On Thursday afternoon, Indianapolis Colts team owner Jim Irsay took to Twitter to share some extremely candid thoughts on the current running backs market, calling it “inappropriate” for the league’s running backs to seek negotiation from the league ownership. Obviously, the comments raised some eyebrows given the upcoming contract negotiations with star running back Jonathan Taylor, but Irsay is clarifying a bit.
In an interview with ESPN this week, Jim Irsay made it clear that his comments were not necessarily directed at Jonathan Taylor, noting that the two sides have not even begun contract negotiations yet.
“The comment wasn’t really directed at Jonathan,” Irsay told Stephen Holder of ESPN.com. “We haven’t exchanged any contract numbers with each other or anything like that. So, it’s not like we’re in the midst of that. I think we had a tough season last year. Didn’t win a lot of games. This is a year about coming back together and having a great year and we’re really depending on Jonathan to team up with [quarterback] Anthony Richardson to try and pull together to have a great year.”
Irsay made it clear that he does want to sign Taylor to a contract extension, saying “when your time comes to get paid, then you get paid.”
“We love Jonathan, we need Jonathan,” Irsay said. “Our hope is Jonathan has an outstanding year and that we have a good year as a team and then we get his next contract done. That’s the hope. We think the world of him as a person, as a player. It’s just timing. When your time comes to get paid, then you get paid.”
In fact, Irsay insisted that the team does plan to pay Taylor.
“We’ve always paid our players,” Irsay told Holder. “We’ve always believed in our core players going to a second contract. And that’s been how we’ve been successful in the last 20, 25 years. So, that’s not changed.”
We’ll have to see whether or not he holds true to those comments.
