In the interests of putting out a nice uncontroversial article, a note about Jonathan Taylor. He's the slam-dunk No. 1 overall pick in fantasy leagues this year; relatively few will make a case for anyone else at that spot. He's had about the best start to a career by any running back this century.
It's remarkable considering Taylor opened the 2020 season as a backup, and potentially Indianapolis' 3rd-busiest running back (behind Marlon Mack, who started that game, and Nyheim Hines). Mack tore his Achilles in that one, and the rest is history.
From Week 2 on, Taylor piled up 1,147 rushing yards and 12 total touchdowns. Then last year he led the league with a league-high 1,811 rushing yards and 20 total touchdowns. Since 2000, it's one of the very best starts to a career by any running back, up there in the mix with some NFL (and fantasy) legends.
In the first two years of a career, only three running backs in the last 21 years have more rushing yards: Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson and Clinton Portis. Only David Johnson (somewhat surprisingly) has more total touchdowns (33; Taylor has 32), while nobody has more rushing scores (29 for Taylor, tied with Portis). Not bad for a second-rounder who could well have been stuck behind Mack for a decent portion of his first season.
The search tools at Pro-Football-Reference.com were used in compiling this table, which is sorted by rushing yards.
| RUNNING BACKS, FIRST TWO SEASONS (SINCE 2000) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | From | To | G | Att | Yds | Avg | RuTD | ToTD |
| Chris Johnson | 2008 | 2009 | 31 | 609 | 3234 | 5.3 | 23 | 26 |
| Adrian Peterson | 2007 | 2008 | 30 | 601 | 3101 | 5.2 | 22 | 23 |
| Clinton Portis | 2002 | 2003 | 29 | 563 | 3099 | 5.5 | 29 | 31 |
| Jonathan Taylor | 2020 | 2021 | 32 | 564 | 2980 | 5.3 | 29 | 32 |
| LaDainian Tomlinson | 2001 | 2002 | 32 | 711 | 2919 | 4.1 | 24 | 25 |
| Alfred Morris | 2012 | 2013 | 32 | 611 | 2888 | 4.7 | 20 | 20 |
| Ezekiel Elliott | 2016 | 2017 | 25 | 564 | 2614 | 4.6 | 22 | 25 |
| Nick Chubb | 2018 | 2019 | 32 | 490 | 2490 | 5.1 | 16 | 18 |
| Jordan Howard | 2016 | 2017 | 31 | 528 | 2435 | 4.6 | 15 | 16 |
| Willis McGahee | 2004 | 2005 | 32 | 609 | 2375 | 3.9 | 18 | 18 |
| Eddie Lacy | 2013 | 2014 | 31 | 530 | 2317 | 4.4 | 20 | 24 |
| Saquon Barkley | 2018 | 2019 | 29 | 478 | 2310 | 4.8 | 17 | 23 |
| Le'Veon Bell | 2013 | 2014 | 29 | 534 | 2221 | 4.2 | 16 | 19 |
| Domanick Williams | 2003 | 2004 | 29 | 540 | 2219 | 4.1 | 21 | 22 |
| Josh Jacobs | 2019 | 2020 | 28 | 515 | 2215 | 4.3 | 19 | 19 |
| Travis Henry | 2001 | 2002 | 29 | 538 | 2167 | 4.0 | 17 | 18 |
| Matt Forte | 2008 | 2009 | 32 | 574 | 2167 | 3.8 | 12 | 16 |
| Mike Anderson | 2000 | 2001 | 32 | 472 | 2165 | 4.6 | 19 | 19 |
| Joseph Addai | 2006 | 2007 | 31 | 487 | 2153 | 4.4 | 19 | 23 |
| Kareem Hunt | 2017 | 2018 | 27 | 453 | 2151 | 4.7 | 15 | 25 |
| Marshawn Lynch | 2007 | 2008 | 28 | 530 | 2151 | 4.1 | 15 | 16 |
| Phillip Lindsay | 2018 | 2019 | 31 | 416 | 2048 | 4.9 | 16 | 17 |
| Todd Gurley | 2015 | 2016 | 29 | 507 | 1991 | 3.9 | 16 | 16 |
| Jonathan Stewart | 2008 | 2009 | 32 | 405 | 1969 | 4.9 | 20 | 21 |
| David Montgomery | 2019 | 2020 | 31 | 489 | 1959 | 4.0 | 14 | 17 |
| Jeremy Hill | 2014 | 2015 | 32 | 445 | 1918 | 4.3 | 20 | 21 |
| Arian Foster | 2009 | 2010 | 22 | 381 | 1873 | 4.9 | 19 | 21 |
| James Robinson | 2020 | 2021 | 28 | 404 | 1837 | 4.5 | 15 | 18 |
| Antonio Gibson | 2020 | 2021 | 30 | 428 | 1832 | 4.3 | 18 | 21 |
| David Johnson | 2015 | 2016 | 32 | 418 | 1820 | 4.4 | 24 | 33 |
| Knowshon Moreno | 2009 | 2010 | 29 | 429 | 1726 | 4.0 | 12 | 17 |
| Steve Slaton | 2008 | 2009 | 27 | 399 | 1719 | 4.3 | 12 | 17 |
| Maurice Jones-Drew | 2006 | 2007 | 31 | 333 | 1709 | 5.1 | 22 | 26 |
| Edgerrin James | 2000 | 2000 | 16 | 387 | 1709 | 4.4 | 13 | 18 |
| Shaun Alexander | 2000 | 2001 | 32 | 373 | 1631 | 4.4 | 16 | 18 |
| Alvin Kamara | 2017 | 2018 | 31 | 314 | 1611 | 5.1 | 22 | 32 |
| Christian McCaffrey | 2017 | 2018 | 32 | 336 | 1533 | 4.6 | 9 | 20 |
| Trent Richardson | 2012 | 2013 | 31 | 455 | 1513 | 3.3 | 14 | 16 |
If you're not planning on drafting Taylor at No. 1 overall, I'm not sure how strong a case you can make for someone else. Perhaps Cooper Kupp, if you think he's going back-to-back in terms of lapping the field at the wide receiver position? Or Christian McCaffrey, if you believe his injuries the last two years are behind him and he's going to rack up another 100-plus catches and average 25ish PPR points, as he did across his last two healthy seasons.
But realistically, it's Taylor, leading the offense for a team that looks like the favorite in the AFC South. And a year from now, perhaps we'll be looking at whether any running back has had a better first three seasons.
--Andy Richardson