It’s been a bad week going up against Jonathan Taylor in fantasy football – or in real-life stadiums.
The Colts running back ignited the Bills in 185 yards to over 32 carry, four of which were for touchdowns, as Indianapolis overtook Buffalo 41-15 on Sunday. He also caught three 19-yard passes, including another touchdown.
Taylor’s five-faced effort put him in a company with a long history. Sporting News takes a look at some particularly interesting milestones he checked out on Sunday.
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Best of 2021
There hasn’t been a player who isn’t a quarterback totaling five touches in a game during the 2021 NFL season. To this day.
Taylor’s four rushing points and one touchdown received surpassed Aaron Jones’ Week 2 total of four for this year’s singles total.
A total of 5 ground touches also makes Taylor only the 16th non-QB in NFL history to tally at least 5 total ground hits and only the 4th since 2000, with the Seahawks rerunning Shaun Alexander in in 2002, the Broncos ran back to Clinton Portis in 2003 and the Saints ran back to Alvin Kamara in 2020, according to Stathead.
Kamara set an NFL record with six touchdowns in Week 16 against the Vikings last season.
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Unstoppable on the ground
Of course, most of Taylor’s damage came from the ground, and it was substantial.
Taylor is the first player since Derrick Henry in 2018 to go 180 yards and score at least four touches in a game. He became only the 14th man to run back to hit such a game in NFL history, according to Stathead.
This year 22 years old, he is also the second youngest person to re-post this game genre. Jim Brown is the youngest at 21 – he completed it a second time at 22, still a few days younger than Taylor – and Portis hit the milestone in 2003, also a few days younger than Taylor, when he dashed 218 yards and scored five times.
Fantasy point
When a runner posts big numbers like this, it’s always rewarding to start him in your fantasy soccer league.
The owner did this week treated all over. Taylor posted 53.4 points in ppr tournaments, 51.9 points for half ppr points and 50.4 points in standard tournaments.
As expected, that also landed him in a number of elite companies for single game performances. Only 19 previous runs have posted at least 50 ppr points, according to Stathead, with Kamara’s six-touch game being the most recent example.
Even less have achieved it without the benefit of passing scores. Taylor became only the 12th person to hit the 50 mark and, again, the most recent since Kamara.
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Many excellent games
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Taylor is that he has consistently dominated since arriving in the NFL.
The Colts single-player javelin record holder with a 253-yard run last season, Taylor had some of the same games as he had on Sunday.
In fact, it was his fourth game to dash at least 150 yards and score at least two hasty touches. The stellar performance only came in his 26th NFL game.
Taylor tied with Billy Sims of the Lions for the most such games in their first 26 games at four, according to Stathead. No comeback race could match more performances with those impressive numbers.
100 yards = Colts wins
Where does Taylor go, where does the Colts go. Since arriving in the NFL, Taylor has dashed at least 100 yards nine times, and he’s scored at least one touchdown in each of those games.
The Colts were a perfect 9-0 in those games, and they were 7-9 when he didn’t hit 100 yards. In fact, they’ve won every match where Taylor has dashed at least 80 yards. They were also 11-5 when Taylor scored a rush goal – 5-1 with multiple touches on the ground.
This continues a trend that Wisconsin followed when Taylor returned to the Badgers. In games where Taylor hit the 100 yard dash, Wisconsin was 26-6.
