Money talked

 Sooo, it's all good now, right?

Jonathan Taylor gets his money.

The Indianapolis Colts get their All-Pro running back.

His injured ankle is as good as new, presumably, after the longest rehab in the history of rehabs for a surgery that was supposed to take hardly any time at all to rehab.

An invisible man for much of training camp, the preseason and the first four games of the regular season, Taylor resurfaced a couple days ago to not answer questions for ten minutes. But he wore a huge smile throughout the whole fruitless interrogation, and now we know why.

Forty-million George Washingtons over three years (including $26.5 million guaranteed) will put a smile on anyone's face. And that's what Taylor got for his not-a-holdout holdout.

So he's happy, and the Colts are professing to be happy, because they're getting their pup -- he's still just 24 -- off the PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) list. They've singlehandedly pumped air into what had become a soft market for running backs, but now they've got Taylor and they've got 21-year-old  Anthony Richardson at quarterback, and that's a tandem they obviously think is worth the money.

As with all things Colts, we shall see.

We'll also wonder why the Colts didn't just re-do Taylor's deal back when Taylor was first asking for it be redone, if they really regarded him as the vital cog they say he is now. Could have avoided a crap-ton of drama if they had, after all. Or at least the appearance of drama to media types and various other observers.

The Blob's explanation?

That contract negotiations are an intricate dance with carefully proscribed steps and counter-steps, all of which take time and all of which the negotiating parties understand must play out. Hence all the performance-art drama while the Colts actually were sitting down with Taylor's people -- a process they're saying now had been ongoing for months.

In any event, Taylor's got his scratch and he's back in uniform, saying he's "proud to be an Indianapolis Colt" after months of hinting he'd be proud to be a Green Bay Packer or Miami Dolphin or virtually anything else. And probably we'll see him sometime today against the Titans.

Which means a team that so far has looked a bit better than advertised -- the Blob is now reconsidering its prediction the Horsies would win no more than four games -- will get  that much better.

But $42 mill better?

Again: We shall see.