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.

A season of promise followed by a season of performance

So, here's the data for Taylor's first season. His first season on the field, as we all know his rookie season was lost to injury before it ever started. The headings should be self-explanatory. You'll note that a half sack is indicated in the negative yardage column. I could have BSd my way to some goofy mathy formula for the importance of each sack, but I think the data speaks for itself. This may sound crazy, but as I scanned the play-by-play accounts for each game, I actually found a tackle by L.J. Collier. I thought they were a myth.

Taylor had two stops in the red zone in his first season, although both were in double-digit games. Only one of his sacks was at a particularly critical stage of the game, that being the early fourth-quarter sack in a seven-point win over the Niners. There was a strong correlation between the drives he stopped and the Seahawks wins; three stops, three wins. The Hawks were just 1-3 in games where his sacks didn't kill the drive. But it's a very small sample size. It's also worth noting that four of his six-and-a-half sacks came in the first five games of the season. That proved to be typical of Taylor, as you'll see in 2022.

Rather than cram all the info into one long table, I split the 2022 season in two. The table above is the "yeah, I guess I could sack the guy" part of the year. Taylor registered his first five sacks in ten games. That's not terrible by any means, but if that's all you're doing - and as we saw in the opening section of this article, it was - it simply isn't enough. but some interesting patterns start to emerge here. For one, four of his five sacks stopped the opposition's drive. For another, three forced fumbles are a lot, even if the Seahawks recovered just one of those.

Taylor cranked it up here with 4.5 sacks in just three games. As in the first segment of the 2022 data, four of his sacks killed drives, and even the one that didn't result in just a field goal. He forced another fumble, this time resulting in a direct turnover. Overall, six of his eight drive-killers coincided with Seattle wins, while the Hawks split the two games in which he failed to stop the drive.

Clearly, 2022 provided Taylor's best performance. The 9.5 sacks in 2022 make that obvious. In all, eight of his 9.5 sacks stopped drives, six of those on third down. I gave him credit if a drive stalls, even if his sack was on first down. It may not have the direct result of forcing a punt, but forcing the opposition into a second-and-20 situation can't exactly be ignored, either.

Darrell Taylor flashed very little in 2023 - but...

Primed for a great year in 2023, Taylor regressed. Not only did his sacks drop by nearly half (9.5 to 5.5), but his forced fumbles dropped to just one. He did stop four of six drives, although Seattle was just 2-1 in those games. The Seahawks split the two games in which his sacks didn't stop the opponents from scoring. I'm not implying that he bears any outsize responsibility for the losses, any more than the credit for a win, but it's interesting data, nonetheless.

One of the things that stands out for 2023 is the number of sacks he had late in the game. Three sacks with less than two minutes in the game, and all three killed drives in games that Seattle won. The last pushed the Cards back just enough to make their potential game-winning field goal a 51-yard attempt. That was the difference between 9-8 or a losing season. In the long term, it didn't matter, but it beats the heck out of losing.

One more stat that jumped out to me was the number of backup quarterbacks that Taylor victimized. While not all were considered backups at the time (Carson Wentz being Exhibit A), they were truly backups. 14 of his career 21/5 sacks came against guys that should never have been in the game in the first place. Yes, I'm counting Baker Mayfield here as he'd been on the Rams roster for all of about 16 minutes at that point. Yes, he played against the same QBS as every other Seattle defender, but it's still worth noting.

I backtracked a few weeks ago and said keeping Taylor was a smart move by the Seahawks. The biggest reason then (and now) is that they have the entire offseason to figure out if Macdonald is right. It's only going to cost them $20,000 to find out if Magic Mike can get more out of Taylor than the fits and starts he's shown through three NFL seasons. Those forced fumbles and late-game heroics provide a bit more intrigue. Yes, I still believe he's incredibly overrated by many 12s, but I have to say yes, give Darrell Taylor one more shot to prove he can play.

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