30 greatest Pittsburgh Steelers of the 2000s
By Tommy Jaggi
11. Ike Taylor, CB (2003)
Ike Taylor has to be one of the greatest 4th round draft choices in the history of the Steelers. Taylor was part of a team that won two Super Bowls and Appeared in a third and was the best cornerback to put on a Steelers uniform over the past twenty years.
Taylor, however, didn’t start off this way. The former 4th round pick back in 2003 took a while to get the train rolling. He was a big tall cornerback from Louisiana but failed to make any significant contributions in his first two seasons.
By year three, Taylor had emerged as a full-time starter at left cornerback. Though he produced in the box score, his 91 tackles were misleading as he was still trying to get things worked out in coverage.
Eventually, Taylor pulled it all together and became a reliable cornerback whose run could match up with the opposing team’s best receiver. Ike Taylor played his entire career in Pittsburgh – from the age of 23 until 34 years old.
He was, in my opinion, a Pro Bowl snub a few times in his better years. Though he was a very physical cornerback who could mirror receivers down the field, Taylor lacked one thing as an athlete: hands.
They were so bad, in fact, that we began to expect Ike Taylor to drop anything thrown his direction. When Taylor did catch the ball for an interception, it was so few and far between that, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
Taylor finished his career with 14 picks in 12 NFL seasons, and there were 8 seasons where he posted one or fewer interceptions. Regardless, Ike was a lock-down cornerback in his prime, and the best the Steelers have had in the past twenty years.