Top 10 offensive tackles in the 2019 NFL Draft

#2. Jawaan Taylor, Florida

Taylor was highly recruited coming out of high school but needed to shed some weight off the 380 pounds he had at that point. His efforts were rewarded in Gainesville, starting all but one game in his first year and earning Freshman All-American honors. He played in all 11 games as a sophomore, splitting time between the right and left side. While he didn’t receive any All-SEC honors, Taylor was widely regarded as one of the nation’s top offensive linemen last season

This kid has excellent length at 6’5” with 35-inch arms. He aims his pads towards the sideline and washes down the defensive end on run plays that way. Taylor plays with that tenacious attitude to put people on the ground once he takes them off balance. He gets on the move with ease, whether that may be kicking out the D-end on counter plays or putting hands on people in space. Taylor also has the ability to turn the pads of a down-lineman by just lending a handing to set up his teammate and instantly moving on to a linebacker, while creating major movement on combo-blocks working back to the inside. Taylor does a nice job sealing the back-side by taking a vertical step and turning his pads 90 degrees in order to force his man to go through him. He also displays loose hips when he is moving down the line on zone-plays and adjusts at the last second to the backside linebacker trying to shoot in behind his back. In the screen, he just wallops smaller bodies.

With the way Taylor pops out of his stance you think he commits false starts at times. He is very patient in his pass sets, getting good depth with his horse-kicks and squaring up his rusher while being able to quicken it up against true speed rushers and keeping that post-leg ready to react to inside counters. Once his man gets a good step on him, Taylor turns and rides him upfield to negate any pressure. He has the base power to re-anchor against bull-rushers by dropping his hips and getting his hands back underneath the pads of his opponent. He has excellent grip and upper body strength to stymie the rush once he is engaged with a defender off play-action. Taylor is active enough with his slide to pick up blitzing DBs and makes them pay for coming his way. Overall the Florida tackle allowed just 11 total pressures on more than 800 overall snaps last season, despite facing some of the best pass rushers in the SEC, including Kentucky’s freakish Josh Allen, who couldn’t touch the opposing quarterback when matched up against this guy.

Taylor needs to play with some better ankle flexion and knee bend in the run game, as he got away with hooking some defenders and getting control over them with his arms, which won’t be the same in the pros, while his hands land near the neck region at times. Occasionally he gets caught stopping his feet against up-and-under moves and will over-set to the outside. Taylor was drawn for a false start on the first play at Mississippi State last year because the D-line shifted and has been prone to jumping early these last two years. He also sat out the team’s first offensive series in the 2018 season-opener because he “didn’t meet the Gator standards”.

Taylor is a guy who just makes playing the position look effortless. He is probably best suited to remain at the right tackle spot. With some work on the flexibility in his lower body to enable him to play with better pad level and leg drive, he could develop into an even better run blocker with excellent feet to along in protection. I wouldn’t be shocked if he went inside the top ten.