NFL: Jonathan Taylor vs Bijan Robinson heads to Germany as Daniel Jones and Indianapolis Colts face new pressure | NFL News

The NFL reaches the penultimate stop on its international tour this weekend as two of the league’s most enigmatic teams meet in Berlin, Germany.

Shane Steichen’s Indianapolis Colts had entered the mid-way point of the season as football’s unlikely, unstoppable force with a league-best 7-1 record surging towards the playoffs behind Daniel Jones as the latest surprise quarterback career-resurrection. Only to be swatted aside and for a slick and error-rare operation to be torpedoed by a rampant Pittsburgh Steelers defense.

Raheem Morris’ Atlanta Falcons had meanwhile cut a familiar, infuriating picture of inconsistency having out-muscled the Super Bowl-contending Buffalo Bills in a statement victory before dropping three straight while carrying one of the most talented offenses in the NFL.

Football wants to know what and who they really are.

Their one sure thing and their unequivocal area of common ground lies in their backfield engine.

Taylor vs Robinson

Awaiting Berlin is a matchup of what some may consider to be the two best running backs in the league this season, at least their respective teams’ defining focal points, in Jonathan Taylor and Bijan Robinson. Their quiet days are as notable as their game-breaking days; the Colts run through Taylor, and the Falcons are little, perhaps nothing, without a firing Robinson.

Taylor is the chief executor within Steichen’s multi-faceted and shape-shifting run scheme equipped to hop between outside and inside zone, leading the NFL with 157 carries for 895 yards and 12 touchdowns with 47 first down runs as the frontrunner for Offensive Player of the Year. He is second only to San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey with 1,113 yards from scrimmage, and the outright leader in points scoring with 86 from his 14 total touchdowns. He is notably the only non-kicker in the top 16 of scoring, with Green Bay running back Josh Jacobs sitting 17th with 60 points.

For all you might say about a resurgent Jones under center, Taylor is the Colts. And as much showed when Pittsburgh were able to bottle him up for just 45 yards from 14 carries in Sunday’s 27-20 turnover-heavy loss.

Across from him Robinson enters the game with 595 rushing yards for two scores and 41 catches for 463 receiving yards and two scores, leaving him third in scrimmage yards behind Taylor with 1,058. He erupted for 238 scrimmage yards, including 170 rushing yards and a touchdown, against the Bills on October 13, since which he has not reached 50 rushing yards or found the end zone in a single game across a three-game skid.

Taylor’s fellow Offensive Player of the Year candidate was similarly just limited to 46 rushing yards from 12 carries in Atlanta’s 24-23 loss to the Patriots, though did muster eight catches for 50 yards. Something tells me his lack of usage may be a contributing factor. Not only is he a tempo-changer and defense-dictating X Factor in the running game, but also a pivotal receiving threat behind the help-needy Drake London.

The Colts defense is currently allowing the fourth-fewest rushing yards per game while Atlanta are allowing the fourth most. Whoever is able to get their running back going early will wrestle the edge in their favour.

How does Daniel Jones respond?

Alongside Taylor at the heart of early Colts success has been Jones and signs of the latest quarterback career revival following on from the likes of Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield at the peak of the trend. Cast aside by the New York Giants in 2024, the former No 6 overall NFL Draft pick has played the best half-season of football in his NFL career as pilot to the league’s high-scoring and third-ranked passing offense.

Through the team’s 7-1 start the Colts scored 270 points, more than Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck achieved through the first eight games while bettered only by Johnny Unitas in 1964 and 1958. In that time Jones threw for 2,062 yards and 13 touchdowns alongside four rushing scores, posting a second-ranked 80.4 quarterback rating and a record 91.8 quarterback rating against pressure – where he had famously fallen short in New York. He was navigating tight windows with conviction, he was attacking downfield aggressively and at precise moments, he was thriving in well-disguised high-low concepts with slick and poised processing and had a passer rating upwards of 100 in seven out of eight games.

