Jawaan Taylor film review: Meet the Chiefs new (left) tackle

Examining every snap in multiple games from Taylor last year to gauge what Kansas City has in their replacement for Orlando Brown Jr.

Sometimes even when you know, you don’t really know.

I wrote last week about how, if I were Brett Veach, I would sign Jawaan Taylor to play right tackle for the Chiefs. Less than 72 hours later, I turned out to be half right, as the Chiefs DID sign Taylor… but not to man the right tackle spot, but to take over at left tackle for the now-departed Orlando Brown Jr.

Brandon Thorn @BrandonThornNFL

This is surprising, but Taylor did play there at Florida (had a fun matchup vs. Brian Burns too) and if he is going to make the switch anywhere in the NFL, KC under Andy Heck/Reid is about the best possible spot to do it successfully.

James Palmer @JamesPalmerTV

So my understanding is that the #chiefs are out on Orlando Brown Jr moving forward. Jawaan Taylor is expected to play LT for KC.

It’s a bit of a twist that I didn’t see coming, though I very well could have had I been more familiar with Taylor’s skillset (we’ll talk about that shortly). The summary for the Chiefs’ thought process is that if they are correct, they get their franchise left tackle for non-market-breaking money.

Field Yates @FieldYates

Jawaan Taylor’s deal with the Chiefs is quite straightforward: Signing bonus: $18.9M 2023 base salary: $1.08M 2023 workout bonus: $20K 2024-2026: annual base salary of $19.5M and annual workout bonus of $500K He earns $20M in cash each year from KC.

That’s obviously a significant financial investment in a player, and their plan is to flip him to LT and make him their new “guy” at the position. And fans, understandably, had a lot of questions. As did I.

Before today, I knew very little about Taylor. And so I set out to remedy that gap in my knowledge, going to the 2022 tape to determine what sort of player he is. As ever, the only way to really know the truth about an offensive lineman is to go through their snaps and see how often they win/lose, while figuring out what their strengths and weaknesses are. And Taylor definitely has his strengths.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of tape to go over, as Taylor faced off against multiple high-level opponents last year from the right tackle spot. And so I chose to review every snap from his games against the Eagles, Colts, Raiders, and Cowboys. Those games featured plenty of snaps against Haason Riddick, Maxx Crosby, Micah Parsons, and Demarcus Lawrence, all very high-level players, along with a “control” of a group of more average edge rushers in Indianapolis (sorry Colts fans). And four games spread out over the course of the season is just enough of a sample size to get an idea of who a player is.

Let’s talk about Taylor’s film from last season, how it compared to Brown’s, and what his future may look like in Kansas City.