Florida’s Jawaan Taylor was the consensus top overall offensive lineman heading into the NFL Draft, and yet somehow 32 picks have come and gone and he remains on the board.
The talk surrounding Taylor’s swift seems to be from a poor medical report on one of his knees, but that chatter somehow didn’t get out until draft night. He seemed set to be the top offensive lineman off the board, with many mock drafts pegging him inside the Top 10.
There has to be some legitimate concerns about Taylor’s health that would cause him to go from looking like a likely Top 10 pick all the way to the second round. It wasn’t like Williams’s and Murphy’s case in that not many players at their position were selected, either; there were six offensive lineman drafted in the first round.
That included a couple of players in Alabama State’s Tytus Howard and Washington’s Kaleb McGary who few pegged as potential first round picks ahead of time. Them being selected wouldn’t have been too surprising in and of itself, unless a player like Taylor was unexpectedly still on the board.
There still hasn’t been anything concrete about Taylor’s medical issue, but that was the chatter in draft circles throughout the night. That will be an interesting story to follow going forward, but I suspect that Taylor will be one of the first players selected when the second round commences on Friday night.