Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor tried to downplay trade reports following Sunday’s loss in Minnesota – rumors his own wife fueled earlier this week on social media.
‘It’s been out there already, so I think her adding [to it] doesn’t really change anything,’ Taylor told reporters in Minneapolis after the 16-10 loss to the Vikings. ‘You know everybody’s on TikTok these days. So, you just gotta … stay focused.’
Taylor was his usual productive self on Sunday, carrying the ball 18 times for 95 yards and a touchdown for the 2-5 Colts, who recently fired general manager Chris Ballard.
Amid the losing, Taylor has been mentioned in various reports on potential trades, including one from ESPN’s Stephen Holder claiming multiple teams are interested in the 27-year-old Pro Bowl running back.
But the most impactful report may have come from Taylor’s wife, Ayanna, who addressed the rumors head on in a self-shot video posted on social media.
‘My husband is currently the starting running back for the Colts,’ said Ayanna, Taylor’s high school sweetheart from Salem, New Jersey. ‘His name is Jonathan Taylor, and we have been on the team for seven years.
Jonathan Taylor was his usual productive self on Sunday, carrying the ball 18 times for 95 yards and a touchdown for the 2-5 Colts, who recently fired general manager Chris Ballard
Ayanna Taylor teased a further update on the trade rumors that materialized later
‘That’s kind of unheard of in the NFL,’ she added, while continuing to use the first-person plural pronoun. ‘You’re very lucky if you’re able to do so, and we’re in a situation that we’ve never been in before.
‘This may be the first time we may not be on the same team. We might get traded, and it all began last season.’
Ayanna then proceeded to summarize the 2025 Colts, who went 8-9, and contrasting that team with the one that now sits one game out of the AFC South cellar.
‘So the Colts were already in the hot seat last year, but then we went on this crazy hot streak with our new QB [Daniel Jones], and everything looked great until he got hurt, and then we started losing game for game,’ she said. ‘But because the potential was still there, the GM and [coach Shane Steichen] were able to keep their jobs for another year.
‘Fast forward to today, our record is 2-4 (editor’s note: now 2-5), and we just lost to a winless Titans,’ she said, referring to Indianapolis’ Week 5 defeat. ‘They were 0-5, now they’re 1-5. Hence, they fire Chris Ballard. And players that once seemed untouchable may now be on the table, hence, the rumors circulating around my husband. But there’s more to this story.’
Jonathan Taylor signed a two-year $44 million extension in August that keeps him under contract through the 2028 season and significantly complicates any potential trade
Ayanna also recorded a ‘Part 2’ in which she reminded Colts fans that the team traded its last two first-round picks for cornerback Sauce Gardner, thereby limiting their options to replace Taylor.
‘That’s what brings us back to my husband,’ she concluded. ‘Do they keep him? … Or do they just cut their losses and trade him?’
Fans were naturally surprised to hear the wife of a player addressing trade rumors directly.
‘Star player’s wife publicly addressing trade rumors,’ one joked, ‘what could go wrong?’
Many others objected to her repeated use of ‘we’ when discussing her husband’s employment with the Colts.
‘We?’ one fan asked. ‘Oh hell nawwww.’
Mostly, fans took Ayanna’s post as an effort to force a trade and get her family out of Indianapolis.
‘Not trying to pile on her, but you’ve gotta have a severe lack of awareness to even post something like this,’ read one comment on X. ‘That or you just don’t give a s*** and want your husband off of the team.’
Taylor signed a two-year $44 million extension in August that keeps him under contract through the 2028 season and significantly complicates any potential trade.
The league’s trade deadline is set for November 10.
