One of the main reasons the Minnesota Vikings pursued Chester Taylor in free agency last March was because the running back hadn’t accumulated many miles on his legs playing behind Jamal Lewis in Taylor’s first four NFL seasons with Baltimore.
Safe to say, coach Brad Childress is helping Taylor make up for lost time.
The 27-year-old leads the Vikings in rushing (590 yards) and receiving (21 catches) and is on pace to break franchise single-season records for rushing attempts and yards, as well as total attempts and combined rushing and receiving yards.
Taylor ran for a career-high 169 yards on 26 attempts in Sunday’s 31-13 victory at Seattle and tied Marcus Robinson for the team lead with four catches.
“So far it has been what they told me it was going to be as far as wanting me to run the ball,” said Taylor, whose rushing total puts him second in the NFL, 57 yards behind Tiki Barber of the New York Giants. “It’s everything I want it to be. As long as I’m getting a chance to help my team win, that’s all that counts.”
Taylor’s workload has been such that if he continues at his average of 22.8 attempts per game, he will match his career high of 160 carries in a season on Monday night in the Vikings’ seventh game.
Taylor, who made only eight starts with the Ravens, established that mark appearing in 16 games in 2004. His combined total of rushing attempts and catches this season (158) already matches his 2005 total.
Though Taylor is pleased to be the No. 1 running back and the Vikings are getting a return on the four-year, $14.1 million investment ($5.6 million guaranteed) they made in him, there have been questions raised about potential overuse.
Childress holds the deciding vote on this topic, and he isn’t worried. Slightly annoyed by the question, maybe, but not worried.
“It’s not a concern,” he said. “It was a concern, I think, to people in training camp that he wasn’t going to be able to carry the load, and then it became a concern that he was going to set a record for carries.
“You just can’t have it all ways. You can’t say, `Can he do it?’ and then `Is it too many?’ I mean that’s what those guys get paid for, that’s why he was a free agent. He wanted to be the lead dog, and he wanted to come here and get carries, so those guys condition for that, they train themselves physically and mentally for that, and I think he’s growing into that. I think we’re remiss in talking about cutting back anything.”
Taylor, who is 18 carries shy of Mewelde Moore’s team-leading total of 155 from last season, isn’t the type of running back who can consistently avoid the punishment dished out at the line of scrimmage.
At 5 feet 11 inches, 213 pounds, he has shown the ability to make some nifty moves–such as the cut he made to find a crease en route to a franchise-record 95-yard touchdown run Sunday–but Taylor often ends up barreling into defenders head on in his quest for additional yards.
Against Seattle, Taylor averaged a season-high 6.5 yards on the ground. But subtract the long TD run and he averaged 3.0 yards on 25 carries, gaining more than 10 yards on only one occasion. During the first quarter, he gained 7 yards, lost a yard, then gained 1, 4, 3 and 1 yard on subsequent carries that featured plenty of hard hits.
“I’m a running back, that’s my job,” he said of enduring the wear and tear. “That’s the most physical position on the team. I just take it week by week and go out there and try to stay as healthy as I can.”
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That isn’t always easy as the aches and pains accumulate, but Childress remains confident in Taylor’s ability to bounce back.
“Does it feel good? No, it doesn’t feel great to have carried it 25 times,” Childress said. “But he’s always a heck of a lot better when he gets through a Wednesday practice. From week to week, you usually don’t feel good until you get out of bed on Sunday morning and you’ve got to go again.”