S.F. great Taylor offered Aiyuk sage advice
Last year, when John Taylor was sharing the stage with Jerry Rice at a San Francisco 49ers charity event in San Jose, the former wide receivers laughed as they told the audience about their opposing pregame approaches.
Rice followed an elaborate warm-up routine. And Taylor did far more sleeping than stretching.
“Before the games, they’d be in the locker room stretching and running back and forth,” Taylor said. “I’d come in — matter of fact, I’d catch the last bus to the stadium — and I’d get dressed halfway and then I‘d tell someone, ‘Hey wake me up when we’re about ready to go out.’ ”
Given that, it’s no surprise to hear what advice Taylor, 62, offered to Brandon Aiyuk just over two years ago when the young 49ers wide receiver had yet to find his NFL groove: relax.
Taylor sidled up to Aiyuk, then a first-round pick in his second season, on a bus ride to practice the day before the 49ers’ loss to the Rams in the NFC Championship Game in January 2022, a game in which Taylor served as an honorary captain.
“I introduced myself to him and I told him, ‘Brandon, listen: I watched your whole career at (Arizona State). You are a helluva receiver, man,” Taylor said Monday night after he was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. “‘This is just my advice to you. You can take it or leave it, but this is my advice to you: Stop overthinking. Just go play. Let your ability take over.’ ”
Was the counsel from the Pro Bowler who spent his nine-year career with the 49ers helpful? Well, it’s fair to say this: It apparently didn’t hurt.
After averaging 58 catches and 787 yards in his first two years, Aiyuk has averaged 76.5 receptions and 1,178.5 yards the past two seasons. In the process, he became the 49ers’ first wideout with back-to-back 1,000yard seasons since Anquan Boldin (2013-2014) and earned second-team All-Pro honors last year.
The 49ers and Aiyuk have been working on a contract extension that could make him one of the league’s highest-paid receivers. Two years ago, it wasn’t clear that he’d merit a second contract and it was around that time that Taylor told 49ers general manager John Lynch that he could relate to Aiyuk’s growing pains.
Like Aiyuk, Taylor didn’t break out until his third season, when in 1989 he had the first of two 1,000-yard campaigns. Before that, Taylor, a third-round pick from Delaware State, had 23 catches in 24 career games and didn’t have full confidence he could flourish in the NFL.
“(Aiyuk is) just thinking too much,” Taylor said he told Lynch. “He’s just got to go play, let his ability take over. I know that feeling: In his mind, he’s wondering and he has to stop wondering.”
There are notable similarities between Aiyuk and Taylor, who also specialized in over-themiddle catches, was a ferocious run blocker and had jaw-dropping athleticism. At last year’s charity event, Rice said Taylor, who is 6-foot-1, could dunk from a stationary position and casually do backflips. Fans first saw Aiyuk’s rare physical gifts when he hurdled Eagles safety Marcus Epps on a 38-yard touchdown run in his fourth NFL game as a rookie in 2020.
However, Taylor humorously noted what he doesn’t have in common with Aiyuk, or any of the modern-day 49ers.
Before the NFC Championship Game against the Rams in which Taylor was a captain, he stood outside the 49ers’ locker room, waiting for the players to emerge. And he thought of his former coach, Bill Walsh, when many of the players exited dancing to a song blaring from an oversized boom box.
“All of a sudden, I hear this, ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ Rap music,” Taylor said. “And I turned around and I’m like, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ And the door busts open and here the team comes. And I’m standing there thinking in my mind, ‘There ain’t no way in hell Bill would let us do that. There ain’t no way.’ ”