Insider: Colts risk wasting Jonathan Taylor, the most prolific player they have

INDIANAPOLIS -- Jonathan Taylor is trying to find a hole but can't, and the space is shrinking, the bodies are closing in. Suddenly, he's falling backward, and before he slams onto his back on the turf, he feels pain in his right ankle, and the ball loosens from his finger tips.

In a moment, the Titans will recover. In 10 more minutes, they'll use their own superstar running back to bleed out the clock on a 24-17 win.

Taylor will be somewhere in the bowels of Lucas Oil Stadium trying to figure out how to move without pain again.

The Colts lost a game and perhaps something more central to their DNA on Sunday. Taylor will now undergo tests on his right ankle to see if he's able to play again soon. Thursday's road trip to Denver is fast approaching.

Taylor arrived to the locker room at Lucas Oil Stadium later than just about any other Colts player. He bounced from treatment to the shower before speaking to the media, when he was still trying to process what happened.

"It just tweaked up a little bit, but I'm feeling good now," he said. "It was a lot of commotion going on. Things just happen so fast on the field. It's crazy."

Taylor's health is of primary concern to the Colts right now. Secondary is figuring out a way to make him a difference maker again.

Taylor took 20 carries against the Titans and gained just 42 yards behind the NFL's highest-paid offensive line. His long was 11 yards.

After a 161-yard day in the season opener, this is the third straight game in which he's fallen short of 75 yards rushing. That had not happened since the first three games of 2021, when the Colts started 0-3.

A year after Taylor broke five runs for 40 yards or more, his longest run is 21 yards.

A year after he led the league with 18 rushing scores, he's scored one time in four games.

And yet...

"It's not about JT," running back Nyheim Hines said. "JT has done well. JT has been grinding. The supporting cast around him has to be better -- myself, receivers, anyone in this offense not named JT. We have to be better."

Taylor is having a down season by his standards with 82 yards per game and 4.1 yards per carry, but the Colts have given him 81 of the 91 running back carries for a reason: Hines and Deon Jackson have managed eight total yards on the other 10.

The Colts are asking the most prolific back in the league to give their run game a chance.

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Just last season, Taylor led the NFL with 1,811 rushing yards, almost 500 yards more than anyone else. He ran in ways teams saw coming and could do nothing about, such as his five-touchdown performance against the Bills and the 67-yard game-winner he pulled off against the Patriots, when Bill Belichick sent Dont'a Hightower on a run blitz and paid the price.

The league rushing title followed up a rookie season in which he ran for 1,169 yards and 11 touchdowns on 5.0 yards per carry. In two years, Taylor and the Colts had built a standard together.

"The way we do things, the way we scheme it, the way we block it, we've had a process in place for five years that's been very productive," Colts coach Frank Reich said. "We're always tweaking it, but we're not getting the production."

Taylor has become a victim of his own success. He runs with a target now, often into stacked boxes, which he has less help handling than before.

In those tight quarters against flying bodies, he has less help than he used to.

The past two years, Taylor praised Jack Doyle for the way the two-time Pro Bowl tight end would drag across the formation to clear linebackers from the hole. Doyle improvised within that to keep Taylor clean from whatever defenses started throwing at them.

Taylor built trust with Doyle, as did an offensive line with stalwarts in left guard Quenton Nelson, center Ryan Kelly and right tackle Braden Smith. That trio is adjusting to new tight ends as well as new starters at left tackle and right guard. Entering Sunday, the Colts had more stuffed runs than all but four teams, according to Football Outsiders.

"Shoot. We're just struggling right now," tight end Mo Alie-Cox said. "We have to find a way to get out of that funk. Teams know we're going to run the ball, but we need to get a little more creative trying to get Jonathan free.

"Jonathan is a great back, but we've got to be able to open up holes for him so he can do what he needs to do."

An ineffective Taylor isn't just a missed opportunity; it also adds mileage to a ball carrier, the kind that wears a player down over time. Over a 17-game season, Taylor is on pace for 344 carries, or 12 more than he led the league with last season.

Last year, Taylor would set up runs throughout the game to perform cutbacks to the sideline that would place him on highlight reels and atop the charts for the league's fastest ball-carriers. This year, he can't afford extra steps. His boldness is gone, and he's left churning those tree-trunk legs just to give the offense somewhere to go.

It too often means running into the backs of his offensive line. These are massive men ranging from 307 to 343 pounds, and the box is crowded, and so he keeps churning his legs, but it's an AFC South battle and Mike Vrabel's Titans need a win to stay alive and so everyone in white is reaching and clawing for a ball, a jersey, an ankle...

"In those trenches, it gets for real," Taylor said. "When (an injury) doesn't happen, you thank God and you just keep moving on. You know that there a lot of instances where something bad could happen, so you just take your blessings and keep chugging."

Now, it's on him and the Colts to climb out. They need a jolt, like one more Taylor sprint into overdrive.

"If we can just break one," Alie-Cox said, "that'll give us that life in the run game and spark energy into everybody."

Contact Colts insider Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts are at risk of breaking Jonathan Taylor