Over the last few days multiple media outlets have reported that relatively unknown 5th year QB Tyrod Taylor is going to have a legitimate shot to be the Buffalo Bills starting quarterback in 2015. While he can be considered a veteran, Taylor represents something of a puzzle to evaluate, owning a mere 19 career pass completions. To put that in context, Antwaan Randle El has completed three more passes than Tyrod Taylor. He’s tied for 9th in completions among QBs drafted in 2011, trailing Andy Dalton by a mere 1,282. To put it nicely, we (largely) don’t know what we don’t know about Tyrod Taylor. Lets take a look into what we do know.
Who is Tyrod Taylor?
- 6th round pick (180th overall) of Virginia Tech.
- One of the most athletic QBs in the NFL, Taylor scores in the 93rd percentile per playerprofiler.com.
- Eschewed a contract from the Broncos due to concerns over playing time.
- Probably not Joe Flacco’s emergency contact.
- A five-star recruit in 2007, Taylor was the 4th best HS QB according to scout.com. This is normally a very good indicator of football playing ability, but he was behind the vomitrocious troika of Jimmy Clausen, Ryan Mallett and Aaron Corp.
- Once called “human highlight reel” by Ray Lewis, who spoke as if he had drank an entire espresso machine.
- In his deep sleeper series, your intrepid author penned this about Taylor in February:
“86) Tyrod Taylor QB FA: A mobile QB mystery box, the former Virginia Tech Hokie has thrown only 35 total regular-season passes and has performed unevenly in the preseason. While we don’t have much information on Taylor, he was noted for his arm-strength and scrambling ability coming out of college, and if he lands in a situation that would give him a chance to start, could contribute an interesting fantasy line due to his scrambling ability. Expect Taylor to remain a backup, but he’s one of the most interesting backup QBs in the league for fantasy purposes.”
Why you should ignore Tyrod Taylor
Taylor very well might just be a stalking horse for E.J. Manuel and Matt Cassel. Perhaps through the guise of competition, a better performance can be coaxed out of either of the two aforementioned QBs. While neither has been of any great shakes, both have far more guaranteed money coming to them than Taylor. With so few teams carrying three quarterbacks on the active roster, there is a very good chance that Taylor could be one of the final cuts out of training camp. There’s also the whole issue about the primary job of a quarterback: throwing the football.
Taylor, in both college and professional football, has never had a season in which he’s completed his passes at a 60% or better rate. Taking into account both his preseason, and his limited regular season work, Taylor is completing passes at a 58% rate. To put this in perspective, Blake Bortles, Jake Locker, and Mike Glennon completed passes at a nearly 58% rate in 2014, and those aren’t exactly great fantasy numbers.
Taylor isn’t just missing his targets, he’s turning the ball over at an alarming rate. Combining preseason and regular season statistics, Taylor has thrown 10 interceptions in 246 total attempts, which means 4% of the time Taylor heaves the oblong spheroid down the field, it’s ending up in the hands of the defense. Again, offering some context, Kirk Cousins, Ryan Lindley, Josh McCown, and Jake Locker all hit the 4% threshold.
Even if Taylor somehow manages to avoid the INT, and complete the pass, his completions leave a lot to be desired. Factoring in all of his attempts as a professional (pre and regular season), Taylor has mustered a much-to-be-desired 6.5 yards per attempt. This would’ve place him 30th of 32 qualifying QBs in 2014. In summation, Taylor through the air is not great, Bob.
If hanging with some of the shadiest characters in the QB cul-de-sac doesn’t offer a galling reminder to be cautious, his issues with accuracy and decision-making aren’t simply a product of a smallish sample size, they’ve dogged him since his entry into the league. From Taylor’s NFL.com predraft scouting profile
“Does not possess adequate height and too many of his passes are knocked down at the line. Sloppy footwork prevents him from stepping into throws making him an erratic passer. Locks onto receivers and often telegraphs his throws. Struggles breaking down coverage and makes too many ill-advised throws.
If you’re still unconvinced about how less than good Taylor has been throwing the football, enjoy some jarring visual evidence of horrid quarterback play.The stats and the eyes tell a tale of a bleak NFL future for one Tyrod Taylor.
Why you need to disregard all of the hate above and get on the Tyrod Express
As a general rule of thumb, any link placed in my articles is done for the purposes of visual evidence, so I keep them just one optional click away. With this however, I will make an exception. This piece of visual evidence is meant to loudly, violently, shake your sensibilities like a car alarm going off at 3am the morning of which you had a job interview scheduled. This is supposed to announce that, at the very least, Tyrod Taylor demands your attention. If you want to see some of the most succulent scrambles ever from a quarterback check these out. And while I just spent the above stanza showing that he’s most likely not that great as a passer, he’s got above average arm strength, and decent touch. If Taylor was a total lost cause as a passer, he could’ve been cut with little to no expense by the Ravens, there’s a little something there.
In terms of the fake football, which you’re here for, you can stomach a lot of that bad passing due to the reality of fantasy football in leagues with default scoring. Rushing yards and TDs are worth more than passing yards and TDs. With default systems set up to reward a 10 yard scramble equally with a 25 yard pass, Tyrod Taylor represents a 6’1, 217 pound speedy little glitch in the system. “Little glitch in the system” probably isn’t the best descriptor of Tyrod, as his limited work has proven he’s proven himself more likely than any QB in the NFL to take off and seek the more profitable fantasy path. While the data is limited, here are some career rushing attempts/passing attempt ratios of QBs considered scramblers.
Tim Tebow | 0.545 |
Tyrod Taylor | 0.345 |
Terrelle Pryor | 0.307 |
Joe Webb | 0.269 |
Russell Wilson | 0.246 |
Cam Newton | 0.242 |
Colin Kaepernick | 0.233 |
Robert Griffin III | 0.229 |
Josh Johnson | 0.221 |
Outside of the anomaly that is Tim Tebow, Tyrod Taylor is most likely to scramble than any QB currently active in the NFL. It should be noted that the data is a little skewed, as Taylor worked out of the wildcat formation, which padded his totals. But when I looked at preseason data, and the data from his only NFL start in 2012, his ratio was still the highest amongst non-Tebow QBs.
Brian Tesch is a correspondent at FantasyPros. Check out his archive and follow him on Twitter @TheRealTesch.