It was a transformation resulting in a completely different and new Jones, who failed to generate much excitement upon his arrival in the offseason to battle it out with Anthony Richardson for the starting job. Suddenly, he was guiding a surprise contender. Jones was shredding teams in a three-level passing offense, he was blunting the blitz with some ease, he was making plays off-platform and out of structure, but for him and the Colts, new tougher challenges loomed.

The first arrived on Sunday when Mike Tomlin’s Steelers delivered the definition of Steelers football by intercepting Jones three times, scooping up two of his three fumbles and sacking him five times to tee up their offense for success. Uncharacteristically, the Colts offensive line – one of the most reliable in the league through eight weeks – was undone by Pittsburgh’s sheer ferocity and depth, while reminders of Jones in New York with twitchy indecision and lapses in poise and field diagnosis resurfaced. Does that mark the end of his run? Does that spell trouble for the Colts’ playoff credentials? Of course not, but a No 1-ranked Falcons passing defense awaits as an ideally-timed test of reply.

“It was kind of a flashback to what we had seen when he wore a blue uniform, a different colour of blue, in New York and he had that blank stare on his face,” said Sky Sports NFL’s Jeff Reinebold.

“I know that’s just his personality, but body language is such an important thing, particularly for a quarterback. And there’s cause for concern, I think.

“The Colts got embarrassed and now you’re going to have to go up and prove that you are one of the best teams in the league. Like your record says you are.”

The London effect

If not Robinson, it is Drake London on whom the Falcons rely as Michael Penix Jr’s chief high-pointing contested catch-privvy vertical threat on the outside. London just exhibited his influence in Week Nine when he put up nine catches for 118 yards and three touchdowns, which included a stunning textbook London one-handed end zone haul as well as a leaping contested grab over star corner Christian Gonzalez. His efforts went cruelly unrewarded as John Parker Romo missed a late extra point after London’s third to waste an opportunity to draw level. Though were it not for London, the Falcons were already out of the game.

London, the No 8 pick at the 2022 Draft, is up to 47 catches for 587 yards and five touchdowns at the half-way stage of the campaign, having posted a career-best 1,271 yards and nine touchdowns in 2024. He has now been targeted 25 more times than Robinson, second in receiving yards, 23 more times than tight end Kyle Pitts and 50 more times than the nearest true wide receiver in Darnell Mooney, who has played just six games. As far as traditional receiver options are concerned, London is short in company. An aggressive and decisive Penix Jr, on his finer days, makes it count. But the jury is seemingly still out on the second-year quarterback, who mixes in samples of pinpoint accuracy, searing velocity to split tight windows, precise anticipation and opportunities for his receivers to make plays on high balls with overthrows via his rifle of an arm and inconsistency. A lot like the Green Bay Packers, and with Penix’s breakout win over the Bills in mind, they have the offense to beat anybody and the team to lose to anybody.

History of NFL in Germany

The NFL returns to Germany for its fifth game since Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory over the Seattle Seahawks in the first back in Munich back in 2022. Two more games would follow in Frankfurt in 2023, before Munich hosted its second matchup last November, when Jones and the Giants fell to the Carolina Panthers.

Berlin enters the fold as one of three new territories alongside Dublin and Madrid in 2025, with Spain’s iconic Santiago Bernabeu primed to welcome the Miami Dolphins and Washington Commanders for its first-ever game in Week 11, live on Sky Sports NFL from 2pm.

They feature as part of a record seven games being played internationally this season as the NFL works towards its ambition of a 16-game international slate in the coming years. Australia’s famous Melbourne Cricket Ground will join the schedule in 2026, Mexico City is due to re-enter as a host city and both Paris and Asia are seemingly on the horizon.

You can watch the Colts against the Falcons live on Sky Sports NFL on Sunday, with coverage from 2pm ahead of kickoff at 2.30pm.

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