{"id":707215,"date":"2026-01-26T20:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/707215\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T20:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:51:19","slug":"colts-2025-rookie-report-dj-giddens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/707215\/","title":{"rendered":"Colts 2025 Rookie Report: DJ Giddens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indianapolis, IN \u2014 The Indianapolis Colts<\/a> have been looking for their Nyheim Hines<\/a> replacement alongside star back Jonathan Taylor<\/a> since they did right by Hines and traded him to a contender \u2014 Hines\u2019s wishes \u2014 back at the 2023 NFL Trade Deadline.<\/p>\n

Despite Taylor being one of the best pure rushers in the league, his shortcomings as a third-down back have prevented him from becoming the NFL\u2019s undisputed best. To remedy this, a fitting counterpart must fill that void and take some of the workload in the process.<\/p>\n

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The Colts\u2019 2025 fifth-round pick (151st overall) running back DJ Giddens<\/a> is general manager Chris Ballard<\/a>\u2019s latest draft dart thrown at the board.<\/p>\n

This is the fifth installment of an ongoing article series that\u2019ll cover each Colts rookie from the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

Expectations \u2014 Typically, a fifth-round draft slot warrants little to no expectations, especially when it comes to running backs. Sometimes backs drafted on day three are either seen as immediate special teams contributors and\/or draft-and-stash prospects, though, of course, there are annual reminders that instant-impact backs can be found later in the draft.<\/p>\n

As for DJ Giddens\u2019 case in Indianapolis, fans and analysts alike maintained low expectations for his rookie season, though his second half of training camp piqued additional interest.<\/p>\n

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Rookie Season \u2014 DJ Giddens totaled just 96 rushing yards on 26 carries (3.7 ypc) while failing to haul in either of his two targets in nine games this season.<\/p>\n

The rookie was always penciled in as the de facto RB3 going into the season. However, an injury-riddled first half kept backup running back Tyler Goodson<\/a> from claiming his anticipated role, leaving the door wide open for Giddens.<\/p>\n

A heavy dosage of Jonathan Taylor garnered legitimate MVP consideration throughout said first half in question, revealing Giddens\u2019s open door has actually been slightly cracked. As a result, he fell to the wayside, and the midseason veteran acquisition of Ameer Abdullah<\/a> became Taylor\u2019s running mate for the second half.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t say that DJ Giddens had a disappointing rookie showing, but rather an uninspiring one.<\/p>\n

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Future Outlook \u2014 Even though Ameer Abdullah was a better version of Tyler Goodson during his run with the Colts, it\u2019s hard to say it was anything more than a brief stint. As it stands, DJ Giddens has every opportunity ahead of him going into next season. He certainly won\u2019t be given the RB2 job going into year two, though the current outlook suggests that said backup role is wide open for the taking based on how the 2025-26 season concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indianapolis, IN \u2014 The Indianapolis Colts have been looking for their Nyheim Hines replacement alongside star back Jonathan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[12303,2005,2045,7,2004,392,2381,1753,6,9624,7499],"class_list":["post-707215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indianapolis-colts","tag-ameer-abdullah","tag-colts","tag-dj-giddens","tag-football","tag-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-indianapoliscolts","tag-jonathan-taylor","tag-nfl","tag-nyheim-hines","tag-tyler-goodson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115963382227194114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}