Would you believe me if I told you that former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor has a kid who’s gearing up to head to college in the near future? Well, Taylor is 42 years old now, yet it feels to me like it was just yesterday that I was watching him playing on the field.
But the next generation of Taylors could potentially be returning to Heinz Field. Ivan Taylor has been offered a scholarship to play for the Pittsburgh Panthers, he announced earlier this week. While this is far from the only offer he has received—he has also tweeted about South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Michigan, and there will be more to come—it certainly would be nice if it were to work out that he fits in with the Panthers.
GOD IS GOOD https://t.co/Rzi2LAloql
— . (@Ike_SwagginU) June 10, 2022
Ike, whose given name is of course Ivan, is certainly a proud papa—and proud of the fact that his boy has better hands than he does, something I’ve written about previously. Ivan is a cornerback like his father, but with one major caveat that he actually has good hands, while he, as he told Pat McAfee a couple years back, “couldn’t catch a cold in Alaska”…at least during games.
“In practice, man, I caught everything”, he said. “I can catch. I just didn’t lock in and focus the way I should’ve. But my son, he got that. He got them genes. My son can catch everything. I guess I had to eat it in my generation, in my professional career, because my son, he don’t drop nothing, so that’s good, I’m happy for that”.
A year and a half after that interview, Ivan is getting scholarship offers to become the second generation in the family to pursue a career in professional football. And he’s far from the first Steelers alumnus to watch his kid pursue his NFL dreams. There are a couple of them. One, Quentin Lake, son of Carnell, was just drafted by the Los Angeles Rams. Kevin Greene’s son, Gavin, was a rookie minicamp invitee earlier this year.
We know how the Steelers value NFL bloodlines—many fans would argue to their own detriment—yet it has worked out pretty well in the cases of Cameron Heyward and T.J. Watt, whose father and older brother, respectively, were or are excellent football players.
Of course, we’re a long way off from talking about a potential professional football career for Ivan Taylor. Not even being a Hall of Famer guarantees you success. Randy Moss’ son, Thaddeus, is still trying to catch on in the NFL. He’s currently under contract with the Cincinnati Bengals, signing a Reserve/Future deal in February.
But there’s not going to be a lot to talk about between now and the start of training camp, and frankly, I thought some of you would get a kick out of this story. It stuck out to me because I remember writing about that Taylor quote when he talked about how good his son’s hands are. Now here that boy is getting scholarship offers. On a human level, it’s just a pretty cool story.
