INDIANAPOLIS -- Daniel Jones refers to them as "dirty runs."
It's the term the Indianapolis Colts quarterback uses to describe rushing attempts where there appears to be limited running room but the running back exceeds expectations to gain precious yards.
They're the kind of runs Colts running back Jonathan Taylor has been churning out all season.
"Runs that should be one or two yards, he gets five or six," Jones said.
But equally impressive is when, exactly, those runs seem to materialize.
Week after week, the deeper into the game Taylor goes, the better he seems to get. Taylor has dominated opponents all season, but his performance this season late in games has left teams exasperated.
The league's leading rusher might also be its best finisher.
"When you need it most at the end of the game, that's when you need to be at your best," Taylor said.
The stunning contrast between Taylor's performance in the first halves of games and second halves tells the story. Taylor has 275 rushing yards, three touchdowns and 4.1 yards per carry before halftime. But in the second halves of the Colts' seven games, with Indy's league-leading offense often playing with big leads, and with defenses geared up to stop the run, Taylor has been on a tear. He has 422 rushing yards, seven touchdowns and averages 6.6 yards per carry.
Similarly, three of Taylor's longest five longest plays this season have come in the second half. So, how is it that Taylor goes from a largely ordinary back in the first half to an unstoppable force in the second?
"He's in phenomenal shape," offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. "... Sometimes you have a high rep count or defenses have to face a lot of plays in a row, or a lot of plays in a drive, and J.T. is able to really shine. If those guys are getting a little bit tired, he doesn't wear down too much. He gets after them."
Taylor is renowned for his offseason training. Whether it's the extreme weather training he did during the 2021 offseason in the unforgiving terrain of Mount Rainier National Park in west-central Washington state, or the punishing conditioning he routinely does, Taylor has always prioritized being better conditioned than his opponents.
Nowhere does that show up more than in the late stages of games.
"When you get fatigued, that's the end of the workout," said Taylor, who has an NFL-high 10 rushing touchdowns. "When you kind of do those last two or three extra gassers, you do those last two or three extra reps in the offseason because, in the game, you never know how it's going to shake out.
"It's not going to be a sweet and happy ending in the fourth quarter every time. You may be tired, you may be worn down, it probably was a fight, but can you still operate at a high level."
Taylor's late-game performance has been a perfect complement for a team that has been lighting up the scoreboard early in games. The Colts have an NFL-high 13.1-point differential, lead the league in scoring with 33.1 points per game and have scored 29 or more points in six of their seven games.
More perspective: The Colts are averaging 18.1 points in the first half. That's more than the bottom four scoring teams in the NFL are generating in entire games.
That has resulted in Indianapolis playing with some sizable second-half leads. But that can be more difficult than it seems, with coaches faced with decisions around how aggressive to play on offense in light of the score. Taylor's ability to keep the offense moving, even when defenses expect a run, has given coach and playcaller Shane Steichen great flexibility.
Steichen introduced a mantra when he was hired in 2023 that didn't totally make sense at the time but does now: Throw to score, run to win.
It was his way of saying he hoped to put opponents on the defensive with an aggressive passing game, then finish them off with by efficiently running the ball. This season, that vision has come to fruition with Jones at quarterback and a talented group of passing targets thriving.
Then, Taylor goes to work and finishes them off. The goal, Taylor said, is, "Let's make sure we finish even faster than we started."
So far, mission accomplished.