Seahawks trade up, get help for needy pass rush in round 2: Darrell Taylor from Tennessee
Finally, by popular—and logical—demand—the Seahawks got help for their sickly pass rush.
They traded up with the New York Jets to move from 59 to 48 in round two, then selected Tennessee edge rusher Darrell Taylor Friday in the second round of the NFL draft.
“We’ve added a beast to our defense,” the Seahawks declared online after the choice.
“It was everything that I hoped for when they called me,” Taylor said on a Zoom call online Friday evening from his home in Virginia. “It was a very exciting moment that I’ll never forget.
“It’s exciting. They traded up to get me. So that means they must have really wanted me. I couldn’t thank them enough for it.”
Taylor has multiple reasons to more appreciative than the average NFL draft choice.
Like Seattle’s choice of linebacker Jordyn Brooks from Texas Tech in round one Thursday night, Taylor is a physically and emotionally mature to play right away and adjust quickly to the NFL life.
He had to grow up quickly.
His father was incarcerated when Taylor was a young boy growing up in Virginia. His mother died of breast cancer in 2013, when he was an early teenager. He credits his aunt, his high-school football coaches, “my whole city” of Hopewell, Va. for “pretty much (being) there for me every step of the way.”
“They were all there for me,” he said, pride in his deep voice. “They were my backbone, to make sure I kept on a straight line, to make sure I was doing everything to graduate from high school, make it to college—do what I’m doing now.”
That includes being a father to a young boy. He turns 2 in July. Taylor says being a dad has taught him patience—and, frankly, the value of being a better father than he had growing up.
Seattle gets a grown man on the field, too.
Taylor is 6 feet 4, 267 pounds. A draft assessment by league-owned NFL.com of him begins with one eye-catching bullet point: “Chiseled out of granite.”
He had 8 1/2 sacks last season in the Southeastern Conference, in which Tennessee used him often as a edge-rushing outside linebacker. He had 16 1/2 sacks his last two season for the Volunteers. Four of his eight sacks in 2018 were in one game, Tennessee’s upset of ranked Kentucky. That matched Pro Football Hall of Famer Reggie White for second-highest single-game total in Vols history.
You get mentioned next to Reggie White, you’ve done something.
Taylor played his first two years of college football at defense end and his last two as an outside, rush linebacker a bit more off the ball. He said the Seahawks have told him they want him as a hand-on-the-ground defensive end rushing in a straight line up the field at opposing quarterback in their 4-3 scheme.
The Seahawks got him two picks after a defensive tackle that would have fit them, Marlon Davidson from Auburn, got swiped by Atlanta and former Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.
The Seahawks had the second-fewest sacks in the NFL last season, 28 in 16 games.
Seattle gave the Jets their 59th-overall pick in round two, plus the 101st pick at the bottom of round three later Friday.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 4:26 PM.
