Nobody Saw Him Play

Nobody Saw Him Play

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I saw every play of Fred Taylor’s career, live, over the eleven years he played in Jacksonville. I didn’t think that was a big deal until I started researching his numbers and talking to people and realized, not a lot of people saw Fred play.

He was on an expansion franchise that many NFL types considered an outpost, mostly on teams that were mediocre or bad, rarely made a national television appearance, and weren’t regulars in the post-season.

He didn’t have a Peyton Manning or a John Elway as his quarterback. He had Mark Brunell and David Garrard. Byron Leftwich and Jay Fiedler. He didn’t play in NY or, LA or Chicago or for a glamour franchise like Dallas, San Francisco or Miami.

Despite playing on bad teams, and in Jacksonville, Fred amassed those numbers in the National Football League. Even if you never saw him play, he got those numbers against the Steelers and Ravens, the Eagles, the Cowboys, and every other team in the league.

During his career, one offensive lineman blocking for him consistently went to the Pro Bowl and that was Tony Boselli. And that was the first three years of his career. After Boselli retired, Fred’s numbers got better.

But somehow, in near anonymity, he became one of the best running backs ever, ascending to 17th among the leading rusher in NFL history. He gained over 11,600 yards and did that with the second fewest attempts on the list.

How did he do that?

Because every time he touched the ball, he was a threat to score. At 6-1 and 228 he was big enough to run over or through tacklers at the line of scrimmage. Strong enough stiff-arm linebackers and fast enough to run away from any defensive back. Ran a 4.29 at his Pro Day at Florida.

During his career, Taylor averaged 4.6 yards per carry. A pretty gaudy number when you consider only two players in front of him on the all-time list, already in the Hall averaged higher numbers: Jim Brown at 5.2 and Barry Sanders at 5.0. And that list gets more exclusive when you look at running backs who had more than 2500 carries and it whittles down to Taylor and Sanders. (Peterson is the other who’s not in the Hall.)

So how does the anonymity and playing for Jacksonville translate to awards and consideration?

In his rookie year, Taylor had 1644 yards, rushing and receiving and 17 TD’s. Randy Moss had 69 catches for 1313 yds and 17 TD’s. They both made the All-Rookie team that year. Moss won the Rookie of the year voting with 94% of the vote. Fred and Peyton Manning split the other 6%. Why was that? Moss had a big game on Thanksgiving Day, catching 3 TDs against the Cowboys in front of a national television audience. That weekend Taylor played in Cincinnati in a point-to-point broadcast that was blacked out in Cincinnati. Which means it was only shown in Jacksonville. Nobody saw him play.

So, is 16th somehow the cutoff? It would be hard to imagine not putting Taylor in the conversation for the Hall when we talk about “best players from their era.” From 1998-2010, Taylor was the third leading rusher in the NFL, behind LaDainian Tomlinson and only about 550 yards behind Edgerrin James. Despite nearly 500 fewer carries than James. He was consistently among the leading rushers in the AFC, despite 100 fewer carries than the leader each year. He led the NFL in 2000 averaging 107.6 yards per game

I heard Bill Belichick say last month, unsolicited, “Saquon Barkley reminds me of Fred Taylor. And I think Fred’s a Hall of Famer.” Barkley had a monster year this season, dramatically better once he got on a good team like the Eagles.

So, here’s a comparison of their first seven years. And the statistics bear the comparison out:

Barkley 7200 48 TD’s 4.7 yds per carry
Fred 7580 48 TD’s 4.6 yds per carry
Both had 5 runs over 50 yards in their first seven years.

Taylor went on to add nearly 4K yards in the next four years before going to New England.

At the end of the 2007 season Fred carried this pretty average team to the playoffs with nine consecutive 100-yard games, which is 4th all time. Averaged 5.4 yards per carry that year.

When the conversation includes you, and only Jim Brown and Barry Sanders are the others in the conversation, you’re in pretty good company.

Jim Brown thought Fred Taylor was the best running back of his era. Marcus Allen told me the same thing. Troy Polamalu, Derrick Brooks and Ray Lewis said he’s the best running back they played against. Thurman Thomas checked his game against Fred’s every week.

I talked with Tom Coughlin this week about Fred. Coughlin coached in the league’s biggest market, and the smallest. He drafted Fred in the first round in ’98. Coughlin was very animated talking about Fred. He said, “It’s a struggle because of where he played. If he played for me in New York, it’d be a no brainer. The Pro Bowl is a popularity contest, and we all know that. Stop thinking because you didn’t see him on TV, he’s not worthy. Stop thinking because he played in Jacksonville, he’s not worthy. He amassed all those statistics in the National Football League. It didn’t matter how we got him the ball; he was always a threat to score. Easily one of the most dominant players of his era.”

This from a coach who knows the largest media market, the exposure, the national spotlight, and knows the smallest. “In Jacksonville we fight against it, it’s not fair, Fred deserves a fair shot.”

Talented and Good Are Not the Same in The NFL

Talented and Good Are Not the Same in The NFL

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It still seems backwards.

I’m trying not to let the fact that Doug Pederson is a nice guy color my thoughts about this but Jaguars Owner Shad Khan’s decision to fire Doug and retain Trent Baalke as the General Manager seems like the opposite of what was necessary. In fact, it’s the third of three changes I’d have probably made in Shad’s shoes.

