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1500+ words. I also did some work in pulling the data and getting it into a digestible form. So if you want me to link that for some extra cash I would be more than happy to share that.
Taken in the top five in the DSFL draft, the former Myrtle Beach linebacker was able to make plays all over the field, but lacked making a true impact. He was unable to fill up the stat sheet outside of tackles and that problem seemed to follow him over into his sophmore campaign. Before his second season he was drafted in the first round in the ISFL draft, but he seemed to slip down the boards a little bit, falling all the way down to tenth. When scouts were asked why they said that he has a crazy motor and great natural talent, but he lacks the high intelligence and natural instincts to play sideline to sideline as a linebacker. He would be better suited for a lineman role where he could exploit blockers in getting to the quarterback. As a defensive end he could patrol the line of scrimmage and ensure that no ball carriers get outside of him, essentially shutting down a side of the field. His future as a linebacker would be tough, and a long road. Yellowknife saw the talent and decided to take a shot on him working it out. They sent him back down to the DSFL, which didn't make a huge difference for them.They went on to win the Ultimus as Leonard looked on as the other draftees from the Wraiths were part of that championship celebration. Myrtle Beach moved to Bondi Beach and Leonard continued to rack up tackles but failed to make a huge impact in other areas. Backed by solid play on defense and a fantastic offense, the Buccaneers ended up winning the Ultimini. While not the championship that he had hoped for it summed up quite a career for the former first round pick. When it came time to come up to the ISFL, Taylor had long talks with some of the veteran leadership on the defensive side of the ball and figured a move to defensive end would be beneficial for all parties.
It has turned out to be a good move for Leonard Taylor, but that's not to say there hasn't been growing pains. He was able to put up 8 sacks in his first season, good enough for 4th on his team. Unfortunately, it was only good enough for 30th in the league. That was about the only thing he was able to do. He mustered only 18 tackles and 4 tackles for loss over sixteen games. Barely above 1 tackle a game. So while he was able to get to the quarterback at a good clip he constantly was working upfield and not controlling the line of scrimmage or shutting down running lanes. Taylor was also responsible for a good amount of penalties. He was often very quick and showed surprising strength, but from a technical aspect he would often get in trouble and lacked discipline with a lot of offsides and encroachment penalties. This past offseason Leonard continued to work on his physicality and hand placement to keep separation from offensive lineman enabling him to control his gap and the outside better. Through 21 games he already has 24 tackles and is right behind his tackles for loss and sack numbers from last season. Tied for 26th in the league in sacks and good for third on the Wraiths. Over his 2 seasons in the ISFL he has been a good pass rusher, but not the elite pass rusher that he was billed as. While his sack numbers seem alright, the positional data shows a better story. When looking at just defensive ends over the last two years, Taylor ranked 14th in Season 27, 10th in Season 28, and over the course of those two seasons 12th. He still doesn't make a lot of tackles, or even get a lot of tackles for loss but it does show that he has been one of the better pass rushers over the last two seasons. His teammate Cho has been the best at getting to the quarterback, and these two hope to remain one of best edge rushing tandems in the game. He has inspired enough confidence from the coaches for them to keep him on the field for more downs this year. Last season he would wear down quite a bit, so in addition to working on his hands, he showed up in better shape this season.
His aspirations to end up as the all time sack leader may not pan out, but he could always become the top sack guy for his position at the end of his career. Tuck has the record for defensive ends with 140 sacks but his top 3 seasons all came in Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Over these 3 seasons he had 71 sacks with a record 32 in Season 3. If you took his average sacks per season of 4.6 and rounded up to 5 and then used this for the 3 seasons where he had outrageous numbers his sack total would be 2nd most all time behind Hendrix, who had 99, with 84. Currently on his quest to have the most sacks of all time, Taylor sits tied for 71st for Defensive Ends and 9th all time for Yellowknife Defensive Ends. Cho could pass Nero Alexander for most sacks as a Wraith this season for the position. He is only behind by 2 sacks. So while his Leonard Taylor's career hasn't been amazing, it certainly has been a fairly solid start to begin what he hopes is a Hall of Fame Career.
I pulled all of the data from the defensive stats section of the index for every season played up to Week 12 of Season 28. I did this manually, so no cool bot or scraper thing, but I did throw it in excel and then write some formulas to pull the data out from the columns that hold multiple stats like forced fumbles and blocked kicks. I even fixed the names by removing the rookie tag and other tags like the bot tag. Probably took me around 30-45 minutes to do all of this and then just have a couple pivots to look up specific stats. If a player changed their position, for example from linebacker to defensive end, their sack totals would only count for the specific position they played for that season, but obviously their total still stands. I couldn't find a total comprehensive stats counter for all seasons so said screw it I'll do it myself. I'm not sure if someone else has it or if someone else wants it, but I have it for defense only. I'd have to grab each specific category i.e. passing, rushing, receiving, etc. separate which would be a pain in the ass. Doable but I play defense so I only cared about that.
So while I'm on the subject of statistically leaders for defensive stats of all time:
Tuck has the record for most games played with 381. I doubt this ever gets beat.
Tuck has the record for most TFL with 178. Special shout out to Nero who was second with 141 in half as many games.
Selich has the record for most forced fumbles with 22.
Tuck has the record for most fumbles recovered with 17.
Selich has the record for most tackles with 1633.
Lavelle has the most interceptions with 57.
Lavelle has the most pass deflections with 249.
Noble Jr. and Gustavsson are tied with the most safeties with 4 each.
Lavelle has the most defensive touchdowns with 10.
Over almost 28 complete seasons there have only been 11 blocked field goals and 2 blocked extra points. There have been 129 blocked punts.
Lol so when I was giving this another glance over, it seems that multiple Tucks have played and have the same name. Which then occurred to me because we use only first initial and then last name that it could be very possible to have duplicates if the names worked out that way. Not sure how we would solve for this, but yeah I'm dumb lol. The Tuck stats are hard to trust, and anyone that also has the same exact last name with same first initial. I wish we would have full names in the Index.
Spector would be the new most games played with 248.
Nero becomes the TFL leader.
Bode has recovered the most fumbles with 16