Seahawks great Darrell Taylor news: After immobilized on stretcher, flying home with team
The best news for the Seahawks coming out of Pittsburgh is the best news for the sport.
Leading pass rusher Darrell Taylor was flying home with his team to Seattle into Monday morning.
A national-television audience plus 60,000 fans and both teams inside Heinz Field watched Sunday night as Taylor stayed down motionless on his back for about 10 minutes during the fourth quarter of the tense game Pittsburgh won in overtime 23-20 over Seattle.
The Seahawks’ second-year edge rusher was injured making a tackle on Steelers running back Najee Harris on a running play up the middle with 3 minutes left in the fourth quarter and the scored tied at 17. After 10 minutes, with both teams forming facing semi-circles around the 24-year-old Taylor, a motorized cart was driven to the center of the field. Paramedics strapped Taylor’s head and body to the stretcher to immobilize him.
He was driven off the field. It looked like the worst nightmare in football.
After the game, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll gave news that U-turned that previous, scary scene.
“The CT scans were clear,” Carroll said. “That’s a really good, preliminary report for you.
“There are more tests to be done.”
Carroll said Taylor, who had four sacks in the season’s first five games to lead the Seahawks, was moving all his extremities. He was feisty at having to be restrained, which the coach and team took as another positive sign.
“He was so mad about having to be taken off the field like that,” Carroll said of the paramedics’ prudence and precaution whenever they or anyone fears a head or spinal injury. “He wanted to get up. They wouldn’t let him do it. They had to do the secure methods and take care of him, and all that.
“He didn’t want any part of that.”
Then, the Seahawks defense had to get right back to stopping the Steelers from taking the lead late in the game. It was a jarring juxtaposition — as was “The Wave” joyfullyness the home fans began doing during the long, serious delay to treat Taylor on the field. The Steelers players, led by Ben Roethlisberger, put their arms in downward motions to tamp down that wave and noise, and eventually succeeded.
The Seahawks failed to stop the Steelers after Taylor’s injury. Pittsburgh drove 12 more yards into range for Chris Boswell to make a 52-yard field goal with 1:30 left in the fourth quarter. Seattle was briefly behind 20-17, until Geno Smith rallied the Seahawks with five straight completed passes to Jason Myers’ tying field goal on the final play of regulation.
Asked how difficult it was for his Seahawks to resume playing in the crux of the tie game after Taylor’s scary scene, Carroll said: “I don’t know.
“How tough is it? It doesn’t matter how tough it is. We didn’t do it.”
That’s what football, at its scariest times, is about.
This story was originally published October 17, 2021 at 11:41 PM.
