Jaelan Phillips Dolphins career could be riding similar Jason Taylor path

Miami Dolphins Jason Taylor wasn’t always a Hall of Fame player. Jaelan Phillips isn’t one yet but his path could end up on a similar road.

Jaelan Phillips is nothing compared to Jason Taylor but that is because we view JP vs. JT as a complete career. That isn’t fair to Phillips. Not at all. Taylor spent 15 years in the NFL carving out his Hall of Fame career but he wasn’t a lock to make it way back in year two.

Taylor’s career started out o.k. His 1997 rookie season earned him no accolades. No AP ROY awards (he received 4 votes) or anything else. He was productive but he wasn’t heading to the HOF.

In 1997, Taylor had five sacks in his rookie year and 42 combined tackles. In 1998, Taylor improved with 9 sacks and 52 tackles. It appeared that he was on his way. I remember way back around 2000 I started to see a trend with Taylor. He would have one great season and then his production would fall the next year. This changed in 2002 when it all started to click.

Taylor’s sack totals in his first six seasons looked like this:

• 97 – 5
• 98 – 9
• 99 – 2.5
• 00 – 14.5
• 01 – 8.5
• 02 – 18.5

Following his 6th season, Taylor’s career became a HOF career. Over the course of the next five seasons, Taylor produced four double-digit sack seasons and in the one year he didn’t, he produced 9.5. Taylor cemented his credentials from 2000 to 2007. In his final four seasons, he didn’t post more than 7 while jumping from Miami to Washington to Miami to New York and back to Miami.

Now we can look at Phillips. Many fans think that Phillips is having an off year and compared to last year, he is. Just like Taylor did from his rookie season to his second season.

Phillips had 8.5 sacks in his rookie year and has three sacks so far in 2022. Fans expected to see more and in 1998, fans expected more from Taylor. For Taylor, it was a sophomore slump, one that would continue for a few years off and on. Is Phillips taking a similar path?

Possibly. We can’t say that Taylor’s path is going to be Phillips’ path but while we ask the question, “what is wrong with Phillips this year”, we should pause long enough to realize that this is normal and does happen. In 1999, fans wondered what was going on with Taylor and his 2.5 sacks. In reality, nothing was wrong.

Phillips worked hard this off-season to improve his moves off the edge and he could be trying to see what has been working and what hasn’t. The reality of all this is simple, Taylor got off to an average start but he showed signs of dominance. Phillips is off to a slow start this year but there is a lot to watch and realize, this kid has something special going for him.

Is it something as special as a gold jacket? We can ask that question in another ten years but for now, the immediate question of what is going on with Phillips? Well, we shouldn’t be worried about it right now, as history could, hopefully, be repeating itself.

Miami fans never waivered on what Taylor could do in his career, even after his 3rd season. Dolphins fans shouldn’t worry too much about Phillips in his second.