Let’s jump in a time machine real quick. If I told last Saturday that the Indianapolis Colts would score two rushing touchdowns in Week 8– and that their running backs would total three touchdowns — you’d be excited about Jonathan Taylor, wouldn’t you?
I know I was. I hyped Taylor up and had him as an RB1 due to his matchup — only for Jordan Wilkins, Trey Burton, and Nyheim Hines to crash the party.
By the end of the day, Wilkins had 89 yards and a score on 20 carries. He had also caught one 24-yard pass. Hines had three catches for 54 yards and two scores. Burton had one carry for two yards and a score, good for the tight end’s second rushing touchdown on the year.
Taylor had 11 carries for 22 yards, and he caught two passes for nine more. After the game, Philip Rivers said (in passing, mind you) that Taylor was “banged-up.” Frank Reich later added that Taylor has “a little bit of an ankle injury.”
So while Taylor may get fewer snaps until he recovers, let’s not get too carried away with Wilkins — he’s a low-end flex option at best.
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Player Profile
The Colts took Wilkins in the fifth round of the 2018 NFL Draft. The six-foot-one, 216-pound Ole Miss product is built like a bruiser, but he has below-average strength (33rd percentile). That said, he runs with power on his college tape.
This season, Wilkins has broken nine tackles on his 49 carries, good for a broken tackle rate of 18.4%. Wilkins broke 12 tackles on 51 attempts last season (23.5%), but he broke only two on 60 attempts as a rookie (3.3%).
For some perspective on his 2020 performance, Melvin Gordon (18.9%) ranks a little higher, while Derrick Henry (16.1%) ranks below him. Both of those backs have carried the ball considerably more than Wilkins, though, which might be limiting their efficiency relative to Wilkins.
State of the Offense
Under Frank Reich, the Colts have embraced the run since Andrew Luck’s retirement. This year, their 29 rushing plays per game ranks ninth in the league; last year, they ranked fifth with 29.4 rushes per game. So while they won’t run it 39 times every game, as they did in Week 8, there are a healthy number of carries to go around.
That said, the Colts’ offensive line has struggled to run block effectively. After Week 7, the team ranked 28th in adjusted line yards, and their matchup against Detroit’s fourth-worst defensive line may have given them a reprieve.
Jonathan Taylor is the biggest question when it comes to evaluating Wilkins. Reich said that he would check in with his medical team after his conference call on Monday, but no additional information has come out surrounding Taylor’s status, so we don’t know much.
If it comes out that Taylor will have to miss time (which isn’t something I think will happen), Wilkins would be in line for considerably more touches. As things stand now, he might see an expanded committee role, but that won’t make him anything more than a touchdown-dependent flex.
Frank Reich asked if Jordan Wilkins will be featured more in the weeks to come as a 1-1 punch alongside Jonathan Taylor: "It's too early to tell. We think very highly of Jordan."
My take: He's gotta be. Wilkins has shown glimpses of this for years.
— Zak Keefer (@zkeefer) November 1, 2020
Wilkins’ Outlook
The Colts sunk a second-round pick into Taylor, so they’re going to try to make things work with him. If Taylor is active, Wilkins isn’t anything more than a part of a three-headed monster, and you’ll need him to find the end zone for starting him to pay off.
Indianapolis will play the Ravens in Week 9, and their defensive line ranked ninth in adjusted line yards entering this week. Then they’ll get the Titans (17th), Packers (22nd), and Titans again. Tennesee is a solid-but-unspectacular matchup, but I’ll concede that Green Bay looks like a team to target after Dalvin Cook’s four-score showing. That’s not enough for me to feel like adding Wilkins is necessary.
While Wilkins may have excited you in Week 8, his strong performance did more to hurt Taylor’s fantasy stock than it did to help his own. Unless we find out that Reich plans to hold Taylor out of some games to heal, Wilkins lacks the upside to be worth adding outside of deeper leagues.
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Isaiah Sirois is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Isaiah, check out his archive and follow him @is_sirois.
