Andy Reid Backs Jawaan Taylor Despite Rough Game vs. Jaguars

The Kansas City Chiefs secured a win against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2, but it didn't come without plenty of hiccups along the way.

Andy Reid's team made tons of mistakes in its second game of the 2023-24 campaign, drawing 12 penalties for 94 yards and also turning the ball over three times (twice on offense and once on special teams). The visitors made things much more difficult than they needed to be on Sunday, shooting themselves in the foot and subsequently stumbling over themselves repeatedly.

One of the position groups that struggled to stay fundamentally sound on the road was the offensive line. Multiple players along the front five committed infractions, but none of them stood out more — both literally and figuratively — than right tackle Jawaan Taylor. The Chiefs' big-money offseason free agent signing drew criticism for his pre-snap alignment and jump timing off the ball in the club's season opener against the Detroit Lions, which prompted league referees and other linemen alike to evaluate both processes. With more eyes on him in Week 2, Taylor responded with a troublesome performance:

• Second quarter: False start, five yards
• Second quarter: Illegal formation, five yards
• Third quarter: Offensive holding, 10 yards
• Third quarter: Offensive holding, eight yards
• Fourth quarter: False start, five yards

Reid spoke to the media on Monday afternoon, and he said Taylor knew some additional attention was coming. He also received that message from Reid entering the game. 

"You're going to have a lot of eyes on you when you come here, first of all," Reid said when asked what he told Taylor. "The week before, on the Thursday game, it was publicized and scrutinized. Now all of a sudden, you've put the officials on red alert, and rightfully so. It wasn't like they were off on the calls they had him on this week. It was the same crew that worked training camp. They know. They could see it there, and they saw it firsthand here. They were going to call it. Jawaan was aware of that. He knows, and he tried to tame it down a little bit but as the game went on, it got him there." 

At one point in the game, following Taylor's fourth penalty, Reid pulled his starting tackle from the game and temporarily replaced him with Prince Tega Wanogho. Kansas City's drive ended soon after with a pair of short passes and a punt, and the 25-year-old rejoined his teammates on the offense's next possession. According to Reid, he wanted to get Taylor to calm down and hit the reset button on his rough afternoon. It wasn't a harsh disciplinary tactic. 

Taylor, who played the entirety of his rookie contract with the Jaguars, was having a bad day at a place where he'd had plenty of good ones in the past. In fact, his quality efforts at TIAA Bank Field were enough to land him a four-year, $80 million contract with the Chiefs in free agency earlier this year. Taylor now makes more than all but one right tackle in the league on a per-year basis, and committing so many penalties isn't a good way to be worth the value. His pass protection remains promising, however, and Reid doesn't appear to be one bit worried about the long-term impact of these short-term mishaps. 

"Well, he's a good football player," Reid said. "He's naturally quick without having to cheat on that thing or get caught on it. And he's strong, so he doesn't need to do that. He's a smart kid. We can fix it. He's been doing this for a number of years and he works extremely hard at it but once you've had three of them in a row or so and they don't get called, then you have a new crew coming in, they're going to have an eye on you. You've got to back up. He's got to back up and start over on this and just slow it down. He's plenty quick [enough] to take care of that."