Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

kind of standoffish. It was hard for me to get in contact with him,” Gibbs said. “He wouldn’t return phone calls. Now once you got him on the field, he was great. As a matter of fact, this guy loved football. He felt like he was made to play football. He probably could have been a running back; he could have been a heckuva receiver. We played him some at receiver. He was obviously a great safety. But he also could have been a corner. Real competitive.”
    Taylor’s personality didn’t change much in his rookie year: great player, tough to get to know. But he was the foundation that Gibbs knew he could build his defense around even though Taylor was running into problems off the field. Gibbs suspended him one game his rookie year after Taylor was arrested for driving under the influence, charges that later were dropped. Taylor’s father, Pedro, was the chief of police in Florida City, and so he should have known right from wrong, but he was a young man with a lot of money in his pocket and was still trying to figure things out. The NFL fined him $71,764 for violating the personal conduct policy when he was charged with a felony count of aggravated assault with a firearm for brandishing a gun in 2005. Taylor took a plea agreement of two misdemeanors and received eighteen months probation. He had been fined seven times by the NFL for late hits. He spit on Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Michael Pittman in a playoff game after the 2005 season. Like a lot of players, Taylor needed to grow up. He came out of Miami after his junior season and was just twenty-one years old when he entered the NFL. The football is always the easy part.It’s being out on their own, the new and vastly improved financial situation, the after-hours temptations—those are the things that often provide the biggest impediment to success.
    Gibbs was not only a great coach but very spiritual. He had a way of reaching his players, even those who seemed lost. Taylor was putting his people skills to the test. “The way you react to him is you’re trying to win him over,” Gibbs said.
    If Taylor felt people around him were trying to take advantage of him and in return he was not trusting, Gibbs at least wanted Taylor to trust him. So Gibbs made a special effort with him. “You get a player like that, and all of a sudden he’s got a lot of money in his deal, so you are trying to work through that,” Gibbs said. “This guy could be a very, very valuable part of what we’re doing here in the future. When you got him on the field, he really was a leader right off the bat. You’re wanting to develop a relationship with him as a coach. Every player is not going to love his coach, but you want his respect and to have a chance. You are kind of wanting all of them to love the Redskins and have a great relationship with you. That’s not going to happen, but you would like to win most of them over.”
    The Redskins were just 6–10 in Gibbs’s first season. Not to worry. He had been only 8–8 in his first season with the Redskins in 1981 after losing the first five games. He won the Super Bowl in his second season. That season was reduced to just nine games as a result of the fifty-seven-day strike, turning the year from the usual marathon into a sprint. Redskins fans knew Gibbs was the real deal when he beat Tom Landry in the NFC championship game and then one week later beat Don Shula in the Super Bowl.
    Once again, in his second act, the Redskins improved in Gibbs’s second season. In 2005, the Redskins were 10–6 and made the playoffs as a wild card. They beat the Bucs in the first round before losing to the Seahawks. Back on the NASCAR circuit, Gibbs’s team won its third Sprint Cup Series championship. It was a good year.
    Gibbs started to notice a change in Taylor before his third season. Taylor had met Jackie Garcia while they were at Gulliver Prep high school in Miami. Taylor was infatuated. She was the niece of the actor Andy Garcia. He