Jim Zorn’s first training camp practice started with horrible news: Phillip Daniels tore his ACL 75 minutes in and was out for the season. It ended with a stunner: the Redskins had traded for Pro Bowl defensive end Jason Taylor.
The Redskins quickly reacted to the Daniels’ injury by landing a player capable of being their best pass rusher in some time. They sent a second-round pick in 2009 and a sixth-rounder in 2010 to Miami in the deal. Taylor, 33, is expected to arrive at Redskins Park today.
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Taylor is a year removed from being named the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year and last season reached double-digit sack totals for the sixth time in his career. He’s a six-time Pro Bowler, including the past four in a row, who leads the NFL in sacks since 2000 with 100 1/2. The former third-round pick in 1997 has 117 sacks overall.
“His play speaks for itself,” Redskins executive vice president Vinny Cerrato said. “It’s easy to talk about Jason Taylor. He’s got statistics and everything else to back up everything he’s done. One of the more impressive things is that he plays 90 percent [of the snaps] every year. We had to act.”
Taylor had talked this offseason about wanting to play only one more season. He clashed with the Dolphins and their new management, led by Bill Parcells. Taylor appeared on the television show “Dancing with the Stars” in the offseason and openly requested a trade.
He’s under contract for two more seasons and Cerrato said he’s “100-percent confident that he’ll play much longer than that.”
Taylor isscheduled to make $8.1 million this season; the Redskins have approximately $9 million available under the cap.
Taylor will play on the left side, which he played at the University of Akron. He’s spent the bulk of his career at right end in Miami, though he has played occasionally on the left side.
He’ll pair with right end Andre Carter, coming off a 10 1/2-sack season, to give the Redskins a potential healthy pass rush, possibly its best since Charles Mann and Dexter Manley in the 1980s.
“We’re fortunate that a guy that caliber was on the market when someone got hurt,” Cerrato said. “The timing was right.”
