21: The story of the late, great Sean Taylor; gone, but not forgotten

No one messed with the Meast.

Half-man, half-beast.

He was always out there an hour early. At least. When the dawn’s stubborn dew still graced the blades of grass, and the amber sun had just mustered the courage to peek above the tree line. When a light wind whispered, careful not to raise its voice in the early hours, and when only the birds were awake, signing their songs of freedom. Just the birds. The birds and Sean Taylor. Sean Taylor was there. Always there.

He decided what it was he’d do on a daily basis. Sometimes he’d do a jog around the field, at a nice pace. Sometimes he’d run sprints. And sometimes, even with no one there to test his mettle, he’d do drills. Footwork drills. Just him and the birds. And even after practice, he wouldn’t stop jogging. He’d run home. He’d run back. He’d lift weights three times a day. Run home, run back. Run home, run back.

It was fitting that in the early mornings, before the rest of the players arrived at the practice field, that Taylor’s only company were the birds. Because under the lights, he flew like they did. Like a homing missile, he closed in on his targets. Like a bird searching for food in the early morning hours, he relished the feast. Graceful, but deadly, the impact was always momentous. You could hear it from the stands. The loud clap. Pads against pads. The unison swoon of the crowd. And you knew the other guy wasn’t breaking that tackle.

You could see it coming. The quarterback pressed to throw. A receiver on a crossing route downfield. The ball spiraling in the air, so close to a completion, when suddenly… he arrives. You could hear it in the announcers’ voices. The giddy excitement. “Taylor… Taylor… my God, Taylor! He’s the train and the other guy’s the bus! He’s a linebacker playing safety! Did you get the license plate of that man? Taylor put the leather to him, baby! That’s what you call a hit!”

“Sean Taylor’s got another one!”

“Who else?”

“This kid is special.”

Everyone could see Sean Taylor and the player he was on Sundays. But they couldn’t see the worker he was. The person he was. No one could see that. Or at least he thought.

Working overtime in his office, with a nice view of the practice field, Joe Gibbs could see the young man in the early morning. Training himself to fly like the birds. And former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams could see him, too. Ten years later, Williams can still recall a conversation between he and Gibbs regarding Taylor, via John Keim of ESPN.

"We had three lifting sessions that you’d be assigned to one. He would go in and lift in all three sessions. One time Gibbs brought me into his office and pointed to Sean an hour before practice jogging laps around the field and working on footwork drills. I said, ‘Coach, I knew this.’ … He thinks he’s doing it when no one else is watching. He didn’t want credit; his credit is exerting his will on people on the field."

Taylor kept everything inside for a long time. That was how he was from an early age. A soft-spoken young man. You couldn’t always tell if it was a lack of interest or a certain thoughtfulness. But he had a fiery side. A fierce competitor inside him that never quit, was never satisfied. These were qualities he carried all throughout his life, going back to the days of his childhood. When his story began.