“Has Jonathan Taylor been traded yet?”
Admit it, New York Giants fans. You check your favorite website (this one, I hope) multiple times a day hoping to find the answer to that question. You are checking social media constantly waiting for word. In the car, you’ve got the radio tuned to your favorite sports talk show hoping you don’t miss the news.
Well, guess what. Taylor is just like you. He wants to know what the Indianapolis Colts are doing to do, too.
‘Everybody wants clarity’
That was Taylor, the hotly sought-after running
back, on Thursday.
Will the Colts decide to keep him? Will Taylor be a Giant? A Denver Bronco? A Seattle Seahawk? A Minnesota Viking? A Cincinnati Bengal?
The speculation has been running rampant for weeks, ever since Indianapolis fired GM Chris Ballard. It picked up in intensity when the Colts moved on from star guard Quenton Nelson and veteran defensive tackle DeForest Buckner.
“Everybody wants clarity,” Taylor said. “No one wants uncertainty.”
Taylor is ready for the guessing game to be over.
“The past couple weeks, it’s kind of been the same thing,” Taylor said Thursday of the rampant trade speculation about him. “But it won’t be Tuesday at that time (because) then you’ll know exactly what’s going on. You’ll know exactly what the verdict is.”
‘The New York Giants really want him’
That was Ralph Vacchiano of FOX Sports writing about the Giants’ desire to complete a deal for the 27-year-old Taylor.
Vacchiano said he was told by an executive that “No one is sure if Indy is serious about trading him. What they want is an extraordinarily high price.”
Here is more from Vacchiano’s reporting:
The word has been that they’re asking for a package like what the Carolina Panthers got from San Francisco for RB Christian McCaffrey in 2022 — a second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-round pick. But one source told me, “I heard they wanted a first in the package.”
The Giants are a little hamstrung by not having a fourth- or fifth-round pick in next year’s draft, so It’s possible they’d have to trade a first. Would they do it? It seems clear Harbaugh would.
“They know they’ve got an opportunity” in a weak NFC East, one scout told me. “They want it.”
Vacchiano predicted that the Giants will, indeed, land Taylor.
We will know soon enough.
‘Hellbent on adding an offensive playmaker’
That is what Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post wrote this week after speaking to a variety of league sources.
Here is what former Giants executive Marc Ross told Dunleavy:
“If he gets in the right situation, he can have a similar impact to what Saquon did in Philly,” NFL Network analyst Marc Ross, the former Giants scouting director, told The Post. “Once a championship-winning roster move is established, everyone is like ‘This gives us the right to do it as well.’ ” …
“Just as recently as last year, he was carrying the whole damn team,” Ross said. “He’s still got a couple good seasons in him. If he gets in a better environment, he can still be a game-changer. He has incredible vision, the way he glides in and out of stuff, and then bam! He still has the soft hands out of the backfield.”
