts’ 56th Street complex Wednesday, the day he was said to be rejoining the team, designated to return soon from the Physically Unable to Perform list.
It has been a while since we’ve seen the guy on the field. Taylor last practiced in December before injuring his ankle, requiring surgery that generally sidelines a player for about a month. That was what, 10 months ago? And he’s been unable to return, while asking for a new contract the whole time?
Probably a coincidence.
Colts coach Shane Steichen opened his news conference Wednesday by announcing Taylor was in the building and would attend the team’s walk-through, which is a whole other thing. NFL teams on a normal week – and this is a normal week for the Colts, at least according to the schedule – don’t do a walk-through on Wednesday. They practice on Wednesday. But had the Colts practiced, NFL rules stipulate a portion of it has to be open to the media. And you know those jackals. Always taking pictures and video and the like.
So far, pictures and video of Jonathan Taylor are like pictures and images of the Loch Ness Monster: grainy and weird and from some lake in Scotland, or wherever Loch Ness is located. Maybe Taylor is in Scotland? I’d ask Colts coach Shane Steichen, but he’d probably say he’s had conversations about the location of Loch Ness, and they’ve been good, but he’s going to keep those conversations private.
“I’ve had good conversations with him,” Steichen says of Taylor, or maybe the monster; he wasn’t clear, and it’s not your place to assume. “Myself and him, I’ll keep our conversations private, but they’ve been good.”
Pretty soon Steichen is finished talking and we’ve asked him 10 different questions about Taylor and I’ve written down every single revealing word and my notebook is blank. So now we’re heading into the locker room.
First stop: the lockers on the immediate left. That’s where the running backs are located, closest to the door, to allow Taylor to make a quick getaway next time he pouts his way onto the PUP list or Injured Reserve or the I’m Just Here Because My Agent is Stupid list.
No Taylor.
For the next 45 minutes I’ll be staking out the location, when I’m not teasing Sam Ehlinger or charming Gardner Minshew or – be serious here – congratulating Ryan Kelly on his newborn twin sons. Over the next 45 minutes I’ll see every running back on that row: Zack Moss (locker No. 21), Trey Sermon (No. 27), Jake Funk (No. 34), Evan Hull (No. 26), even someone named Tyler Goodson (No. 31).
Well, every running back but the guy at locker No. 28.
Maybe the Loch Ness Monster ate Jonathan Taylor?
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Then again, are we going to recognize Taylor? His hair could be longer, his body thinner, his scowl scowlier. He’s been hard to recognize in other ways, four years after he arrived from Wisconsin so sweet and unselfish and happy and honest.
This new No. 28, this new “Jonathan Taylor,” is surly and selfish and angry and maybe even dishonest, the way his surgery generally requires a four-week recovery period but dragged into training camp, the preseason schedule and the first four weeks of the regular season – at the exact same time he and his agent were whining on social media for contract extension.
Probably a coincidence.
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It was a mostly routine Wednesday scene in the locker room, with quarterback Anthony Richardson doing his weekly news conference at his locker as teammates walk by and cartoonishly notice the scrum, eyebrows raised for effect, like that’s original or something. Better to be like Quenton Nelson and walk by with a blank stare, as if the media isn’t worth his time. That’s how you do it, Big Q!
Wait.
Anyway, another card game is breaking out at the lockers of the defensive backs. Someone’s being inappropriately loud and you don’t even have to ask to know it’s cornerback Tony Brown, whose nickname is unfortunate and I won’t write it here, but you have to say it with his full name and it sounds like Hazy Tony Brown.
Only, not "hazy."
Am I being clear?
Move on. There are more sights to see on this normal Wednesday as we stake out Taylor’s locker, where only a handful of practice shirts hang from hangars. No street clothes in his locker. And he’s here? Really? Maybe he comes to the complex already dressed for practice.
Maybe he practices in street clothes.
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Evan Hull is here, and he’s injured. Like, the real thing, not that anybody would fake an injury. For sure, nobody in this locker room has been faking an injury, and I’m not saying that just because Taylor isn’t here.
Hull is wearing a turquoise skull cap for reasons known only to him, with a bulky brace on his surgically repaired left knee, and crutching slowly around the room. He visits his locker, where he shares a word with No. 31, Tyler Goodson. Pretty sure it’s Goodson, though I wouldn’t recognize him.
Maybe Tyler Goodson is Jonathan Taylor.
Down the way are the quarterbacks, where No. 3 QB Sam Ehlinger tolerates my series of lame dad jokes until he finds some reason to get away from me. Today Ehlinger is followed by a skinny guy with long brown locks flowing from beneath his baseball cap, and maybe that’s Jonathan Taylor? As I said, he could’ve lost weight. He could’ve grown out his hair.
Whoever he is, he’s pulling on a red non-contact jersey, which would make sense for anyone injured or even pretending to be injured, and there’s a name on the back of the jersey and … oh, that’s backup QB Gardner Minshew. Now I’m telling Ehlinger to pay attention, because he’s about to see how small this big ol’ world can be.
“Gardner!” I shout at Gardner, who looks at me like he’s never seen me in my life, which briefly makes me wonder if I’m Jonathan Taylor. I’ve been waiting months for this conversation with Minshew, and here it comes.
“I went to Oxford Elementary with Ilya,” I tell Gardner, naming a kid from my Mississippi childhood named Ilya Minshew. “And he’s your … well, what is he? Your cousin?”
“That’s my uncle,” Gardner says of Ilya. “That’s my guy.”
Moving away from Gardner, I spot another of my Mississippi connections. DeForest Buckner’s dad played for Ole Miss when I was a kid there, and I can still picture George Buckner – No. 33 – dunking on someone. This gives me a special connection with DeForest, so I approach to ask him “for something thoughtful and intelligent about Jonathan Taylor’s return.”
DeForest thoughtfully and intelligently tells me, “I speak on Thursdays.”
That’s fine. Our locker room access is ending after 45 minutes anyway, no sign of No. 28. Everyone says he’s here, so I'll assume he is. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's just cowardly ducking reporters.
All I can tell you is, on my way out to the parking lot, someone was on that tiny pond on the Colts property, next to that tiny golf course. Whoever was on the pond, he was doing maintenance of some sort. Long hose, water coming out of it. What’s he doing, watering the water? That’s the kind of thing Taylor’s agent would advise his client to do.
Maybe that was Jonathan Taylor, floating on that pond in a small craft, what you call – wait for it – a jon boat.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts running back Jonathan Taylor is back at camp! Probably. Maybe?
