Congratulations, if you started Jonathan Taylor this week you won your fantasy football matchup. If you managed to somehow wind up on the wrong end of the win loss ledger with Taylor as your RB1, you’re either the unluckiest person alive, or you should consider quitting fantasy football altogether.
Taylor’s one man dismantling of the Buffalo Bills on Sunday totaled 50.4pts in standard scoring leagues. This makes him only the 8th member of the 50+ point club in fantasy football history. Clinton Portis sits atop the leaderboard with a 55.4 total back in 2003 against the Chiefs. Rounding out the top 10 are Alvin Kamara, Shaun Alexander, Corey Dillon, Jamaal Charles, Doug Martin, Mike Anderson, Jerry Rice, and Michael Vick.
When Derrick Henry went down with an injury, the title of “best running back in football” was ostensibly up for grabs. Well, not only has Jonathan Taylor grabbed that mantle, but he’s suddenly launched himself into the real life MVP conversation as well. Fantasy players all knew Taylor was a legitimate top tier running back heading into Sunday. His streak of 7 consecutive games with at least 1 rushing touchdown was all the evidence you needed. But for him to do what he did against the Bills of all teams, was downright shocking.
Entering the contest, Buffalo was the number 1 ranked defense in DVOA, and 3rd best rushing defense in DVOA as well. None of that seemed to matter though, as Taylor posted 185yds rushing/4 rushing TDs/3 receptions on 3 targets/19yds rec/1rec TD when all was said and done. And the craziest part? He could have gone for more! But with Allen out of the game, and the Colts franchise record for most TDs in a single game already secure, Indy elected not to tempt fate and rest their all world running back in the 4th quarter.
Perhaps now Frank Reich will see the light of day and start feeding Taylor more carries. For whatever reason, despite his unbelievable production up to this point, Reich’s offense was only giving Taylor an average of 16 touches a game. If this mark now creeps into the 20-25 touch range for the rest of the season, watch out.
Indianapolis gets the Bucs in Week 12, and you can bet that Brady & Co. took notice of the beatdown the Colts just handed Buffalo.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner