Taywan Taylor: Catch Him If You Can

by Craig Wambold ·

Height: 5-11
Weight: 203
Age: 22.0
Age: 21.6
40-Yard Dash: 4.50 (65th percentile)
Height-adjusted Speed Score (HaSS)96.3 (54th percentile)
Burst Score: 123.0 (60th percentile)
Agility Score: 10.78 (92nd percentile)
Catch Radius: 10.01 (50th percentile)

Best Comparable: Doug Baldwin

A 4-year starter at Western Kentucky, Taywan Taylor piled up statistics to the tune of 253 career receptions, 4234 yards and 41 touchdowns. His senior season was the pinnacle as it saw him finish No. 5 in the country with 98 receptions and No. 3 with 1730 yards and 17 touchdowns. Taylor’s 38.6-percent College Dominator Rating, measuring his share of Western Kentucky’s receiving yards and touchdowns, which is 75th-percentile among NFL wide receivers. Taylor’s three-consecutive seasons with a 17.0-plus yard per reception at the college level is one of the most impressive accomplishments among the NFL Draft-eligible wide receivers in 2017.

Taywan Taylor tests out average or above in nearly every metric of his profile according to PlayerProfiler.com making him one of the most athletic wide receivers in the 2017 NFL Draft. Taylor’s 10.78 (91st percentile) Agility Score displays the shiftiness that made him nearly untouchable on bubble screens, jet sweeps and yards after the catch and one of the best in his draft class in the open field.

Taywan Taylor’s Advanced Stats & Metrics Profile

Taywan Taylor’s 4.50, 66th-percentile, 40-yard dash to go along with 17.7 college yards per reception show that Taylor should not only be seen as a “gadget guy” but also as a situational deep threat and a prototypical slot/flanker in the NFL.

Despite the speed and agility, Taywan Taylor does have a few red flags on his profile. His 20.5 Breakout Age places him in the 49th-percentile. His 96.3 Height-adjusted Speed Score (HaSS) in the 54th-percentile and underwhelming 104.1 Sparq-x Score, in the 45th-percentile, disappoint for a player of his stature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNA8opsUSUs&t=20s

Taywan Taylor needs to show he is more than just a byproduct of the Western Kentucky offense where he was not asked to create space for himself. His underwhelming speed for his size leaves me with a lot of apprehension about his future in the NFL. If there is a silver lining it is that Taylor’s closest comparable player according to PlayerProfiler is Doug Baldwin, another NFL wide receiver who also relies on agility and quickness despite his lackluster speed-score.