21.
No one touches that number. No one speaks of it. When a new player arrives in Washington and is eligible for the number, and is asked what code they want to be known by, they skate around it, their eyes lingering around the edges of the paper, searching for more options. As if the choice itself is blacked out. Erased. Gone forever. They avoid it. Why? Because they know. Everyone knows.
No one touches the number 21. And they never will. It’s a sign of respect. For an NFL great who died too young. For a fearless safety who didn’t get to pummel opponents as long as he wanted to. It’s for a star that faded too fast.
But it’s not just that. Sean Taylor was more than a football player. It’s for a kid who was turning a corner. A boy grown up, who was learning his way in the world, learning to be the best person he could be. A young man who had accomplished greatness, and a man who had greatness ahead of him. A cherished friend to many, and a fan favorite to all. A father to one. A changing man.
He was a Miami kid who had come a long way. And his journey ended too soon. But although short, his story will never be forgotten. Twelve years after his death, we remember Sean Taylor.
Note: This is a re-posting of the original article published two years ago, in accordance with the ten-year anniversary of Sean Taylor’s death.
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.
Raised in southern Florida, Sean Taylor was gifted from the start.
Taylor grew up in the suburbs of Miami. He spent the first ten years of his life with his grandmother, mother, and the rest of her children. His parents were divorced when he was very young. When his mother grew sick and unable to care for him, he moved to be with his father, a local police officer.
He went to a school named Gulliver Prep. It wasn’t in a bad area, but it was sandwiched in-between two such areas, and sometimes, the violence and tension converged in the middle community. Taylor, like many stuck in-between, chose sports as a way to distance himself from the conflict and the street life as best he could. It was a choice that served him well.
Though sports were a way to escape the violence that permeated into the middle neighborhoods, in reality, no one was ever free from it. The kids from each area always intermingled, and there was conflict that arose in such meetings. Taylor had a gun held to his head during a pickup basketball game on one occasion, saved only by the gun’s inability to function. And on another occasion, during the offseason of 2005, Taylor’s ATVs were stolen, and after an unsuccessful attempt to take them back, his house was pelted with AK-47 fire. Choppers, they called them. Sports softened the reality, at the very least. But in Taylor’s world, that kind of conflict was unavoidable.
Taylor didn’t have trouble separating himself with sports, however. He was a three-sport star in his younger years, playing football, basketball, and running track. He was equally impressive in each, his athletic promise showing no bounds. However, despite his focus on multiple sports, Taylor would soon discover his love for football, and he would effectively cement himself in the lore of the game.
It makes sense that Taylor’s father was a police officer, because on the football field, it was the younger Taylor who laid down the law. He was always a big kid, an energetic kid. As a young boy, he was always on the move, always active. By high school, he was a 6-foot-2 behemoth, looming above the crowd like a giant from a fable’s tale. And it was then that he began to build a reputation as a brutal hitter. From the words of ESPN writer Elizabeth Merrill, “legend has it that Taylor hit a kid so hard once in high school that the boy’s helmet, the face mask and the screws, fell apart”.
He’s the train, and the other guy’s the bus!
It goes without saying that Taylor was a highly coveted prospect coming out of high school. In 2000, his final year at Gulliver Prep, he led the team to a class 2A championship in the state of Florida. The only game his team lost was the game he didn’t play in. He played as many as three positions in high school, but it was as a defensive back that he went to play for Larry Coker and the Miami Hurricanes in 2001. He left his high school as the No. 1 rated prospect in the state of Florida. Some pegged him as the best young star in the nation.
Taylor’s athletic gifts and fierce competitive tendencies were unique to him alone, but his tireless work ethic can be somewhat attributed to his father. Pedro Taylor, or ‘Pete’, as the kids called him, trained Sean and his friends by the day, teaching them to run, run and keep running. His teachings played a part in molding Sean into the player that terrorized opposing players in college at the University of Miami. It was also a reason why Sean chose to stay in the area to continue his career.
Taylor played as a true freshman, a rare feat in its own right, and he began his post-elementary football career by making a name for himself as a reliable special teams player. The next year, he carved out a role as a starter, leading the team in almost all defensive categories. The next year, he grabbed 10 interceptions. And then, after only his junior year, his college career was over. It was on to the NFL. He was too good for these guys.
“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.
Over the 2006 offseason, Taylor became a father. And his rebellious ways were a thing of the past.
For the first two years of Sean Taylor’s career, his off-the-field issues nearly matched his in-game exploits. He was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in the offseason of 2005. In 2006, he went to court on weapons charges, and subsequently accepted a plea deal. And some fans may fondly remember the fearless fighter spitting on an opponent in a playoff game in 2006. His aggressive play on the field forced the media to draw their own conclusions. That Taylor was reckless by nature.
