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WESTFIELD — The Colts have been trying to find a worthy backup to Jonathan Taylor for two full years.
Ever since Zack Moss left for Cincinnati. When Taylor is fully healthy, the Colts superstar is going to get the lion’s share of the snaps in an offense built around his ability to take any carry and turn it into a touchdown.
But the Colts still need a back like Moss, a bowling ball of a runner who capably filled in for an injured Taylor for two seasons in a row.
Rookie running back Seth McGowan is making a case for himself through the first two weeks of training camp, although the toughest proving grounds are still to come. McGowan has a little Moss to him, a decisive, one-cut style that blends power and vision.
“I think that’s a fair assessment,” Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen said. “He’s got some good stretch-cut stuff, ability to him and again, he’s not scared of contact, which is awesome at the running back position. You need that physicality.”
A hamstring injury to 2025 fifth-rounder DJ Giddens, who was Taylor’s primary backup at times as a rookie, has given McGowan an opportunity to prove himself in the first two weeks of training camp.
McGowan runs like the power back Steichen wanted for the Indianapolis offense. Taylor has the size to finish runs — his 5-10, 226-pound frame is actually heavier than the 223 pounds McGowan carries at 6-feet tall — but Taylor’s signature patience, ability to make guys miss in the hole and breakaway speed make his style different than a traditional power back.
The rookie from Kentucky looks like he might be a bowling ball. When the Colts finally put on full pads in training camp, McGowan often ran through the contact from defensive backs, effortlessly shrugging off upper-body hits, although the top two units in Indianapolis practices are rarely allowed to tackle a player to the ground.
“He's a downhill runner,” Steichen said. “When I watch his tape at Kentucky, the physicality he ran with – when he gets hit at the line of scrimmage, he usually falls forward for a couple extra yards, which is huge in short-yardage situations or just in the middle of the game, it's big.”
Taylor thinks there’s even more to McGowan’s game.
When he watches the rookie, he doesn’t see a short-yardage specialist.
“Everybody thinks he’s just a big power back, but Seth has some moves,” Taylor said. “If you look at his feet, he reminds me of a David Montgomery. When David was in Chicago, real ballers knew: He’s not just a power back, he has great vision. Seth has great feet.”
McGowan has other skills, too.
He hasn’t dropped a pass in a training-camp practice, and on Sunday, he took a handoff through the left side of the line, found a seam and ran away from the defense for a touchdown of roughly 30 yards in a two-minute drill to end practice.
Indianapolis running backs coach DeAndre Smith had been waiting to see McGowan hit the afterburners.
“What we haven’t really seen until that one run today, when he got into space and you got to see his real speed, but I expected he would have some type of explosive play that way,” Smith said.
Make no mistake, McGowan is not going to provide Taylor’s home-run potential.
Few running backs in the NFL have that capability, and although McGowan posted a respectable 40-yard dash time of 4.49 seconds at the NFL scouting combine, he’s a tenth of a second behind Taylor, who routinely posts some of the fastest speeds by an NFL ballcarrier, according to Next Gen Stats.
What the Colts needed to see was that McGowan had the capability, the way Moss sometimes broke runs for big yardage despite lacking Taylor’s breakaway speed.
Indianapolis likes McGowan’s open-field ability enough that he’s a candidate to return kicks. The Colts learned from Ameer Abdullah last season that the NFL’s new dynamic kickoff favors a different type of returner.
“In this new model, you see running backs become even more useful as kickoff returners, because it becomes a little bit of a rugby scrum in the middle of the formation,” Colts special teams coordinator Brian Mason said. “You're looking for somebody that can run through contact and run through the smoke a little bit, which running backs can naturally do.”
McGowan’s bid for the backup job is about to enter a critical phase.
Indianapolis opened the preseason portion of training camp with a joint practice Tuesday and a game against New England on Thursday, then two joint practices with Atlanta before a preseason game against the Falcons, then the preseason finale against the Lions.
A running back can’t be properly evaluated until he has a chance to break tackles.
And a young running back can’t be evaluated until he starts seeing unfamiliar looks from a defense he doesn’t know well, the kind of looks he’d see on Sundays if he wins the backup job.
“Practicing against good players from other teams is sometimes a challenge for a young player,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. “You get to know our guys. You get to know our linebackers. Maybe you've picked up a blitz a few times, and you're aware of which linebacker likes to blitz a certain way. Well, now you're going to go face off against the Patriots, then the Falcons, and do you know every single linebacker they have and how they like to blitz? Or how they like to cover you in a one-on-one?”
McGowan has handled everything the Colts have thrown at him so far.
And the live contact might be where a powerful rookie truly shines.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why rookie Seth McGowan could be power back Colts have been seeking
Continue reading...
