Taylor still feels the pain from 4-12 season
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@herald.com
Atlanta Falcons running back Warrick Dunn guesses that 55 percent of NFL players are addicted to painkillers.
Dunn is told that number sounds staggering.
He reconsiders for a moment, then says his estimate might be low.
Football hurts even without the losing. Add the pain of colliding with 330-pounders to the pain of embarrassing failure to the pain of seeing your team become a national punch line, and you have Jason Taylor's 2004. Taylor is the pretty face of this Dolphins franchise now, model-handsome and national-spokesman clean, and that face hasn't spent much time smiling lately through all the pain.
''This,'' he says, ``is the life we've chosen.''
He knows nobody wants to hear a millionaire athlete whimper, so Taylor offers you a Godfather mafia quote instead. Taylor enjoys quoting movies, as teammates and opponents alike have learned when his rage starts gurgling lava-like on the field.
''You ever see Pulp Fiction?'' Taylor asks. ``Remember when Samuel L. Jackson was in the back seat of the car, cleaning up brain?''
Yep.
DAY AT THE MOVIES
''[Jackson] went off on John Travolta,'' Taylor says. ''John Travolta said he was in the red, and that you don't put a race car in the red. And Samuel L. Jackson said. . . .'' Well, he said what Taylor spits on the field when he, too, is revving well past the red.
``I'm a mushroom-cloud laying, mother [very bad word], mother [very bad word]!''
It is an uncharacteristic spew of vulgarity from a religious man who is very image-conscious and is disgusted by what he calls a ''bullcrap'' need for street credibility from the likes of Terrell Owens and Randy Moss.
''[The mushroom-cloud laying] will definitely appear during practice when things get heated in training camp and people are talking a little bit,'' Taylor says. ``And it'll show up in the Jets game when it gets a little heated and guys start pushing and shoving and somebody tries me about being too small. Or when they finally block me on a play and they act like they've figured out the cure for cancer. That's when I start getting really worked up.''
You know who brings out the most metaphorical mushroom clouds?
Those lovable Jets fans.
''The sophisticated people in New York like the Wall Streeters and the people who are really doing something with themselves -- they're Giants fans,'' Taylor says. ``And everybody else, all the ones who got kicked out of New York and moved to Miami and live in all the places we didn't want to live in Miami, they root for the other guys.''
QUIETING FANS
Taylor didn't have much room for mushroom-cloud-laying after 4-12, so he steamed when he ran into a barking Jets fan at a golf tournament this offseason.
''He had plenty to say,'' Taylor says now. ``I took that big driver out of the bag and put it up on my shoulder, and he took off.''
Taylor is one of the only elite players this proud franchise has now. He cares more than you can imagine and is unreasonably proud and competitive, angering even when losing to his wife at board games. That's why he calls last year ''a season from hell'' and welcomes new, angry leadership even as he calls Dave Wannstedt a friend. Taylor doesn't need more friends; he needs more wins. So he enjoys that Nick Saban comes wrapped in enough wrath to make a defensive lineman cry and sometimes makes Taylor himself ''curl up,'' in Taylor's words.
''He goes off sometimes, but I think it's good,'' Taylor says of Saban. ``When people make mistakes and are repeatedly messing up over and over again, at some point you've got to grab them by the back of the neck and slap them.''
Manny Wright crying?
''I've never seen a grown man cry like that over that, but whatever,'' Taylor says. ``I think [Saban] got his point across, and I think Manny grew up a little bit. He might have gotten a month older or three months older or a year older, but somehow, someway he got a little older and he grew up from it. This group of players needed accountability, and I think that's the biggest thing coming from Nick. This is what we need. We underachieved last year. We [stunk].''
Hard to say which Taylor dislikes more -- losing, Jets fans or offensive linemen.
''A necessary evil, like quarterbacks,'' Taylor calls linemen. 'They do all the dirty stuff and then act like they're ignorant about it, like they didn't know. `Oh, I didn't know I was holding you,' and somebody came from behind and chop blocked you and almost ended your career. They all kind of act stupid.''
Taylor didn't like looking stupid with a 4-12 and last place attached to his name as he fought the pain and the losing and Jets fans and linemen outweighing him by 70 and 80 pounds.
But a new season approaches.
The mushroom clouds are on the horizon.