But regardless of what he did in his life through the early years of his career, he changed in May of 2006, when his daughter Jackie was born. He cared for her, and through her, he found a sense of responsibility. A purpose. He made a vocal point to focus more on football and his family. He stopped hanging with the wrong people, stopped trying to prove himself out of pride. It appeared that the ‘reckless’ young man was growing up. Gregg Williams, in an article by ESPN’s John Keim, remembers a tangible change in Taylor that year.
"“When his daughter was born, he and I had a conversation, and he said to me, ‘Now I have someone else to play for and take care of.’ She meant so much. He was more talkative that year. He did smile more or laugh more around others. In the first couple years, he was almost like a mute. He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t socializing with a lot of people. He was an individual on a mission in life. But now it was more a family. When he brought her around the players, there was a constant smile on his face. You can’t fake the smile on his face. He couldn’t hide the joy.”"
His young daughter, now eleven years old, did great things for Taylor, both on and off the field. Taylor found purpose in his daughter, and in his family, and it was that purpose that only made him train harder, and try harder to be the best version of himself. The results were immediate. He finished the 2006 season with his first Pro Bowl berth, where he would deliver a crushing hit on Pro Bowl punter Brian Moorman, one that would cause his fame to be cemented across the nation, if it wasn’t already.
In 2007, the visible change in Taylor only continued to show. He started gaining comfort with the local media. Before, he had actively avoided the media, going so far as to stay in Miami following his alleged DUI, in order to delay the media firestorm. He could have gone back. But he didn’t. Because he didn’t like the cameras. And he knew they’d be everywhere.
In 2007, it was different. He was enjoying himself more. Enjoying life more. Only 24 years old, and he seemed mature. He seemed content. Had Sean Taylor played out the rest of his career, and lived out the rest of his life, he would have been extraordinary. He was beginning to take shape. Growing into the final version of himself. The best version of himself. We were close to seeing just who Sean Taylor really was. But life has a habit of turning on you. It’s that natural chaos that refuses to cease.
Sean Taylor started the 2007 season paying no thought to the inherent uncertainty of the future. He had everything figured out. And he was going to be the best. The kid registered on seismographs. But for all his crushing hits, no shock was louder than the one on November 26, 2007. The one that concluded his final chapter.
The last full game Sean Taylor played was a win.
Against the New York Jets in Week 9 of the regular season. He recorded seven tackles on the day, and forced a fumble. The team won in overtime to improve to 5-3. It was an important win, one that would help them keep up with the Dallas Cowboys, who were soon to be 7-1 at that point, and the Giants, who were 6-2.
It was a normal day for Sean Taylor. Providing a tangible impact for his team. Being a player to rally around. It was a role he’d grown into in his short time as a Redskin. He made his team mates better. Calling him the quarterback of a defense would be an insult. Because he was tougher than a quarterback. He was faster than a quarterback. He was his own breed of special. But his durability was tested in the coming week.
Taylor left the Redskins’ contest against the Eagles early with a knee injury that would sideline him for a number of weeks. He went home, to Miami, to be with his daughter and fiancee. It was supposed to be a temporary stay. But that changed.
It was on the night of November 26, just after the team’s loss to the Buccaneers in Tampa, that it happened. In the place where the sea blended with the sky, and where even at night, the wildlife never slept. Where the palm trees swayed in the wind, and the birds let the ocean breeze carry them wherever it desired to go.
It was hurricane country, and on November 26, a hurricane struck.
Robbers invaded Taylor’s residence in the night. They made their way through the house, heading to Taylor’s room, aiming to break into the man’s safe. When they burst through the door, Taylor was holding a machete, defending his fiancee and daughter. Protecting his family. The attackers fired two shots. One missed.
And one hit his femoral artery.
There was fragile hope that he would make it through the night. Come on, Sean. You ran sprints before practice. You lifted three times a day. You ran back home. Did it again and again. You worked harder than anyone. You pushed yourself to the limits. You fought, and you won. Fight through this, Sean. You can do it.
No. He couldn’t fight it. Mortality is a different enemy. It does not feign when called upon by fate. You don’t intercept it. You don’t drive it into the ground and spit in its face. And sometimes, even when you long to see your wife, and your daughter, and your friends, and that field just one last time… sometimes, it isn’t enough. Mortality wins when it wants to. And after multiple failed blood transfusions, Sean Taylor died early on November 27. He fought hard. But there are some opponents no one can beat.
It was hard to believe at first. That he was gone, just like that.