Ever since Zack Moss left for Cincinnati. When Taylor is fully healthy, the Colts superstar is going to get the lion’s share of the snaps in an offense built around his ability to take any carry and turn it into a touchdown.
But the Colts still need a back like Moss, a bowling ball of a runner who capably filled in for an injured Taylor for two seasons in a row.
Rookie running back Seth McGowan is making a case for himself through the first two weeks of training camp, although the toughest proving grounds are still to come. McGowan has a little Moss to him, a decisive, one-cut style that blends power and vision.
“I think that’s a fair assessment,” Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen said. “He’s got some good stretch-cut stuff, ability to him and again, he’s not scared of contact, which is awesome at the running back position. You need that physicality.”
A hamstring injury to 2025 fifth-rounder DJ Giddens, who was Taylor’s primary backup at times as a rookie, has given McGowan an opportunity to prove himself in the first two weeks of training camp.
McGowan runs like the power back Steichen wanted for the Indianapolis offense. Taylor has the size to finish runs — his 5-10, 226-pound frame is actually heavier than the 223 pounds McGowan carries at 6-feet tall — but Taylor’s signature patience, ability to make guys miss in the hole and breakaway speed make his style different than a traditional power back.
The rookie from Kentucky looks like he might be a bowling ball. When the Colts finally put on full pads in training camp, McGowan often ran through the contact from defensive backs, effortlessly shrugging off upper-body hits, although the top two units in Indianapolis practices are rarely allowed to tackle a player to the ground.
“He's a downhill runner,” Steichen said. “When I watch his tape at Kentucky, the physicality he ran with – when he gets hit at the line of scrimmage, he usually falls forward for a couple extra yards, which is huge in short-yardage situations or just in the middle of the game, it's big.”
Taylor thinks there’s even more to McGowan’s game.
When he watches the rookie, he doesn’t see a short-yardage specialist.
“Everybody thinks he’s just a big power back, but Seth has some moves,” Taylor said. “If you look at his feet, he reminds me of a David Montgomery. When David was in Chicago, real ballers knew: He’s not just a power back, he has great vision. Seth has great feet.”
McGowan has other skills, too.
He hasn’t dropped a pass in a training-camp practice, and on Sunday, he took a handoff through the left side of the line, found a seam and ran away from the defense for a touchdown of roughly 30 yards in a two-minute drill to end practice.
Indianapolis running backs coach DeAndre Smith had been waiting to see McGowan hit the afterburners.
“What we haven’t really seen until that one run today, when he got into space and you got to see his real speed, but I expected he would have some type of explosive play that way,” Smith said.
Make no mistake, McGowan is not going to provide Taylor’s home-run potential.
Few running backs in the NFL have that capability, and although McGowan posted a respectable 40-yard dash time of 4.49 seconds at the NFL scouting combine, he’s a tenth of a second behind Taylor, who routinely posts some of the fastest speeds by an NFL ballcarrier, according to Next Gen Stats.
What the Colts needed to see was that McGowan had the capability, the way Moss sometimes broke runs for big yardage despite lacking Taylor’s breakaway speed.
Indianapolis likes McGowan’s open-field ability enough that he’s a candidate to return kicks. The Colts learned from Ameer Abdullah last season that the NFL’s new dynamic kickoff favors a different type of returner.
“In this new model, you see running backs become even more useful as kickoff returners, because it becomes a little bit of a rugby scrum in the middle of the formation,” Colts special teams coordinator Brian Mason said. “You're looking for somebody that can run through contact and run through the smoke a little bit, which running backs can naturally do.”
McGowan’s bid for the backup job is about to enter a critical phase.
Indianapolis opened the preseason portion of training camp with a joint practice Tuesday and a game against New England on Thursday, then two joint practices with Atlanta before a preseason game against the Falcons, then the preseason finale against the Lions.
A running back can’t be properly evaluated until he has a chance to break tackles.
And a young running back can’t be evaluated until he starts seeing unfamiliar looks from a defense he doesn’t know well, the kind of looks he’d see on Sundays if he wins the backup job.
“Practicing against good players from other teams is sometimes a challenge for a young player,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. “You get to know our guys. You get to know our linebackers. Maybe you've picked up a blitz a few times, and you're aware of which linebacker likes to blitz a certain way. Well, now you're going to go face off against the Patriots, then the Falcons, and do you know every single linebacker they have and how they like to blitz? Or how they like to cover you in a one-on-one?”
McGowan has handled everything the Colts have thrown at him so far.
And the live contact might be where a powerful rookie truly shines.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why rookie Seth McGowan could be power back Colts have been seeking
Continue reading...
