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

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KANSAS CITY, MO – OCTOBER 16: Dante Hall #82 of the Kansas City Chiefs makes a catch against Sean Taylor #21 and Marcus Washington #53 of the Washington Redskins in the first half on October 16, 2005 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Larry W. Smith/Getty Images) /

“Sean Taylor could be the next Ronnie Lott.”

In a draft class with the likes of Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Larry Fitzgerald, Sean Taylor was at least in the conversations to go No. 1. ESPN columnist John Clayton even went as far as comparing Taylor to Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott. And looking back, he wasn’t far off. Like Lott, Taylor terrorized opposing players with his ferocious hits, but he also had incredible range, able to swoop in out of nowhere and intercept a pass to a receiver who had previously been wide open.

It was Taylor who elevated the play of the defense, much like Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott. It had been a long time since NFL teams had seen such a safe, or such a sure top pick at the safety position. It speaks volumes that, in an era where teams ignored safeties in the early rounds because of the small deviations in performance, that Taylor was regarded as highly as he was.

The Redskins had other needs, mainly on the offensive side of the ball, but the possibility of drafting Sean Taylor was one they considered from the very beginning, when they heard Taylor had declared for the draft. Taylor’s former college team mate, star running back Clinton Portis, was especially high on the high-flying safety.

“[Portis] would call on the phone, and he’d go like ‘Seeeeaaaaan’,” former coach Joe Gibbs said with an infectious smile on NFL Network’s ‘A Football Life’. “He’d go like that. That’s why he didn’t hang up.”

Taylor himself was also confident in his skills, calling himself the ‘hardest hitter in the draft’. It was an accurate assessment, one that every bonafide draft analyst agreed with. And on draft night, the Redskins valued that above all else, and they took Taylor with the fifth overall pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. The selection was met with nothing but elation from team staff members, players, and even Taylor himself. The kid from Miami was living his dream. But the first offseason of his NFL career wouldn’t be as dreamy as he’d pictured it.

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It started with the Rookie Symposium. Sean Taylor walked out of the NFL’s entrance program for rookies, sparking controversy and attracting a $25,000 fine from the NFL. He made it known quickly that he was a man who went to the tune of his own drum. He decided what his life entailed, and what it didn’t.

And soon after he arrived in Washington, the media became one of his blacklisted groups, when a hazing incident went wrong, subjecting him to laughter from the men holding the cameras. Taylor was not light-hearted about the incident, insulted that they would laugh at him. And so for months and months, he offered no time to the media. And when he did, it was sparse. He became an enigma.

“How would you grade day one?” One reporter would ask during training camp. And Taylor would shake his head, already walking away, sweat glistening on his forehead. “It’s day one,” the young man responded half-heartedly, as if counting the days he had left in this place. This place where privacy was no longer a right. Where invasive people wanted to know your life better than you did. Taylor didn’t like it. It disillusioned him, at first.

His tense relationship with the media and the players prolonged rookie contract negotiations. His agents walked in and out through revolving doors, and the rookie seemed to be unhappy in his new home. The negativity would only mount, and it wouldn’t be until preseason that Taylor was able to talk with his play, and not his posture.

He didn’t just talk with his play. He shouted. He screamed. “I am the best!”. And every time his cleats touched the turf, he spoke the truth. He was the best on the field from the very beginning. Chris Cooley was one of many who noticed it.

“His first game in the NFL,” Chris Cooley said with a laugh on A Football Life. “He was the best player on the field. You could see it.”

Indeed, you could. And every game, it was the same.

“Every game, he’d do something to let you know he wasn’t from this planet like all of us were,” said Ryan Clark.

Every game. It didn’t matter where the opponent tried to throw it. It didn’t matter who they gave the ball. Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, it didn’t matter who the quarterback was. Every game, the Meast made his presence felt, flying in as if he had wings, hitting the ball carrier with such force that some were inclined to wonder whether he’d rocketed down from orbit just to make the play. It made you wonder whether NASA had picked him up, a object with such momentum, its travels culminating in such a devastating impact that the crowd rippled, with the victim flying end over end.

Taylor’s play style was absolutely invigorating. But some would call it reckless. And as he continued to rack up points with the police off the field, many began to speculate. They judged Taylor on what they saw, and what they saw was a youth as reckless in life as he was on the field. A misguided child. A thug. But the reality was far different. And after a special someone entered his life in May of 2006, his true nature started to show.

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