3 Seattle Seahawks veterans who could lose their starting job to a rookie
By Lee Vowell
No. 3: Seattle Seahawks edge rusher Darrell Taylor
On paper, Darrell Taylor only started a handful of games for the Seahawks in 2022, but we all know that Taylor was supposed to be one of Seattle's two main edge rushers along with Uchenna Nwosu. Nwosu was very good and more consistent than Taylor last year. Both Nwosu and Taylor had 9.5 sacks, but Taylor had 6.5 of his sacks from Week 13 on. Before that, he was not overly productive.
Taylor isn't a bad player at all. He does produce numbers overall, but one has to do more of a deep dive into when the sacks and quarterback hits come than look at the raw yearly number. In weeks 1 through 5 of his rookie season, Taylor had 4 sacks. This means in 11 games of his two seasons played (the last six of 2022 and the first five of 2021), Taylor has 10.5 sacks. In his other 21 games, Taylor has just 5.5 sacks.
In 2022, Seattle chose edge rusher Boye Mafe. Mafe did OK in his rookie year but didn't really state his case for being an impact starter moving forward. It's easy to forget Mafe was picked one spot ahead of running back Ken Walker in the second round. Walker was great but Mafe just decent.
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But in 2023, the Seahawks took Derick Hall at pick 37 in the second round. Hall had a first-round grade on many draft boards. And it isn't Mafe that Taylor needs to outplay in training camp, but Hall. Hall is bigger than Taylor and might be just as fast and if he can show he can be even more productive, Hall might just replace Taylor in Seattle's pass rush rotation.