Injury Breakdown: Jonathan Taylor - IND

We have seen a lot of 1.01 picks fail in fantasy football, but few hurt quite as bad as Jonathan Taylor in 2022. Taylor dealt with a high ankle sprain from week four on, and we've seen this repeatedly with high ankle sprains. When they happen, it's almost always a death sentence for a player's production for the majority of the rest of the year.

Now, the team was also pretty bad last year after trying to once again resurrect the career of a washed-up quarterback. But 2023 is a new year. The Colts drafted arguably the most athletic quarterback prospect that we've ever seen, and now all of a sudden, Taylor finds himself running for a head coach that not only prioritizes running back production but helped create one of the most dominant run games that we've seen in recent NFL history.

Taylor's ankle injury could pop up again. There's definitely a chance. He's got a history. He's had ankle injuries in two of the last three years in the NFL. But his injury history is still relatively clean outside of that compared to the rest of the position. With an expected return to the mean from a touchdown perspective, I think we could easily see Taylor return value at his current price tag as the RB4 overall.

I know that doesn't leave a lot of room for error, but Taylor is still one of those guys that can score 15 touchdowns in a year, and I think he could easily end up being a solid RB1 for your fantasy team. He's on my draft list. I'm not afraid of his current price tag. And again, the ankle injuries are a concern only because it's starting to become a trend, but it's not a trend yet. So, for that reason, I'm still in on Jonathan Taylor in 2023.