He is just mad that is he old and going to retire without even getting close to a Super Bowl ring :thumb:
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@herald.com
Atlanta Falcons running back Warrick Dunn guesses that 55 percent of NFL players are addicted to painkillers.
Dunn is told that number sounds staggering.
He reconsiders for a moment, then says his estimate might be low.
Football hurts even without the losing. Add the pain of colliding with 330-pounders to the pain of embarrassing failure to the pain of seeing your team become a national punch line, and you have Jason Taylor's 2004. Taylor is the pretty face of this Dolphins franchise now, model-handsome and national-spokesman clean, and that face hasn't spent much time smiling lately through all the pain.
''This,'' he says, ``is the life we've chosen.''
He knows nobody wants to hear a millionaire athlete whimper, so Taylor offers you a Godfather mafia quote instead. Taylor enjoys quoting movies, as teammates and opponents alike have learned when his rage starts gurgling lava-like on the field.
''You ever see Pulp Fiction?'' Taylor asks. ``Remember when Samuel L. Jackson was in the back seat of the car, cleaning up brain?''
Yep.
DAY AT THE MOVIES
''[Jackson] went off on John Travolta,'' Taylor says. ''John Travolta said he was in the red, and that you don't put a race car in the red. And Samuel L. Jackson said. . . .'' Well, he said what Taylor spits on the field when he, too, is revving well past the red.
``I'm a mushroom-cloud laying, mother [very bad word], mother [very bad word]!''
It is an uncharacteristic spew of vulgarity from a religious man who is very image-conscious and is disgusted by what he calls a ''bullcrap'' need for street credibility from the likes of Terrell Owens and Randy Moss.
''[The mushroom-cloud laying] will definitely appear during practice when things get heated in training camp and people are talking a little bit,'' Taylor says. ``And it'll show up in the Jets game when it gets a little heated and guys start pushing and shoving and somebody tries me about being too small. Or when they finally block me on a play and they act like they've figured out the cure for cancer. That's when I start getting really worked up.''
You know who brings out the most metaphorical mushroom clouds?
Those lovable Jets fans.
''The sophisticated people in New York like the Wall Streeters and the people who are really doing something with themselves -- they're Giants fans,'' Taylor says. ``And everybody else, all the ones who got kicked out of New York and moved to Miami and live in all the places we didn't want to live in Miami, they root for the other guys.''
QUIETING FANS
Taylor didn't have much room for mushroom-cloud-laying after 4-12, so he steamed when he ran into a barking Jets fan at a golf tournament this offseason.
''He had plenty to say,'' Taylor says now. ``I took that big driver out of the bag and put it up on my shoulder, and he took off.''
Taylor is one of the only elite players this proud franchise has now. He cares more than you can imagine and is unreasonably proud and competitive, angering even when losing to his wife at board games. That's why he calls last year ''a season from hell'' and welcomes new, angry leadership even as he calls Dave Wannstedt a friend. Taylor doesn't need more friends; he needs more wins. So he enjoys that Nick Saban comes wrapped in enough wrath to make a defensive lineman cry and sometimes makes Taylor himself ''curl up,'' in Taylor's words.
''He goes off sometimes, but I think it's good,'' Taylor says of Saban. ``When people make mistakes and are repeatedly messing up over and over again, at some point you've got to grab them by the back of the neck and slap them.''
Manny Wright crying?
''I've never seen a grown man cry like that over that, but whatever,'' Taylor says. ``I think [Saban] got his point across, and I think Manny grew up a little bit. He might have gotten a month older or three months older or a year older, but somehow, someway he got a little older and he grew up from it. This group of players needed accountability, and I think that's the biggest thing coming from Nick. This is what we need. We underachieved last year. We [stunk].''
Hard to say which Taylor dislikes more -- losing, Jets fans or offensive linemen.
''A necessary evil, like quarterbacks,'' Taylor calls linemen. 'They do all the dirty stuff and then act like they're ignorant about it, like they didn't know. `Oh, I didn't know I was holding you,' and somebody came from behind and chop blocked you and almost ended your career. They all kind of act stupid.''
Taylor didn't like looking stupid with a 4-12 and last place attached to his name as he fought the pain and the losing and Jets fans and linemen outweighing him by 70 and 80 pounds.
But a new season approaches.
The mushroom clouds are on the horizon.
He is just mad that is he old and going to retire without even getting close to a Super Bowl ring :thumb:
