It’s no surprise to hear a player felt like he was swimming upstream his rookie year. The speed of the game, the volume of the NFL playbook, the reality that no one in the league is doing it solely because they love the game. They’re doing it so they can feed their family. That’s an awfully good motivator.
Even knowing that, former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor had an even bigger adjustment than normal. On the latest episode of the Bleav In Steelers podcast with co-host Mark Bergin, Taylor discussed the difficulty in going from his college system to what Pittsburgh was running. In college at UL-Lafayette, Taylor primarily ran only one kind of coverage.
“The only coverage we played was man…me and Charles Tillman ran that 4-4 defense.”
Taylor described it as being told by his coaches as “you on him, you on him.” Something you could do at the college level when your starting cornerbacks are Taylor and Tillman, two future NFL studs, but it didn’t offer the variety of coverages the professional game provides. Don’t forget Taylor was new to the position, playing running back in 2001 until making the full-time switch to corner his senior season.
When he got to the NFL, especially Dick LeBeau’s system once he returned in 2004, his head couldn’t help but spin.
“You talk about Fire Zones, Cover 2, Cover 3, Cover 4,” Taylor said. “I’m like, ‘what the hell’s going on?'”
The NFL system is another layer and LeBeau’s system was intense with its creativity and exotic blitz packages. Taylor had two different DCs in his first two years, Tim Lewis followed by LeBeau, but he settled in and figured it out. By 2005, Taylor was a full-time starter on a Super Bowl-winning team.
Today’s rookies don’t have the luxury to sit the way Taylor did through his first two years. But coaches understand they can’t overload and overwhelm their rookies. Taylor said back then, LeBeau understood the type of corner he was and implemented more man coverage. For current Steelers’ DC Teryl Austin, he’ll have to play in Joey Porter Jr.’s wheelhouse which funny enough, is also plenty of tight-man coverage.
