When projecting fantasy totals for the Colts backfield, there are a lot of opinions going around. Who is going to take the lion share of the carries in Indy? Will Jonathan Taylor or Marlon Mack be the lead dog. It would appear both of those answers would be incorrect. We’re talking about a real 50-50 split coming for the Colts.
Offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni recently talked about his backfield:
“We know a lot of the good running teams in this league and in the past have good 1-2 punches,” Sirianni said during a Monday conference call with reporters. “It feels like it’s just a 1-1 punch though, because we have two exceptional backs.
“We’ve seen it work in the NFL so much where you have different styles of guys, right? Both of these guys can do multiple things. Yeah, Jonathan’s a little bigger than Marlon, but they both have exceptional speed. They both have ability to make you miss, and they both have ability to break arm tackles and run with power.
“They have some different running styles but again, I think they’re both complete backs and I think that’s a fantastic problem to have, to have two guys like that you can feed the football to. It’s only going to help our running game.”
You can take that information however you want. What I know is that I can’t possibly have Jonathan Taylor significantly higher than Marlon Mack on my list. Mack is more than capable. Mack rushed for over 1,000 yards and 8 touchdowns in 14 games with a 4.4 YPC average in 2019. I would be very careful about just dismissing Mack. He’s going to get a lot of carries.
