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Sports Seriously
INDIANAPOLIS — Colts running back Jonathan Taylor completed his 180-degree pivot from face-of-the-franchise to jackass Saturday when he asked Colts owner Jim Irsay for a trade, the latest and least surprising escalation in a conflict that has little to do with Taylor and less to do with the Colts.
The star of this immorality play is Taylor’s new agent, some dude named Malki Kawa, who promises on his website to get things done for his clients. Good news, Malki: You can show future clients just what you’ve done for Taylor:
From Colts protagonist to pariah in two months.
Impressive, really.
Before we go farther on this dude named Malki Kawa – and I’m going farther, believe me – let’s be clear about something: This is Jonathan Taylor’s fault. And because of that, this is crushing. Taylor is, or was, everything you could have wanted in a franchise star and community pillar: super intelligent, kind, generous with his time and money, unselfish.
But then he approached the final year of his four-year NFL rookie contract, replaced his agent with the same guy who helped Shaq Leonard get a $99 million contract from the Colts in 2021, and changed. I mean, Taylor changed like that. He started passively aggressively whining on Twitter about money. He shocked the Colts into deciding he should begin the season on the Physically Unable to Perform list. He even changed his wardrobe when he reported to training camp last week, making it clear he was playing for the team on the front of his T-shirt:
Welcome to Taylortown.
Malki Kawa is the guy behind the scenes, the one pulling the strings, the one whispering into Taylor’s ear that the Colts are disloyal, that he deserves better.
But Taylor is the one listening. And without having met this dude named Malki Kawa – wouldn’t know him if I saw him – I’m saying this: Jonathan Taylor is smarter than Kawa, because he’s smarter than almost everyone. While one of Kawa’s social media sites says he “studied at Miami Dade College,” Taylor was accepted into Yale and Harvard. He wanted to major in astrophysics at Wisconsin, but the school didn’t offer it, so after considering a double major (astronomy and physics, duh), he chose a degree that centers entirely on deep thinking:
Philosophy. He left school after three years, but has his degree. The guy’s brilliant, I’m telling you – Taylor, not that dude named Malki Kawa.
So I’m asking you, Jonathan: Have you thought deeply about what you’re doing? Do you know what you’ve done, thanks to some dude name Malki Kawa?
You’ve trashed your name in this city, the only one that cares about you in an NFL that is growing less interested in running backs by the day.
Malki Kawa may be the smartest guy in the room, but only if he’s in there alone.
What’s your excuse, JT?
NFL is full of lemmings; remember 2021 here?
First Nyheim Hines, now Jonathan Taylor.
Remember Hines? He was Taylor’s backup, one of the best No. 2 running backs in the league, a weapon in the return game and as a receiver, and an underrated ball carrier between the tackles. Hines wanted more than his slow-growing stardom here, though, and asked for a trade late last season.
The Colts gave him what he wanted, and not because they’re weak. No, they did it because Nyheim Hines is weak. In today’s professional sports marketplace, once a player has mentally checked out on his team – once he lets the team know he has checked out – that player has to go. An NFL locker room, no matter what its muscular and macho inhabitants want to believe, is like the any large room in the world: Only as strong as its weakest link.
Doyel on Wednesday: Colts RB Jonathan Taylor knows he won’t get a huge contract and isn’t taking it well
And like any room with 75 or so people, there are some weak links in there. Followers, you might say of a decent number of NFL players. Cavities, I call them.
Look, do you want the truth or don’t you? These are things I’ve thought, I’ve known, for years. Never had the chance, or the desire, to write them until now, until Jonathan Taylor goes like a lemming over the cliff.
Whatever you think about Covid and the vaccine, you have to see how it worked out in the NFL: Players followed other players. Here in 2021, the Colts had a quarterback and an offensive line coach – both now gone – who were deeply religious and strongly anti-vaccination. Hey, what do you know? Almost the entire Colts starting offensive line decided it was anti-vax, too. Coincidence? Nope.
Follow the leader? That’s what that team did, like lemmings, right over the 2021 postseason cliff.
Doyel in 2022: Colts’ anti-vaxxers cost them spot in 2021 playoffs
The Colts talk so much about their “locker room culture.” They work so hard to find strong leaders like Zaire Franklin, DeForest Buckner and, once upon a time, Jonathan Taylor, because they know a handful of cavities can ruin the whole room.
Nyheim Hines was a cavity in November 2022. He had to go.
Once upon a time Jonathan Taylor was the sturdiest molar in this team’s mouth. But since changing agents he’s been walking like a cavity, talking like a cavity and quacking like a cavity. And what do you know? On Saturday, Taylor approached Jim Irsay and said, basically, “I’m a cavity.”
Yank him out, Mr. Irsay.
Good riddance.
Need a ride to the airport, JT?
Doyel in 2021: No vaccine for you, Carson Wentz? Here, let me drive you to the airport
Malki Kawa represents pro wrestlers for god’s sake
About this agent.
About this dude named Malki Kawa.
He’s impressive, perhaps, in that he’s earned a lot of money. But by that definition Elon Musk would be the most impressive person on the planet, and Musk isn’t that. He’s poisonous, belching wherever he wants and being congratulated for it by toadies and falling in love with the smell of his own burps. Richest idiot in the world, that guy.
So anyway, Malki Kawa. He founded First Round Management in 2008. Today the agency has dozens of employees, according to the company website, with 10 people devoted to MMA and eight to football, though most of those are listed as NIL specialists. Two of Kawa’s employees work with “influencers.” Two others work with professional wrestlers.
Read those last two sentences again, before you read this next one.
What is it with the best athletes in our market, putting their careers in the hands of the incompetent?
Look, I’m not calling Malki Kawa incompetent as an MMA agent. He represented Jonathan Jones and Jorge Masvidal, among others. They’ve done well. MMA could be Kawa’s calling. Or maybe professional wrestling or “influencers,” whatever they are. And in football, yes, he helped Shaq Leonard get that $99 million contract from the Colts.
But let’s see what he’s done lately:
Turned Jonathan Taylor into a cavity.
Kawa is the latest bizarre operative to help torpedo a promising sports career around here. This discussion starts with beloved Andrew Luck, a former Stanford star who for some reason chose a Stanford surgeon to repair his shoulder. Never mind the small list of world-famous surgeons who’ve successfully taken care of NFL quarterbacks for years. Nope, Luck went with his guy. How’d that turn out?
Then you have Victor Oladipo, who became the first major client of his young IU buddy, and almost overnight went from happy, lovable NBA star to a quitter who was openly asking opposing teams to trade for him … during games.
Turns out, a locker room isn’t the only thing as strong as its weakest link. So is a professional athlete, someone like Jonathan Taylor, a one-man $50 million corporation in the right hands, assuming he’s surrounded by a team of wise leaders. The evidence about Taylor’s current advisory team points in the other direction, with a new agent who has gone on Twitter to taunt the Colts and now has a client in search of a new team – in a marketplace losing interest in running backs, never mind a back as disgruntled as Jonathan Taylor.
Irsay says he won’t trade Taylor, but we’ll see. Culture is delicate, cavities are destructive, and running backs are replaceable. And in Malki Kawa, Taylor has an agent who misjudges Taylor’s worth, not to mention his own intelligence. But Kawa can offer clients their own barber. His name is Edgar. His name’s on the company website and everything.
That Edgar guy better be good with the clippers, because Jonathan Taylor needs a makeover.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
