Marlon Mack is the Colts’ starting running back, but does it really matter?
The Indianapolis Colts clearly planned for the future when they selected Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor with one of their second-round picks. He was the best back in college football for the last couple of years, so there’s no reason to think he won’t eventually take over as the starter assuming things progress as expected.
That’s why Frank Reich naming Marlon Mack the starter for the Colts in 2020 pretty much means nothing. Indy has a completely different outlook on offense heading into the new season, and the fact he left the door open for Taylor to take over means Mack’s job is hardly safe.
Just because you’re a starter Week 1 doesn’t mean that remains constant, especially if you’re a running back.
#Colts head coach Frank Reich on the RB situation: “Marlon (Mack) is the starter.” But adds, “We’re gonna continue to take the same approach we have, where it’s week in and week out, hot hand, all of those things,” in regards to the carry load for rookie Jonathan Taylor.
— Andrew Walker (@AWalkerColts) August 12, 2020
On top of all this, Mack is a free agent after this year. The former fourth-round pick out of South Florida has been pretty good for the Colts, racking up 2,357 yards and 20 touchdowns on 535 carries since the start of 2017, but long gone (for the most part) are the days of paying top dollar for running backs and having an undisputed starter eating all the carries.
The exception remains with some teams like the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Tennessee Titans, but across the league we’ve seen backfields by committee become the new trend, and that will likely be the case in Indy, where Mack, Taylor and Nyheim Hines will all be getting touches in some capacity. Plus, Mack isn’t a top-five running back.
And, in the event the Colts wanted to shy away from that and make someone the bell cow back, it’d undoubtedly eventually be Taylor, who carried the ball 926 times (!!!!!) across three seasons with the Badgers. That’s an average of about 309 carries per season in a defense-heavy conference, where he averaged 6.7 yards per rush! Unreal.
Jonathan Taylor to share carries with Marlon Mack? https://t.co/KdhxfNqPCG
— NBC Sports EDGE Football (@NBCSEdgeFB) August 9, 2020
Reich has also hyped up Taylor in a sense, going off about his work ethic and football IQ. No disrespect to Mack whatsoever, but the head coach’s comments about his “starting gig” didn’t exactly sell us on his standing in that role. The door is very much wide open for Taylor if the offense will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis.
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