Training to play: New workouts paying dividends for guard Taylor.
New aggressive workouts helping guard on the field
Green Bay — It might have been Lane Taylor’s darkest hour. It also could prove to be the turning point of his career.
Taylor, the Green Bay Packers’ third-year backup guard, has been a mini-revelation four practices into training camp. He looks like a different player. Why? Taylor goes back to that Sunday night game in New Orleans when he got his butt kicked in the 44-23 shellacking and then resolved to get it in gear.
“I was terrible,” the amiable Taylor admitted Monday. “I know I can play better than that. That’s been the motivation for this.”
The Packers were so thin in the offensive line a year ago that JC Tretter basically became the No. 1 reserve at five positions over the final 10 games even though he was a liability everywhere except center.
The depth behind one of the NFL’s finest starting groups has a chance to improve markedly with Tretter at center, a healthy Don Barclay at tackle and a shaped-up Taylor at guard.
Taylor, 6 foot 3 inches and 320 pounds, has had the chance to start at left guard the last few days with Josh Sitton taking it easy. It’s probably safe to say that this small window of football is the best he has ever played.
“You can just see it in him,” said defensive end Datone Jones, the firstround pick in the rookie class of 2013 that included Taylor as a free agent. “His whole body is better.
“He’s playing more aggressive. His mind is playing faster. He’s playing harder.”
Taylor is off to a 6-0-1 record in two days of one-on-one pass rushing. Previously, his records in the drill were 1613-2 in 2013 and 9-5-2 in ’14.
On Monday, Taylor anchored up for a triumph against bull-rushing Mike Daniels, who “my rookie year was truckin’ me,” remembered Taylor.
In other turns, he has pancaked rookie Christian Ringo and handled a nasty spin move by Bruce Gaston.
“I really got after it this off-season in the weight room and on the field,” Taylor said. “I guess it’s showing up out there.”
Taylor, a four-year starter at right guard at Oklahoma State, didn’t earn a roster berth as a rookie by slacking off. To the contrary, his try-hard, physical approach probably won him the final interior job over Patrick Lewis, who started four games for Seattle last season and is competing to start at center this year.
But Taylor readily acknowledged that it wasn’t until this winter and spring that he began to work like a true pro.
“I put in a lot more hours this year,” he said. “I know how to attack my workout. Hit it hard. Lift more weights. I’m 320, same as last year, but my body fat is down.”
Taylor confined his workouts to the Packers’ facility, where he says strength coach Mark Lovat “got me right.”
Interspersed with the strength and on-field work were film sessions in which the New Orleans tape was reviewed.
T.J. Lang was lost with an ankle injury after five plays, and Taylor was sent in at right guard. In 63 snaps, he was charged with three of the team’s seven “bad” runs. His pass protection was more competitive, but he still allowed two pressures.
“He can’t play,” one personnel man said not long after watching Taylor’s performance. “He was stepping and not getting his second foot down. In pass pro he was always grabbing with his hands.”
Tyrunn Walker, a backup defensive tackle now in Detroit, and starter Akiem Hicks did all the damage against Taylor. Walker blew up Taylor on a failed fourth-and-1 run by Eddie Lacy.
Taylor came to play the next week and was better in a nine-play stint against Chicago. After playing merely 14 snaps as a rookie, he had 128 in 2014.
Some might have told Taylor to forget New Orleans, given that the venue was one of the loudest in the league and he had almost no reps in practice with the No. 1 offense.
“Yeah, it was a little tough,” he said. “It was the first time I ever got thrown in.”
Taylor stopped well short of using the Superdome and circumstances as an excuse. Rather, he used the bad night as inspiration.
“The New Orleans game opened my eyes and showed how far I need to go,” he said. “I realized it’s my third year, and it’s time.
“I learned a lot from that game. I definitely built from that game. It was good for me. I got thrown in the fire and I got the experience.”
Factors why Taylor wasn’t drafted would be short arms (31¾ inches) and marginal athleticism. His 5.36-second 40-yard dash, 24½-inch vertical jump and 8-0 broad jump don’t fit the athletic ideal for an NFL guard.
His saving grace is strength (31 reps on the bench press), large hands (10 3⁄8), toughness and durability.
Taylor’s spot amid the cherry-wood cubicles in the Packers’ plush locker room once belonged to Charles Woodson. No two players could be less alike, but at long last Taylor has seen for himself one of the reasons why Woodson was a superstar.
“A lot of it is just playing with confidence,” he said, a realization offered by most successful pro football players. “I’m playing with a lot more confidence.”