That would keep him the field almost all the time and what I'm saying is the starting TE position is open for him to take over.
That's the hope. It might take some time to get adjusted, but we're hoping sooner than later because all we have at TE is the disappointing Jeremy Ruckert and Stone Smartt, who is more of a pass-catching TE.
What Taylor lacks is explosiveness or stretching the defense but he should be a safe spot for Fields to find easy first downs.
That was the knock on him but then he went out and ran a 4.65 at his pro day at 6'5", 251 lbs., which put him in the 75th percentile for tight ends in raw forty time and gives him a speed score of in- between 103-107 (depending on how you adjust for a pro day time). He also ran the gauntlet at the NFL Combine flawlessly, hitting upwards of 19-20 MPH during the drill while staying straight and catching every ball, earning him an "A" from CBS Sports. His Relative Athletic Score is a 8.88 out of 10, which puts him 150th out of 1331 TEs from 1987 to the present.
So he's definitely athletic, but there are weaknesses. His short shuttle time wasn't very good and his ten-yard split in the forty was average, so yeah, he's got to work on his explosion off of the line and then on deep routes, too. But of his 546 yards receiving in 2024, 45% of them were after the catch, so that bodes really well and tells you about his athleticism. 202 yards came after contact, too, which is even more telling.
So I'm happy with the pick. He's not Loveland or Warren, but he's good, he's got room to grow and even more potential than people think because . . . get this—he's only twenty years old. He's still developing and still learning how to run routes, etc. So we will see.
