Air Force S Trey Taylor a perfect prospect for Cardinals to honor Pat Tillman
Going out on a realistic limb to advocate for Cardinals 7th-round pick in honor of Pat Tillman
Then Arizona Cardinals are scheduled to have five picks on Day 3 of the draft, including the final one at No. 226, the same slot at which the team selected Pat Tillman in the seventh round of the 1998 draft.
Through its Salute to Service initiative, in which the Pat Tillman Foundation is an NFL partner, the NFL will honor the legacy of Tillman Saturday when two Tillman Scholars will make the announcement of the team’s seventh-round choice: Jeremy Glasstetter and Deborah Trimble.
Glasstetter is an Army veteran and a member of the inaugural class of Tillman Scholars. He continues to serve his community as a State of Michigan employee.
Trimble is an Air Force veteran and current Tillman Scholar at the University of Michigan where she is pursuing a medical degree to support the military community.
It would be fitting if the Cardinals join in the honor by selecting Air Force safety Trey Taylor with that choice. Taylor was named winner of the Pat Tillman Award at the East-West Shrine Bowl in early February given to a player that exemplifies character, intelligence, sportsmanship and service.
On the field, this would be an excellent fit for the Cardinals, considering most draft analysts have Taylor projected as a seventh-round pick or priority free agent. The Cardinals need safety depth and while Taylor doesn’t have great speed, he is a student of the game and checks all the character boxes the Cardinals covet.
His father Tyree, a former linebacker at SMU, had him watching tape when he was six years old and Trey said, “I had a football in my hands literally right after birth.”
In addition, Pro Football Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed is a cousin by marriage and Tyree and Reed have been close friends since high school. Reed has been a mentor for Trey.
“I can call him and talk about anything football-wise,” he said. “He gives me all types of input when it comes down to postgame. We’ll sit down and talk for 30 minutes to an hour just about small things going on — what he saw in the game, what I can fix, things that he did in his game that I can put into mine and just to create a little bit bigger toolbox for me, how he reads things with the quarterback, how he reads things with the receivers, how he reads things with linemen.
“There are some things that he’s shown me with quarterback intentions just in game film that you can see, ‘OK, he did this, this and this for the first three games in the season. He’s not just going to change it up this game because of who he’s playing.’ Look at these similarities and attack that weakness that you see.”
While Taylor’s talent has been picked apart by analysts, he simply says, “I love the question marks. I love proving people wrong.”
As for receiving the Tillman award, when asked on SiriusXM NFL Radio recently what an honor that was, he said, “It was huge. I had to do a lot of soul searching after that. You know, war. Because I’m in a very similar position that Pat Tillman was in. For him to give that up to go fight for his country made me sit back and ask myself, ‘What would I do realistically in his situation?’
“And that took me (through) a lot of reflecting, a lot of time to deal with that. But that just made me respect him even more because I know sorta where he was in his journey and his mentality and so being able to carry that award with me is huge. It’s crazy that I was able to even win that and being able to carry on his legacy that’s tied to my name and my family forever, so it’s a blessing.”
What a blessing it would be to continue to carry it further by playing for the Cardinals.
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