INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Jonathan Taylor is content playing for the Indianapolis Colts, even this version of the team.
That's why he hasn't requested a trade and why he's trying to tune out all the speculation and rumors suggesting he could be the next Indy player dealt.
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FILE - Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard on the sidelines during an NFL preseason football game against the Atlanta Falcons in Indianapolis, Aug. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Zach Bolinger, File)
FILE - Indianapolis Colts offensive lineman Quenton Nelson looks on before an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear, File)
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) and wide receiver Laquon Treadwell (13) react as they walk off the field after an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) runs against Minnesota Vikings safety Josh Metellus (44) and linebacker Blake Cashman (51) during the second half of an NFL football game in Minneapolis, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
Instead, the three-time Pro Bowl running back spent Thursday reflecting on the two high-profile moves that sent two longtime friends to NFC West teams and passionately explained why the Colts must avoid the distractions and focus solely on football.
“I'm always proud to wear the horseshoe,” he said. “No one is going out there, waving the white flag of surrender. We're going out there to compete. We're going out there to get a ‘W.’ And every time you go on the field, you want to dominate and show you're the best. So that's what we're going to do. It's part of my job, especially after losing two captains."
Taylor is so convinced Indy (2-5) can win now, he even questioned whether the franchise was embarking on a rebuild after last week's firing of general manager Chris Ballard and Tuesday's trades of perennial Pro Bowlers Quenton Nelson and DeForest Buckner.
The Colts received a 2027 third-round draft pick and a 2028 fifth-rounder from Seattle for Nelson, a three-time All-Pro left guard. They got a 2027 fourth-rounder from San Francisco for Buckner. But the 30-year-old Nelson and the 32-year-old Buckner are both on expiring contracts.
Taylor is not. In August, he signed a two-year, $44 million contract extension that runs through 2028. He's also just 27 years old, and the 2021 NFL rushing champ has shown no sign of slowing down.
The former Wisconsin Badgers star led the league with 18 touchdown runs last season and shares the league lead with eight this season entering Week 8.
He also led the league in rushing last season until quarterback Daniel Jones suffered two injuries and the Colts brought Philip Rivers out of retirement before finishing the season with Riley Leonard behind center. Taylor still finished third, 36 yards behind James Cook and 10 behind Derrick Henry. This season, he's fifth in the league with 587 yards entering Week 8.
Taylor could command a high price, but he would rather stay with the team that drafted him in 2020.
Indy, meanwhile, is adding draft capital in part because it doesn't own a first-round pick in 2027 because it went to the New York Jets in last year's deal for All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner.
But with a Sunday trip to AFC South-leading Jacksonville (4-2) looming, Taylor is trying to keep everyone focused on the game.
“The fans need something to look at, the fans need something to say ‘Hey, they’re trying,'” Taylor said. “We're out here, we're trying to compete and we're trying to win."
Still, Taylor acknowledged the absence of Nelson and Buckner will be felt in the locker room and on the field.
The Colts expect rookie Jalen Farmer to handle Nelson's left guard spot even though he's only played just three offensive snaps this season. They expect fourth-year defensive tackle Adetomiwa Adebawore to get more playing time in Buckner's old spot.
But Taylor wasn't the only one lamenting the loss of two longtime franchise cornerstones.
“Nobody's going to replace Quenton Nelson,” offensive line coach Tony Sparano Jr. said. “You tell me who in the league is going to replace Quenton Nelson, man for man? It ain't happening. So he (Farmer) is not replacing Quenton. This is an opportunity for him to begin his journey and those are two independent journeys."
But as turbulent as the past two weeks have been, the Colts may not be finished making changes.
Versatile receiver Josh Downs also has requested a trade, a person with knowledge of the request told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The person requested anonymity because the Colts typically do not make those requests public.
Taylor, on the other hand, wants to stick around and get the Colts back on a playoff push.
“It was all speculation until stuff started happening. Like Quenton, Buck, those guys are the gold standard of the NFL." he said. “I wish I could have done more because I wanted to win for those guys, we wanted to get it done here with those guys. But, right now, it's going to be about opportunities for the young guys. We're going to need everyone right now to take that next step. Our backs are against the wall, everyone's against us, everyone has something negative to say. So we've got to go down there and get a win.”
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FILE - Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard on the sidelines during an NFL preseason football game against the Atlanta Falcons in Indianapolis, Aug. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Zach Bolinger, File)
FILE - Indianapolis Colts offensive lineman Quenton Nelson looks on before an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear, File)
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) and wide receiver Laquon Treadwell (13) react as they walk off the field after an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) runs against Minnesota Vikings safety Josh Metellus (44) and linebacker Blake Cashman (51) during the second half of an NFL football game in Minneapolis, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is escalating a criminal investigation over an Alaska Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony or documents, along with records preservation demands, were issued after The New York Times reported that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan Jr. as part an alleged effort to confuse voters in the hotly contested race.
More subpoenas were expected to be sent Thursday, according to a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe. Neither the recipients of the subpoenas nor the total number of them were immediately clear.
It's the latest aggressive move by the Justice Department in a politically sensitive matter in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's midterm elections. The Justice Department has historically avoided taking overt investigative actions against candidates in the weeks before an election, or other public steps that could be perceived as attempting to influence a political outcome.
The Justice Department for months has been looking into allegations that Dan J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race to mislead voters and help Peltola's campaign. The potential targets of the Justice Department’s investigation are unclear, but President Donald Trump earlier this week called for the criminal prosecution of Peltola and her campaign.
The new subpoenas were confirmed by a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe.
Attorney General Todd Blanche in a Fox News interview on Wednesday said he wouldn’t discuss any criminal investigations, but accused Democrats of “cheating.”
“They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election, not by running on issues but by putting up a person with the same name,” Blanche said.
The race is among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber. Trump had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race should Democrat Mary Peltola defeat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign. “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.
Separately, Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into Peltola, saying the newspaper's reporting “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”
“Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” Dunleavy added, noting that the reporting “substantially supports” earlier findings by the state’s elections board into the matter.
Trump on Thursday cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election. “Well, you’re going to have to see what happens," the president told reporters on his way to a rally in South Carolina. "It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run.”
Later, as he rallied for GOP Sen. Darline Graham, Trump said he felt Peltola “actually should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted."
Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on Dunleavy’s order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.
“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion,” she said in a video posted online. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”
And the situation in Alaska isn't that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on ballots to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.
In Ohio’s Senate race, Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted.
On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance didn’t go as far as Trump did in calling for Peltola to be prosecuted but said he supported a probe into possible election fraud.
“I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters, on the ballot,” Vance told reporters ahead of a campaign trip to Texas. “She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful.”
Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”
The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. Alaskan voters will see “Dan S. Sullivan” identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent” on their ballots, while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” will not have a party affiliation.
The New York Times reported that interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit showed Peltola’s team aimed to coax candidates into the race, with the aim of splitting support for the GOP senator.
Asked about the reporting on Wednesday, Trump told journalists, “I think they should be prosecuted.” He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP. AP writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Vice President JD Vance speaks to the media before boarding Air Force Two for Texas, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (Evan Vucci/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - This combination photo shows Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, left, in Palmer, Alaska, Aug. 17, 2026, and a candidate in Alaska's Senate race, Dan Sullivan, right, in Petersburg, Alaska, July 3, 2026. (AP Photos/Mark Thiessen/Becky Bohrer, File)
FILE - Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks in the Oval Office of the White House during an event with President Donald Trump, Sept. 30, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party on Aug. 18, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)
