Zac Taylor, Press Taylor square off in Jaguars-Bengals،
CINCINNATI — Kendric Pryor was confident he would spend his rookie season with head coach Zac Taylor and the Cincinnati Bengals.
Although he was among the final training camp cuts in 2022, the wide receiver planned to sign with the practice squad. When the time came to put pen to paper, the situation changed. The Jacksonville Jaguars, along with first-year offensive coordinator Press Taylor, claimed Pryor off waivers and added him to the 53-man roster.
When Pryor arrived in Jacksonville, he was greeted by a familiar face, although he couldn't immediately locate him.
“When I first saw Press, he said, 'Yeah, you've got the brother-in-law now,'” Pryor told ESPN.
Monday night's game between the Bengals and Jaguars (8:15 a.m. ET, ABC/ESPN) will serve as the Taylors' final family reunion and a reminder of how far they've come. The two brothers who grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, went from Division I quarterbacks to starting assistants to now holding two of the most important jobs in football.
With quarterback Joe Burrow behind center, Zac, 40, helped the Bengals win the Super Bowl and back-to-back AFC North titles. Meanwhile, Press, 35, and quarterback Trevor Lawrence are poised to win the AFC South for the second year in a row and make the team's first Super Bowl appearance.
But to those who know them best, their journey to the top of the profession comes as no surprise.
“As they moved up the coaching and player ranks, it was just natural for them to evolve and become great coaches,” Colorado State coach Jay Norvell said .
THE TAYLOR BROTHERS his father, Sherwood Taylor, was a defensive back at Oklahoma from 1977 to 1979. Shortly after his playing days ended, Sherwood began a coaching career that included a stint as an assistant at Oklahoma State. Kansas from 1984 to 1986. But as Zac and Press grew, he transferred that energy from other players to his sons.
In fifth grade, Zac told Sherwood he wanted to play college football. Over the next few years, Sherwood laid out the plan for Zac to achieve this goal. For example, seven days before two-a-day classes at the high school began, Sherwood started his own “boot camp” for Zac and some of his teammates. And the exercises which started with 15 children quickly fell to two in a few days.
“The next day, it’s just me and my brother,” said Zac, who thanked his father for laying the foundation for his athletic career. “I had him come with me. [Sherwood] we knew what had to be done, and I think that's why my brother and I got scholarships. »
Zac began his college career at Wake Forest, where he stayed for two years before transferring to Butler Community College in 2004 and then to Nebraska a year later. Press signed with Butler in 2007.
Zac said Aaron Flores, his offensive coordinator at Butler, was the one who instilled confidence in him as a college quarterback; they went on to win back-to-back junior national championships together.
In 2020, Flores told ESPN that the support they had from each brother and their family was evident during their respective tenures at Butler. And as they tried to establish themselves as college quarterbacks, they had traits that showed why they could one day become top coaches.
Flores, who died in 2021 of complications from COVID-19, said: “Both brought so much to the quarterback room that we never had any problems in the room, either leading our team and the other quarterbacks understanding their role.”
NORVELL ALWAYS REMEMBERS Zac's sharp response.
As an assistant with the Cornhuskers in 2005, Norvell recruited Zac from Butler to Nebraska. He asked Taylor what he hated most about football.
“He never even hesitated. He looked me in the eyes and he said, 'Coach, I hate losing,'” Norvell said. “And as soon as he said that, I knew he was our guy.”
Zac signed with the Cornhuskers, the longtime rivals of his beloved Oklahoma Sooners. Nebraska was trying to transition from decades of running the triple-option offense to a West Coast program under coach Bill Callahan. The offense involved a lot of changes and moves. The meetings and game plan setup were also professional in nature.
“It swallowed it all up,” Norvell said. “I think it really gave him the foundation of what professional football was and how to present an offense.”
In two seasons with the Cornhuskers, Zac totaled 5,850 yards and 45 touchdowns and was named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year in 2006. He credited his time with Norvell and Callahan for turning him toward coaching .
“They taught me so much that it was like, 'It was a waste if I don't use it at this point,'” he said in 2020.
After two seasons at Butler, Press played at Marshall University before beginning his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Tulsa in 2011. There, he and three others lived in a three-bedroom house. Three of them paid $400 in rent, but the intruder who slept on the couch paid $100.
“We would take the golf cart from work to our house and eat lunch there because no one had money for lunch, so we would just go home and eat there,” Press said this week.
The press said the kind way Tulsa coach Bill Blankenship treated his team confirmed he wanted to coach. Taylor also worked closely with quarterback GJ Kinne, the son of a longtime Texas high school football coach. Kinne had played for many different coaches during his time in Tulsa. In Taylor, despite all his instability, he had someone he trusted.
This feeling proved mutual in subsequent years. While Press was an assistant with the Philadelphia Eagles from 2013 to 2020, Kinne had two stints with the team – as a player from 2013 to 2015 and as a staff member in 2019.
Throughout their time together, he understood that Press and Zac had a unique vision of coaching, forged by a shared journey.
“They’re former quarterbacks,” said Kinne, who is now the head coach at Texas State. “They're coaches' kids. They've seen it for a long time. It's such a mental game and [quarterback] is such a mental position. They just understand. There are only certain people who understand. »
MONDAY'S MATCH WILL BE will be Zac and Press's fifth meeting in the NFL. The most recent was in 2020, when Press was the Eagles' quarterbacks coach. The match ended with a score of 23-23.
There is a Taylor Bowl trophy maintained by Sherwood. But the lack of awareness among the brothers of who is fighting the head-to-head battle (the press leads 2-1-1) or which family members are coming to the match shows that the two don't think much about each other. confront.
“We do a lot,” Zac said Thursday. “Probably me and Press have done the least, but he’s someone I’m very proud of.”
The two share many of the same traits when it comes to preparation. Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, who also worked with Zac when they were assistants with the Miami Dolphins from 2012 to 2015, said Zac had a wide range of game tape to study. Kinne said Press has a database of plays for almost any situation imaginable.
And those who know them praise the way each balances their work-life schedule. In Cincinnati, every Monday night is “family night” for coaches, who bring their partners and children to the coaches’ floor at Paycor Stadium. Kinne saw this firsthand with Press when they were in Philadelphia.
“His family [was] I always come there,” Kinne said. “Being around him, seeing him interact with his kids, I was like, 'It's OK to do that.' You can still be a great coach and do it.”
Kinne believes Press will soon join his brother as an NFL head coach. If the Jaguars have a big year, he could generate the same buzz Zac received as an assistant with the Los Angeles Rams during their run to the Super Bowl at the end of the 2018 season.
Monday will mark the first time the two Taylor brothers have faced each other since their new professional successes – Zac's run to the Super Bowl and Press' new role in Jacksonville. While continuing to chart the course of their respective careers, they are also busy preparing the next generation of Taylor parents for their coaching futures.
Zac's sons Brooks, 13, and Luke, 11, are already on track to follow in their father and uncle's footsteps.
“They sit in my basement and watch tapes with me,” Zac Taylor said. “They know all the personnel. I just ask them what are the keys to beating Jacksonville? They are ripping off players that need to be stopped. I saw them doing that.”
Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com contributed to this story.