A player, a teammate, a friend, a son, a future husband, and a father, now suddenly nothing more than a memory. Gone as quick as a sudden breeze in the morning. Gone to the world, the world that moved on without pause, seeming to ignore the loss of such a colossal figure. Yes, time moved on, and for everyone else, life moved on. A life filled with anger. And confusion. Why did Sean have to go? Why him? A quarter of an inch in any direction, and the bullet would have been harmless. Why Sean? Why? Some questions take time to be answered.
The shock of his death was too much to comprehend. Later in the day after he passed, Dan Snyder and Joe Gibbs scheduled a press conference. Tears flowing, they struggled to convey their emotions. How could anyone hope to put such a feeling of pain, such a feeling of loss, into mere words?
Those who grieved tried their best, but the only words that made any sense were words of denial. Sean couldn’t be gone. It didn’t make any sense. He’d been at the facility just a couple weeks earlier. Less than a month before, he was playing the game he loved, due to be married to the woman he loved, and father to a child that he loved with every fiber of his being. He loved his life. Every bit of it. And on that November morning, every bit of it vanished. Taylor found happiness, only for it to be stolen from him with the speed of a bullet. It was hard to put into words. It was impossible to put into words.
A week after Taylor’s death, the Redskins still weren’t ready to accept it. To them, Sean Taylor never left. His spirit never faltered. His essence never waned. And so one week later, when the Redskins’ defense lined up against the Buffalo Bills at home in front of a mourning crowd, they did something that made the mourners roar.
They lined up with ten players on the field.
One play for Sean.
The Redskins would end up losing that game. But they never lost sight of the bigger purpose. Sean Taylor was still with them, and he’s still with them today. Taylor never lost his love for the game, and as Gregg Williams details below, while some had trouble coping with the loss, Taylor’s spirit urged them to move on. To keep working. To do what he could no longer do.
“That play is over, coach. It’s on to the next one.”
The entire team went to the funeral procession. So did the coaches. And the owner. And Roger Goodell. It was time to say goodbye to Taylor one last time. To put the last play in the rear view mirror. And move on to the next one. But still, we can’t help but wonder why it happened. Why the world chose a man like Taylor to go. Yes, we know the motives of the killers. We know why they did what they did. But why did Taylor, such a special person, have to be the one? Destined for the Hall of Fame, sure to make an impact on the lives of so many people through sports, to be a role model for the children of an entire generation, why did Sean Taylor have to be the one to die?
It’s not easy to find reason in such a thing. Taylor’s sister-in-law, Carolina Garcia, said it best, eyes glistening, voice wavering, as she spoke to the crowd at the funeral procession.
“It’s a funny thing how God always seems to take the special ones too soon.”
Indeed. It’s hard to understand. But looking back, ten years ago, perhaps it’s not a reason for his death that we should seek, but rather, a purpose. A way to remember Sean Taylor and honor what he did. To honor what he accomplished, both on the field and for his family. Ten years later, we can remember who Sean Taylor was and be joyful that he walked this Earth, and touched the lives of so many.
No one is left from that 2007 roster. No one is left to remember the person Sean Taylor. But when players walk the halls of the facilities, the tunnels under the stadium, and when they pace themselves after practice, letting their feet press lightly into the grass, feeling the wind greet them as it passes by, they remember the persona. They remember what he meant to those who knew him, and those who merely watched. What he represented. What he embodied. They remembered. Because icons never die.
He still runs with the players in the early mornings, when the birds hop around at the edge of the nearby thickets. He still ventures inside the practice buildings, accompanying the men as they go through their workouts, taunting them happily, saying he can do better. Telling them they can do better. He still watches over his wife, Jackie, and his daughter, Jackie, as they live on the life he couldn’t. Sean Taylor is still here. He’ll always be here.
Sean Taylor represented triumph over struggle. He was an image of courage, sacrifice, and perseverance, all condensed into the mere flesh of a man. He was there to remind us that we could always be better, that we could always reach farther, that we could always be more than we were a day ago. And today, he reminds us that we have work to do. Because that play is over. It’s on to the next one.
The birds still forage in the grass at dawn. And the wind still whispers, acting as if its audience never left. It doesn’t see that there’s one less shadow out on the practice field in the early mornings. Life goes on and time doesn’t stop. But if you linger out there, in the soothing silence, bathing in the newborn daylight, feeling the wind pull you slowly closer, and if you think hard enough, if you stand still and wonder…
You can hear the footsteps.
Rushed and rhythmic.
You can hear the breathing on the wind.
The panting. The sharp exhales.
And if you look up against the backdrop of the trees, you can almost picture him. Sean Taylor running drills. Training himself to fly higher than all the rest.
Sean Taylor may be gone. But his spirit never left. And as much as he might want to keep working, keep fighting, and keep playing for his team, Sean Taylor doesn’t need to train any longer.
He’s flying now.
