Imagine you’re the defensive safety for the Washington Redskins.
Your day is winding down and you’re home resting your sprained knee. You’re biding your time. Healing your body. Mentally preparing for your next opportunity to walk thru the tunnel of an NFL stadium for a big game. You’re thinking of running, hitting and catching. Thinking of all the meaningful games with playoff implications remaining this season. As you go crawl into bed and slip under your covers, your thoughts begin to drift. You think about your parents, your girlfriend, to your teammates, old friends, where you’re going, where you’re coming from.
Most of all you think about your daughter.
You fall asleep.
Suddenly you’re startled by a noise you hear from within your home. You spring up from your bed arming yourself as you begin to prospect. You arrive at your bedroom door and see an intruder. Before you can comprehend what is happening a bullet has entered you leg above your knee. You suddenly begin to lose blood. You try to cover your wound. You fall to the floor. You hear screams; see lights come on around you. You’re trying to wrap something, anything around your wound to stop the bleeding. Your trying to get your self out of harms way, you’re trying to protect your family. What ever you can do to get the intruder out of your home, is imperative. But most of all you’re just trying to make sense out of everything that has just happened.
You close your eyes.
You pass out.
Imagine the horrifying final moments of Sean Taylor’s life.
Sean Taylor was the 24-year-old defensive safety for the Washington Redskins. In his fourth year in the NFL, Sean’s potential for excellence in game of football was immeasurable. A graduate of the University of Miami, he was drafted by the Redskins as the fifth overall pick in the 2004 draft. Early Monday morning, an armed intruder entered Sean’s home firing two shots. The first shot missed its target, but the second hit a major artery in Taylor’s leg. The loss of blood caused Taylor to enter a coma, and at 5:30am (before sunrise) on Tuesday November 27, Sean Taylor passed away.
For the last 48 hours, every paper I have read, radio show I have listened to, and television program I have watched has reported the exact same thing, “Sean was a terrific player; a young man with a troubled past, but someone who had recently matured as a result of fatherhood”. His teammates coaches and fans all thought the world of him. He will be missed most of all on the field and in the locker room where he was a key figure.
It happens all too often in the NFL. For me personally this incident is the last stop.
Common are the stories of player drug charges, DWI’s, gang related incidences, violence, theft, robbery, and murder. The NFL’s enormous popularity prevents these stories from holding the headlines for too long. With great efficiency and little effort these issues are swept under the rug, and the count down to Super Bowl XLII always takes center stage.
Now I am in no way rushing to conclusions, or placing blame, or choosing sides. I am not trying to mix stories, or focus on the negative. However a football player has been murdered and that seems to be to be a little more important then a game.
Sean Taylor is survived by his 18-month-old daughter Jackie Taylor.
Sean Taylor 1983-2007
