Sean Taylor - What if...

[JWsleep]

Look, I'm willing to take this at face value, for the time being. We're all wondering how a kid could "burn out" (Portis's term) like this. It's not so hard to understand. He's a Florida guy all his life, plays in Miami in college where there's a strong support system of friends, family and teammates, and then he's thrown into the draft thing, has trouble getting an agent (probably receiving all kinds of contradictory advice from people who don't know sh**; signs a weak deal becuase he doesn't want to miss camp; hears from everyone how he blew it, switches agents, etc.

Then he skips the NFL thing and gets reamed; Gets a whack DWI thing where he's not even drunk, just speeding; he's just moved to a new town--it's cold, no friends, no family, a young guy on his own for the first time, and then it's a tough 6-10 season with the skins where he gets toasted by Vinny against the cowboys.

WInters are cold and nasty in DC if you're from Fla. So he goes home to lick his wounds. Man, it feels good to get away from all that. He needs to recharge the batteries and get his sh** together. He gets a new agent who most likely does say, hey you've got no real leverage, so the only thing you can do is make them miss you a bit by skipping the offseason stuff. And you can get it together for the moment down in FLA. So that's what he does.

(I think this is exactly the wrong thing to do, BTW--he should have toughed it out, bonded with his teammates, and gotten used to DC--made some friends, hang out with Lavar and his 57 plasma screens, etc.)

I don't think it's unbelievable to think that this is what happened, and he'll be back with something to prove in June. If that's that case, of course he should start. He's got to mend some fences, but Coach Williams has played it VERY cool, and that's the guy who matters, really. Unless he skips non-voluntary stuff, he'll be our starting pro-bowl bound kick ass free safety.