Philadelphia Eagles: Tyrod Taylor is the young QB kingmaker

There was a time way back in 2015 when Tyrod Taylor really wanted to be a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

The 180th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, Taylor had just spent four years biding his time behind Joe Flacco in Baltimore and was ready to finally get a chance to compete for a starting role in an offense that could highlight his athletic gifts.

And after chatting it up with his former Virginia Tech Hokie Michael Vick, Taylor was convinced that place was in Philadelphia.

In theory, the idea tracked. Chip Kelly was entering what would be his final season in South Philly and with him finally empowered to make personnel decisions, he’d be able to handpick the perfect quarterback for his speedy spread offense.

… well, sort of.

As you may or may not remember, Kelly was beyond focused on finding a way to land his college quarterback Marcus Mariota; a quarterback famously dubbed the “Spread Offense Peyton Manning” for his impeccable play with the Oregon Ducks.

While Kelly ultimately was unable to secure a big enough war chest to dissuade the Tennessee Titans for selecting the Hawaii native themselves, a move that now looks rather foolish, surely he’d look for athletes with a similar athletic profile to compete with Nick Foles under center, right?

Wrong, Kelly handed Taylor a hard pass and instead traded Foles to the then-St. Louis Rams for former first overall pick Sam Bradford.

The rest, as they say, is history. Kelly was gone before Week 16, Sammy Sleeves was gone the following summer, and the Carson Wentz-era was officially on.

Fast forward five years into the future, and suddenly, the stars may finally be aligned for Taylor to join the Philadelphia Eagles, only now, it’ll be under incredibly different circumstances.

Tyrod Taylor could provide perfect QB competition for the Philadelphia Eagles.

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After being stood up by the “chip” of his eye, Tyrod Taylor signed a three-year deal worth $3.35 million total with the Buffalo Bills in order to compete with EJ Manuel and Matt Cassell for a starting role under new head coach Rex Ryan.

Now, as his meager contract would suggest, Taylor was not expected to start in Buffalo. Manuel, the 16th overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, was entering his third season with the franchise, and Cassell was one of the most reliable backups in the game. At best, maybe Taylor could light a fire under Manuel and get him to play like the franchise QB many envisioned when he was leading the Seminoles at Florida State, but no one really thought he’d win the starting spot, right?

Welp, that’s exactly what happened.

For the first time in his NFL career, Taylor stared 14 games, racked up nine all-time Bills records, was named to the Pro Bowl, and remained the Bills’ starter – mind you, on a reworked six-year, $97 million deal – until he was eventually unseated by rookie first-round pick Josh Allen in 2017.

From there, Taylor kept the starting QB seat warm for Baker Mayfield in 2018 before heading west to sunny Los Angeles, California, where he finally got a chance to start in 2020… at least until he suffered a punctured lung by his team’s own coaching staff.

That freak injury opened the door for 2020 first-round pick Justin Herbert to see the field in a star-making Week 2 performance against the Kansas City Cheifs.

Alas, in a true twist of NFL irony, it seems like teams are always in the market for a spot starter like Taylor to come in and keep them competitive, only to then decide drafting a young franchise QB is the way to go.

And for what it’s worth, Taylor has proven himself a wonderful mentor for young players like the young QB who he has to know was brought in to take his job.

According to both Mayfield and Herbert, the 31-year-old is more than willing to answer any questions, work through film, and just generally help young quarterbacks as they transition from the college landscape to the NFL, and though the sample size may be small, all of Taylor’s former foes have gotten markedly better as a result of their competitions.

So, with the Philadelphia Eagles already having a young quarterback on their roster and Taylor’s former offensive coordinator from Los Angeles, Shane Steichen, now in place at OC, there’s a lot to like about finally bringing the Hampton, Virginia native back to the East Coast.

From a purely physical standpoint, Tyrod Taylor has nearly identical measurables to Jalen Hurts. Both are under 6-foot-1, weigh less than 220 pounds, and run sub-4.6 40-yard dashes. While both players can beat an opposing team with their arms, as the duo fall closer to the “game manager” tag than a boom-or-bust “gunslinger,” the best way to deploy either QB is with a quick package of easy reads and an option to run the ball for additional yards.

Nick Sirianni could build an identical system for Hurts and Taylor and allow the duo to duke it out with a third quarterback procured late in the 2021 NFL Draft like, say, maybe Stanford’s Davis Mills. Specifically targeting a player like Taylor would allow the Eagles to have a veteran signal-caller with experience working under Steichen to start right away if Hurts needs time to get acclimated of *gasp* gets hurt, but it would also give the team’s second-year quarterback a reliable resource to lean on who just so happens to have a virtually identical offensive game and similar experience moving from a starter to a reserve, to a starter somewhere else.

If giving Hurts the best possible opportunity to become a starting quarterback is the goal of the 2021 season – which it should be unless the Eagles go all-in on quarterback at six overall – procuring a quarterback like Taylor could be immeasurably valuable even if his presence barely registers on the stat sheet.

Next. Shane Steichen can be Nick Sirianni’s Frank Reich. dark

Had the Philadelphia Eagles signed Tyrod Talyor back in 2015, maybe things would have been different. Maybe he would have turned in a similar record-breaking season under his chosen head coach, Chip Kelly would have survived a few more seasons, and the City of Brotherly Love would still be waiting for its first Super Bowl victory. But now, with a need for a veteran signal-caller to compete with their young quarterback under yet another rookie head coach, there’s still a ton of value to be had in getting Taylor’s signature on the dotted line.

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