Can Jonathan Taylor get going again vs. winless…

Jonathan Taylor hasn’t rushed for over 100 yards in 12 consecutive games. That’s headline No. 1 for the Colts heading into Week 6.

The second headline is the Colts have averaged 160.7 rushing yards per game over their six-game winning streak against the Tennessee Titans. Taylor, in his last three meetings with the Titans, has rushed for 218, 102 and 153 yards with nine total touchdowns.

One streak will end on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts certainly expect it’ll be Taylor’s dozen-game 100-yard drought.

“If he’s got space and he gets through there, that’s when he gets to the second and third level and makes some guys miss in those situations,” head coach Shane Steichen said. “That’s where the big ones come from for sure. And then just breaking arm tackles and so on, and so forth. But obviously, if it’s in the hole and you’re going through the line of scrimmage and there’s bodies in there, you got to get what you can and fall forward.”

Taylor enters Week 6 averaging just 3.9 yards per carry, well below his career clip of 4.8 yards per attempt.

The Colts don’t see that singular stat as an indication the 27-year-old Taylor’s play has dipped. It’s more about the ways opposing defenses are scheming to stop Taylor both from gaining efficient yardage and from turning a 10-yard rush into a field-flipping, 30-plus-yard gain.

“The NFL run game is an 11-man run game. Everybody on the field is important,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. “Obviously, JT has been so valuable for us over the years, but we’re all pushing to improve our level of play, improve our level of coaching. That’s the best way to have good results is to focus on the process, focus on what we need to do each day to get a little bit better, and as we do that, results come along with it.”

Per NGS, Taylor has been hit at or behind the line of scrimmage on 47.5 percent of his rushing attempts, the seventh-highest rate in the NFL. He’s proven adept at still grinding out yards – he’s been stopped for zero or fewer yards on 17.8 percent of his runs, which is a tick lower than his career average – but hasn’t been able to turn those into anything more than a couple of yards on most of those carries.

Again, the Colts don’t see this as a Taylor problem.

Opposing defenses have certainly made taking Taylor away an emphasis over the last few years, certainly since his breakout 2021 season. There are ebbs and flows to exactly how that looks – the Colts in 2025 faced stacked boxes (8+ defenders) at the ninth-lowest rate in the NFL (20.4 percent); this year, they’re facing stacked boxes at the ninth-highest rate in the NFL (27.7 percent).

And no team in 2026 has seen a lower rate of light boxes (six or fewer defenders) on rushing plays than the Colts (20.4 percent).

“Schematically, every week we look at those things and being able to adjust when teams are playing different fronts will be big for us moving forward,” head coach Shane Steichen said. “We get the fronts and the looks we want, execution’s got to be at a premium. He sees it right, hits it right, will be good. Obviously, the chunk plays like we saw last year, we haven’t had those in the run game, and it’d be great to get back to that and get those explosives going forward.”

The Titans’ defense has different personnel and different coaching this year, with head coach Robert Saleh and ex-Colts defensive coordinator Gus Bradley leading the charge on that side of the ball. But for whatever reason, Tennessee has been fruitful ground for Taylor to get going.

Facing a 2-3 record and a difficult upcoming stretch, with road games against the 5-0 Minnesota Vikings and 4-1 Jacksonville Jaguars looming, there’s no time like the present for Taylor to break his 100-yard drought and go into those tough weekends with some momentum.