Washington Analysis

Sean Taylor Tribute with New Pictures, Stories & Video

Unseen pictures and exclusive interview with Taylor's ex-coaches.

By Kevin Ewoldt@HogsHaven Nov 27, 2010, 9:34am EST

[Ed. Note - This was posted 2 years ago today. I'm re-posting it for the 5th year anniversary of Sean Taylor's passing. In case any one missed it, here's my interview with Sean Taylor's Dad from earlier this month talking about raising Sean and meeting Snyder for the first time.]

5:30 AM. To the MINUTE news broke Sean passed. I'm not going to lie. This post took me a ton ass of time to put together, but it doesn't matter. It's 3 years to the day and arguably the best safety of all time was taken away, yet the cuts still run deep. After the jump are FOR SURE pictures you haven't seen of our beloved #21. I had the privilege 2 years ago to interview Sean's coaches in Larry Coker and Butch Davis. It's moving to hear what his Miami coaches had to say. Enjoy.........

Butch Davis: "When I recruited Sean, my son went to the same school as Sean. So, I was over at Gulliver a lot picking up my son and wathing him practice. I'll never forget the year we recruited Sean, he scored 5 TDs in the championship game as the RB. That was one of the things [people don't realize in games]. They see an interception by Sean Taylor in college and the NFL and they didn't realize they just threw the ball up to one of the country's best RBs. At the time we had Willis Maghee, Clinton Portis, Najeh Davenport. We had a host of RBs..it was just more prudent to put him at safety."

Honestly. Goose bumps. Everytime S. Dot touched the ball for the Redskins he WAS a running back. GAME OVER. How was Sean as a kid? Sean Taylor's Uncle, Michael Outar, spoke at the funeral:

"I wanted him to play running back or quarterback and score all the touchdowns. The coach gave Sean number 66 and put him on the line. Before the game he said, 'Uncle Michael, what do I do?' I said, 'Hit the guy with the ball.' And that's what he did, over and over."

HAHA. Sounds about right. I had the pleasure of talking to Joe Gibbs at Russ Grimm's HoF and how he confirmed the Redskins were only taking Sean and no one else. Gibbs shot down the rumor Kellon WInslow ever had a shot.

And here's what Larry Coker had to say when sharing a University of Miami story on Sean:

We had one Thursday practice where we were getting ready to go up to Tallahassee and play FloridaState. Sean was having a bad practice, and I didn't feel like he was giving a great effort, so I called the team together. I said, 'Sean, you need to pick it up. I'm not taking you to Tallahassee. I'm leaving you at home.' It was an intense little discussion on Thursday. We finished it up and had a good practice. You know, you might want to look this up, I think he had 3 interceptions and returned one for a touchdown. He did about five things; he really won the game. Some of the coaches were saying, "Coach, I'm really glad you brought Sean today." It was a great head coaching decision on my part [laughing]. I hope you can find the stats on that because it was a phenomenal day. It rained the entire day in Tallahassee. It was a game we weren't suppose to win. We had lost our starting running back [Frank Gore] the week before. We were pretty heavy underdogs in Tallahassee. Sean went out and won the game for us.

And this Gregg Williams' quote is great too....

Early in his career we used to laugh after the fact and rant after the fact. It could be frustrating to coaches when he would abort his responsibilities in the defense because of his instinctive knowledge of where the ball was going and he'd go get the ball and it would not be his responsibility to make that play, but he would still make that play. I would be angry and get after him about violating the defense and not playing it the way it was, but I'd have to shake my head, because he also knew where the ball was going and he was right in most situations.