HOUSTON — It was 2018 in Cleveland, and tight end Pharaoh Brown spotted quarterback Tyrod Taylor walking out of the weight room.
It was not long after Taylor had to leave the Browns’ Thursday night game in Week 3 with a concussion, a game in which rookie Baker Mayfield took over down 14-0 and won for the team’s first victory since 2016. Although the Browns said Taylor would be their starting quarterback that season, Mayfield played well enough to hold on to the job.
So when Brown walked by the starter-turned-backup quarterback, he had a question for him.
“I was like, ‘Dang, bro. How are you so happy and come to work every day with a smile?’”
Taylor’s response has stuck with Brown, who is once again teammates with Taylor in Houston, where Taylor is slated to start on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“He was like, ‘No matter what happens, you have to come in and do your job and do what they pay you to do,’” Brown said. “And I always remember that, so even when I faced adversity, it was just like, ‘control what you can control’ and just come to work and everything will take care of itself.”
That work ethic and mindset is one of the reasons Texans coach David Culley — who was Taylor’s position coach in Buffalo in 2017 — wanted the 32-year-old when he took over this offseason.
“As a quarterback, you always want that guy to be the first guy in and the last guy out,” Culley said. “He’s that guy. He’s been that guy his whole career. He was that guy when he was in Baltimore as a backup. He always worked like he was the starter. When he became the starter, there was nothing any different.
“He’s a leader, he’s a winner and he is exactly what you want taking snaps from the center and leading your football team.”
Taylor’s career might seem snake bitten since he was traded by the Buffalo Bills in 2018. He has started four games over the past three seasons — in part due to injuries — after starting 43 for Buffalo from 2015-17. But as he enters his 11th NFL season, with a chance to play a full season for the first time since he led the Bills to the playoffs in 2017, Taylor has embraced the “control what you can control” mindset — something he learned from his last two stops in the NFL.
“If anything, last year, 2020 taught us all, not just athletes, that of course first and foremost your health is very important, of course to yourself, obviously, but to others as well,” Taylor said of playing during the COVID-19 pandemic. “… It also taught us that you have to be ready for change at any given point.”
Change is something Taylor knows well.
Cleveland, 2018
The Browns traded for Taylor on May 9, 2018 — the same day Cleveland traded its 2017 starter, Deshon Kizer, to the Green Bay Packers. But Cleveland had used the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft on Mayfield.
Drew Stanton was also in the Browns’ quarterback room that season with Taylor and Mayfield and said the “plan all along” was for Taylor to remain the starter.
“That room was unique in the sense that you had a first overall pick, but they were going to try and get the team as good as they could before they threw Baker out there because of some of the issues they had,” Stanton said.
Taylor, who was a sixth-rounder for the Baltimore Ravens in the 2011 draft, was known as a high-character player during his time in Buffalo, and the Browns knew he was the right guy to help the transition.
Taylor started the first three games for the Browns, including a tie with the Steelers for the Browns’ first season-opening non-loss since 2004. Then there was a close loss in New Orleans the following week — a game Taylor says Cleveland “should have won” — and the Jets game where Mayfield took over after Taylor suffered his third concussion in 13 months.
Stanton said Taylor continued to be the first person in the building in the mornings and the quarterback’s attitude “didn’t change at all.”
“That’s what I was most impressed about,” Stanton said. “I said, ‘Look, everybody’s got their eyes on you. The way you’ve carried yourself, I have so much respect for you.’
“And I respected him a lot before that and I was just blown away by how [Tyrod] … continued to approach it the same way as if he were the starter. He still showed up earlier than everybody else. He was still doing everything, still very engaged and very involved.”
Taylor said losing the job in the way that he did was “tough to swallow,” but that sometimes “that’s just how the dice rolls.”
“My mindset had to shift at that point to, ‘How can I help my team be better?'” Taylor said. “… To lose the job after that was definitely tough. But I think everything that has happened in my career up until this point has definitely prepared me and allowed me to keep a clear headspace to attack any obstacle with the right mindset and with a positive outlook on it and just focus on being the best person I can in every situation.”
Los Angeles, 2019-2020
Although the Browns wanted Taylor back in Cleveland in 2019, he opted to sign a two-year deal with the Los Angeles Chargers. After sitting behind Philip Rivers in his final season with the team, Taylor was named the starting quarterback for the 2020 season.
Again, there was a young quarterback in waiting. Justin Herbert was taken with the No. 6 overall pick in that year’s draft, and the plan was for Taylor to start. But once again Taylor’s tenure as starter was shortlived.
Taylor cracked two of his ribs during the Chargers’ first offensive drive in the season-opening win over the Cincinnati Bengals. He finished that game, and was preparing for a divisional matchup in Week 2 against the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. But a Chargers team doctor tried to give Taylor a pain-killing injection just before kickoff and accidentally punctured Taylor’s lung.
“How it happened was kind of crazy,” Taylor said. “It was a little more serious than the concussion when I was in Cleveland. More so, once that happened, I had to shift to, ‘Is everything going to be all right?’ first.”
Taylor went to the hospital because he was struggling to breathe. Herbert started that game and every other game the rest of the season. He went on to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Taylor once again shifted his role to mentoring the young quarterback who took over for him when he was injured.
And although Taylor said there’s “no bad feeling towards whatever happened” in Los Angeles, the way his Chargers career ended become a source of motivation.
“You learn from it, you move forward,” Taylor said. “I don’t believe in holding on to things. I just, like I said, I’m more so thankful and grateful for the opportunity to be able to lace the cleats up, put the helmet on and go out and make plays.
“But yes, definitely more motivated than I’ve ever been.”
Houston, 2021
Taylor agreed to a deal with the Texans — his fifth team in the past eight seasons — hours before the first lawsuit was filed against incumbent starter Deshaun Watson. Since that March day, 22 more civil lawsuits have been filed against the Texans quarterback (one other was dropped) with allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior.
The job Taylor signed up for — knowing Watson had requested a trade and didn’t plan to play for Houston again — became an even more difficult one, even if it potentially gave him a clearer path toward a starting job.
And although Davis Mills was not a top pick — he was the Texans’ first pick of the draft in the third round — there is a rookie quarterback behind Taylor, one who some in the building believe must play at some point so the Texans can get a better sense of his future. This time, Mills is not necessarily seen as the future of the franchise, although surely Houston would like to know whether he has a chance to be.
Taylor is still the “same guy,” Texans linebacker Christian Kirksey said he played with in Cleveland in 2018.
“I thought he already was a polished vet, a polished quarterback and he’s just playing more and more confidently,” Kirksey said. “That’s the biggest thing I see in him. But he’s always been that poised guy, that great leader.”
It hasn’t taken long for that leadership to permeate a Texans locker room that also includes Watson, who reported to training camp to avoid a $50,000 daily fine and now takes part in meetings but didn’t take a single team rep during the practices open to the media.
“Tyrod is probably one of the greatest dudes in the locker room, and one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever seen,” running back Phillip Lindsay said.
Center Justin Britt said he can see the chip Taylor has on his shoulder by “the way he comes into the huddle every play.”
Taylor enters his first season with the Texans, a team many outside of the building expect to finish with a top-5 pick, with Watson on its 53-man roster. But for those around Taylor now, the abnormal circumstances he has faced in his career have prepared him for the unique situation he’s dealing with in Houston.
“I feel like he’s had the short end of the stick the last few years in his career and he’s hungry,” Britt said.