Seattle Seahawks most overrated player deserves one more chance

Okay, I'm convinced. He's overrated, but after digging into the data, this player has managed to produce some outsized results. He still needs to up his game in other areas, but he's earned the chance to prove he can do it.

I may have been a bit critical of Seattle Seahawks edge/outside linebacker Darrell Taylor in the past. And by "a bit", I mean I was very disappointed Seattle didn't trade him for a lineman before the 2023 season. When I wrote that article, Taylor was coming off a season in which Pro Football Focus (subscription required) graded him as Seattle's 13th-best defensive player with at least 100 snaps. Do you know how bad you have to be at every other facet of your game to rank below every other starter despite tying for the team lead in sacks?

That happens when you have 14 combined tackles and whiff on four more. It happens when your passer rating allowed is 118.8. His pass rush was the only grade better than 50. His run defense was third-worst, tackling fourth-worst, and coverage was second-worst on the team. Last year he was graded 19th overall, as his saving grace, sacks, dropped to 5.5. He graded as the 15th-best pass rusher in 2023 and was far worse in every other category. That's precisely why I wrote that the Seahawks need to move on from the one-dimensional Taylor.

The Seattle Seahawks should give Darrell Taylor one last look

So now I'm going to go against my gut and say, yep, Mike Macdonald is right. As quoted by Corbin Smith, Macdonald said of Taylor, “I look forward to DT just coming in and competing every day. Talking to him, we want guys that are bought in on what we are doing on a day-to-day basis. I feel like he feels like he has a lot to prove as well." Well, that last part is certainly true, as I outlined above. This was going to be my third - or was it tenth - "Please release Darrell Taylor" article.

To that end, I would document not only every one of his sacks but also their impact on the Seahawks' games. I foolishly thought, at last, this was a job of AI. Enter a query for all of his sacks and the eventual result. Yes, I was far more specific than that. The bottom line is, through four refinements, I got the brilliant result that pro-football-reference.com was a reputable source. Gee, thanks. Another AI program actually got results for me - for one game. As I told our intrepid site expert, I compiled the first season's results in the same amount of time I wasted on those queries.