What’s gotten into Darrell Taylor? Better hands, smarter speed revive Seahawks’ pass rush

The Seahawks’ high-speed Bugatti got sent to the garage.

Benched.

Speedy Darrell Taylor was much like his entire Seattle defense for most of this season: a liability. The Seahawks changed their defensive scheme from a 4-3 to a faster, more varied 3-4 this season. It’s a system, well, Taylor-made for Seattle’s second-round draft choice in 2020 flying off the edge.

Yet coaches reduced him from a full-time starting outside linebacker in September to a situational part-timer by November. He couldn’t set the defense’s left edge against the run. Offenses ran at and past him en route to the most yards rushing being allowed by a Seahawks defense in team history, more than 170 yards per game.

More damning, Taylor wasn’t effectively doing what his unique speed has him in the NFL to do: rush and pressure opposing quarterbacks. He couldn’t beat offensive tackles. He took scenic-route tours of fields, nowhere near the passer. His rushes were so wide and deep up the field, quarterbacks barely saw him before he disappeared out of plays.

He was like an electric-football plastic guy with his control base set to the wrong azimuth. He was buzzing in the opposite direction of the action.

He was playing as few as a dozen plays in a game as recently as Dec. 11 against Carolina. That was a game Seahawks coaches deemed Taylor just could not be on the field, not with the Panthers 46 times for 223 yards and two touchdowns in beating Seattle.

Through 11 Seahawks games, Taylor had just three sacks.

“Yeah, it was pretty tough not playing the way you wanted to play,” he said Thursday.

But tough got going.

Now the Seahawks’ supersonic racer is zooming again. He has 5 1/2 sacks in the last month, including 2 1/2 last weekend when the Jets fell behind Seattle by two scores early and had to throw.

Taylor’s previously lost season now includes 8 1/2 sacks. That’s two more than he had in his 2021 season, his first full one for Seattle. Complications from leg surgery in the winter of 2020 sidelined him for his entire rookie season.

Taylor is just behind Uchenna Nwosu’s nine sacks for the team lead entering Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field.

Speed, and hands, for Darrell Taylor

What’s changed for what was perhaps the most underachieving, disappointing — and disappointed — Seahawks player of the fall?

“Speed is not the only thing that you can use,” Taylor said. “You have to use your hands.

“And I think in the beginning of the season, I wasn’t really doing that. I was relying on my speed more than anything, thinking I can just run around the edge.”

He learned, the hard way, that when he did that, just ran around the edge hard up the field, “the quarterback will mostly just step up.”

“I thought that was the only thing that I could do,” he said. “But now, going through the season and seeing how the season went, the coaching staff helped me get better at using my hands by emphasizing it each week and everything like that. I think that has helped me a lot going into the second half.”

So has noticing what’s going on around him.

Taylor said he and the Seahawks saw early in last weekend’s game Jets center Connor McGovern was tipping when he was about to snap the ball. That’s how Taylor got such quick jumps off the line, almost untouched past former Seahawks offensive tackle George Fant. Multiple times, including on Taylor’s sacks of Mike White, Fant looked back at the officials in the backfield pleading Taylor must have been offside to get that good of a jump past him into the quarterback.

“Oh definitely, yeah. We knew that we had a tip on the center, so we used it,” Taylor said, “and it worked out on my (be)half.”

Defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt and coach Pete Carroll say efficiency with Taylor’s speed has been the reason for more sacks, and more playing time. He played 43 snaps last weekend against the Jets, his most since week five at New Orleans in early October.

After that loss to the Saints, the Seahawks signed back 35-year-old outside linebacker Bruce Irvin off his couch to pair with Nwosu. They played rookie outside linebacker Boye Mafe more. They played Taylor a lot less.

“Credit to his growth through that process to figure things out,” Hurtt said. “You can go one of two ways with young players as they develop: You can either baby guys and give them what they want, and they turn into a terror to deal with when they become seven, eight, nine-year veterans; or you help them grow through the process.”

Specifically, that process involved Taylor changing his approach and technique to pass rushing.

“About a month ago, it made some sense to him about featuring his strengths and really trying to maximize the speed rushes that he is so good at,” Carroll said. “I think it has kicked him into a different gear. He’s out there more, and he’s trying to maximize his ability to run around guys.

“He has a great get off, and he’s very athletic. And that’s his strength, as opposed on trying to do too many things and maybe watering down his good shots at getting to the quarterback. He’s zeroed in. It’s clear that he has changed, and he’s hotter with his pass rush right now.

“You better get ready, he’s flying. He’s flying at you.”

A spin move to nowhere

About a month ago, the outgoing, bopping-around Taylor was frustrated.

Carroll sat him down. The messages?

“Staying tight to the fight,” Taylor said. “Whether you are getting punched, reducing your surface, and getting around the edge, you have to take some blows to give some. Just doing that, trying not to be too clean or too perfect.”

Another one: Don’t rely on a spin move that wasn’t gaining him any separation on blockers. Offensive tackles’ hands often remained on Taylor’ throughout his spin, defeating the purpose of the move and resulting in wasted motion and lost time pass rushing.

At the University of Tennessee, Taylor didn’t need a spin move. He was just faster than blockers to get to QBs.

“He hasn’t been a big spin guy in his history. Lots of times, it takes guys a while to develop that if it isn’t natural for them,” Carroll said. “It wasn’t just natural for him. He didn’t do it a lot in college.

“But it’s coming. He’s so coordinated, and it’ll be a part of his game. It will be a big factor as he continues to work on the speed stuff.”

A playoff debut?

He still needs to improve his edge setting against the run to be an every-down player. But Sunday, Taylor will try to get to his goal of 10 sacks this season. He needs 1 1/2 against Baker Mayfield and the Rams.

Seattle has to win and have Detroit win at Green Bay Sunday night to make the playoffs for the ninth time in 11 years.

The last time the Seahawks made the postseason, Taylor was at home watching on television. It was at the end of the 2020 season, when he was still out from the leg surgery. NFL COVID restrictions prohibited injured, inactive players from being on the sidelines or in stadiums during games. So Taylor watched the Seahawks’ wild-card playoff loss to the Rams at Lumen Field as you did, from his couch.

“That was definitely different, having to watch it from home,” he said. “It was, for sure, a different experience than it is now.”

Now he’s flying off the edge again, wanting to get into his first postseason.

“Oh my gosh, so badly. I want to play in a playoff game so badly, and I want it for the team so badly, because I feel like we deserve it just by how our season went,” Taylor said. “The ups and downs, highs and lows, I feel like we deserve it and I feel like if we go and we get in, then it’s a clean slate and let’s go to work.

“I’m excited, I hope we get our opportunity.”