First, I’d have gotten rid of Baalke. He’s a dividing force inside the Jaguars offices. Insiders say he’s tough to work with and creates adversaries among co-workers who are supposed to be on the same team, “A culture vulture,” one Jaguars employee described him as when asked what his problem has been. “He sucks your organization dry.”

From personal experience, Baalke has a lot of hubris when discussing football. He’s almost haughty when I’ve asked a question, the unspoken “given” in his response is, “I’m smarter than you. I know more than you so how dare you ask that question.”

Second, I’d have asked Doug to change both coordinators and stay on. If he said no, I’d have told him he’d have to go as well.

Third, I’d have just cleaned out everybody. But Shad hates paying people not to work, despite it being a fact of life in the football business.

Apparently, Khan never considered a clean sweep. Listening in on the Zoom press conference Shad and Baalke held on Monday afternoon, Khan expressed a lot of confidence in their “organization.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘clean sweep,’” Shad said when asked if he considered getting rid of everybody. “We have eighty-five people in the football organization who are doing their jobs. What? You’re going to go out and find eighty-five better? Overall, our organization is pretty good. We need to fix what needs to be fixed now.”

Baalke chimed in, “We don’t need to fix everything, we just need to fix some things.”

Hubris and smugness are the usual downfall of most leaders who don’t last, and it won’t surprise me if that’s Baalke’s eventual Waterloo as well. But for now, he has Shad’s confidence.

And that could be part of the problem. A meeting among the staff last week brought Shad a consensus that a full reset was necessary. But he disregarded that, apparently, he doesn’t have enough confidence in the opinion of the rest of the people in the building.

Khan talked in the presser about Baalke’s “Body of work, the metrics, the salary cap and how he leaned on other NFL owners, and people in the NFL organization to help him come to the conclusion that Pederson had to go.

And that breaks it down to its essence. It’s not those things that make a winning organization. It’s culture and leadership. The Jaguars are the most talented bad football team I’ve ever seen. Baalke has shown he can evaluate talent; he hasn’t shown he can build a team.

Former Jaguars Head Coach Tom Coughlin, a two-time Super Bowl winner with the New York Giants explained that to me in 2000.

“You’ve got the top of the roster. Those are the players you expect to make the play ten out of ten times. When the game’s on the line, you want the ball in their hands,” he began. “And some of them are leaders who set the culture and tone for the rest of the team.” Think Tony Boselli. Paul Posluszny, Calais Campbell or even Leon Searcy. Would you get in a fight with Leon? I think not. Any starter on this Jaguars team willing to wave Jason Taylor down to the other end of the field on Monday Night Football a la Boselli? No.

“In the middle of the roster you have the spot starters, those who are going to make the plays most of the time and can perhaps develop into ‘top of the roster’ players,” he continued. “They’re subs, stalwarts on special teams, guys who push the starters to be better.” Here’s where Gary Walker, Lonnie Marts and Tom McManus come to mind, although they were mainly starters. Dewey Wingard is the only guy on the Jaguars roster who fits this description.

Then he got to the crux of building a team, without perhaps even knowing it.

“At the bottom of the roster, you have guys who are very talented, great athletes, or they wouldn’t be in the NFL. But they didn’t make it on talent alone. They have grit, they want to mix it up. They’re the tough guys, the ‘stand in the hole and make it hurt’ kind of players. They’re in the weight room competing. They end up holding everybody else accountable for their toughness. Football is a tough game.” There are dozens of former Jaguars who fit this description. You could put McManus in this slot, Jeff Kopp, Montell Owens, Brant Boyer.

The Jaguars have a lot of top of the roster guys, but none are the leaders or culture builders they need. They have some middle of the roster guys. They have zero bottom of the roster guys.

To build a culture you need continuity. Ever notice how the Pittsburgh Steelers always seem to have the same guys, just different names? Greg Lloyd is James Harrison, just with a different name. Mike Tomlin sets the tone for that, and the Rooney family has preached continuity forever. In the last fifty-four years, they’ve had three head coaches. Three: Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin. And Tomlin has never had a losing record. What’s that tell you? He demands the players meet a certain standard. You don’t fit, you’re gone.

Look what Dan Campbell has done in Detroit. He only accepted tough guys on his team, from the starters on down. When you watch them play, they hit, they play with a sense of urgency we haven’t seen since 2017 and rarely before that as well.

Hiring a new Head Coach for the Jaguars will be tricky with Baalke in place. Khan didn’t answer the question directly when asked if the new head coach would report to him. “Doug reported to me, Trent reports to me, that worked,” was his answer.

I did like some of the things Shad said but can’t decide whether they were talking points put together by his PR team or what he actually thinks.

“We’re the most predictable team in the NFL on both sides of the ball,” Khan said about why he made a coaching change. He’s right about that. “We were twentieth in the league on defense last year, this year we’re last. Part of success in the NFL is deception, and we need that.”

What about if a coach comes in and says the Jaguars need to revamp the personnel side? “We have to create an environment for them to be successful. If we can get better, I want to listen to that. I know we can improve.”

And what’s the pitch to a new Head Coach? “We have a compelling case to offer somebody as our head coach,” he responded. “The personnel, the facilities, the health and wellness of the players. We’ll interview them and they’ll interview us. I want to make sure this isn’t about ego or power. If it’s a legit effort to get better, everything should be on the table.”

And what about hiring an Executive Vice President as part of both the personnel and football sides of the organization? “We’re lean. We need to add some people. But we need to identify the right people.”

You don’t have to look far Shad. Hire Boselli. Get Ben Johnson. Bring Mark Brunell as the offensive coordinator.