Now 7-1 on the season, the Indianapolis Colts are a massive buzzsaw, one of the most balanced teams in the NFL, and also feature the best running back and perhaps best non-QB on offense in the NFL this year. The 2025 season has been, simply put, magical for this franchise.
In a year where they are clearly playing for the late Jim Irsay, this team is approaching how good they were during the prime Peyton Manning seasons all those years ago. On both sides of the ball, Indy is creating havoc for their opposition, and now with a 7-1 record through the halfway point of the season, the Colts seem poised to win the AFC South, earn the top seed in the playoffs, and make a deep run.
GM Chris Ballard largely did an outstanding job at assembling this roster, as he's a master in the NFL Draft but simply could not get the QB position correct. A free agent swing on Daniel Jones has brought everything together, but the real hero of the 2025 Colts is running back Jonathan Taylor, and he should be the front-runner for the MVP award.
Colts' RB Jonathan Taylor is running toward an MVP award in the 2025 NFL Season
Only 26 years old, Jonathan Taylor is on pace for an insane season. He leads running backs in carries, yards, and touchdowns, and has already run for 850 yards and 12 scores this year. He's also added another 206 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Right now, the running back has totaled 1,056 yards from scrimmage and 14 total touchdowns. If he kept this current pace up for a full 17-game season, he'd finish with the following:
304 carries
1,807 yards
26 touchdowns
438 receiving yards
4 receiving touchdowns
At the moment, Jonathan Taylor is legitimately on pace for over 2,000 offensive yards and 30 touchdowns. The last time a non-quarterback won the NFL MV P award was Adrian Peterson back in 2012. He totaled 2,098 rushing yards, 12 rushing touchdowns, 217 receiving yards, and another touchdown on top of that.
He finished with 2,314 offensive yards and 13 total touchdowns. Taylor isn't quite in pace for the yardage total from Peterson, but he's on pace to more than double his touchdown output. In today's NFL, it's going to be a massive challenge for Jonathan Taylor to win the MVP award, but he's got the numbers to back it up thus far, and the Indianapolis Colts are going to keep relying on him the rest of the way.