THE DURABILITY KING
NO PLAYER TOOK more of a pounding last season than 23-year-old Jonathan Taylor. The 178-cm, 103-kilogram Indianapolis Colts running back carried the ball 332 times (the second-highest total in football since 2015) and rushed for 1811 yards (552 more than any other player). And Taylor didn’t miss a game. This season, he’ll be expected to do the same thing.
Taylor knows this won’t be easy. He – and the rest of the NFL – is well aware of the workhorse-running-back abyss, the way players like him inevitably break down after just a few seasons of big hit after big hit. From Giants star Saquon Barkley, who started his career with back-to-back 1000-yard seasons but hasn’t played a full season since, to Carolina’s Christian McCaffrey (remember him?), big-time running backs in today’s NFL don’t last long.
Then again, Taylor’s never been broken, not in three years at the University book, the league began to change. Instead of just training till exhaustion to make quick fitness gains, Brady chased longevity, focusing on band and core work to stabilise and strengthen injury-prone joints and emphasising recovery. This shift in training has been duplicated across the league (and in all of sports, really), with more players prepping with long-term goals in mind.
