Sean Taylor was a football unicorn
Saluting one of the GOATs.
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Imagine for a second that it's the night of January 3, 2002, and you're Miami Defensive Coordinator Randy Shannon. Your team just won the national championship in dominant fashion, cementing themselves as one of the greatest squads in modern college football history. Your all-world defense packed with superstars finished with a nation's-low 9.4 points per game allowed, and just body-bagged last month's Heisman winner for four quarters. If you're Randy Shannon in that moment? You're probably on top of the world. At least until you do what all football coaches do and immediately start worrying about what comes next.
The good news is that Shannon still had more than enough talent to field an awesome defense again in 2002. Stars like Vince Wilfork, William Joseph, Jerome McDougle, DJ Williams, and Jonathan Vilma all returned - and that's just in the front seven! His main issue –if you can even call it that– was in the secondary. Three months after that national title win, four of his defensive backs were selected in the NFL Draft. Three of those picks were in the first round. One of those first-rounders is arguably the greatest safety of all-time in Ed Reed. If you're any other coach around the country in the same situation as Shannon was, losing your mind about what next season's secondary looks like probably takes precedence over celebrating a title. Luckily for Shannon, this is early-2000s Miami we're talking about.
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The two first round corners Miami lost to the 2002 Draft (Mike Rumph and Phillip Buchannon) were replaced by two future first rounders in Antrel Rolle and Kelly Jennings. Maurice Sikes filled in at strong safety for James Lewis by immediately receiving First Team All-Big East honors in 2002. As for the seemingly impossible task of having to follow in Ed Reed's hall of fame cleats at free safety? That fell to some guy named Sean Taylor.
Last month, I made a video of all 21 Reed interceptions at Miami, so it's only fitting to follow up with Taylor's 14 in 2002/2003. His reputation as a missile who'd knock your head off in the middle of the field was well-earned, but it also doesn't tell the full story of his game. Taylor's ball skills were just as awesome as Reed's, as was his ability to diagnose everything an offense was doing and react to it. Sean Taylor was a true unicorn on the football field, and I'm not sure we've seen anything quite like him since. Enjoy the video:
