It was a rough first season in the slot at times for Alontae Taylor, but Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar saw enough to rank the New Orleans Saints defensive back top-five among slot specialists around the NFL.
The Saints asked a lot of Taylor after he lined up out wide almost exclusively in college and his first season in the NFL. Farrar found that Taylor logged more snaps in the slot than almost anyone else in pro football last season, and while he had to take some lumps, the potential is there for him to develop into a top-flight defender.
Here’s why Farrar is so high on the third-year Saint:
The Saints have a nice loaded cornerback room with Marshon Lattimore, Paulson Adebo, and 2024 second-round pick Kool-Aid McKinstry. But when it came to slot coverage in 2023, nobody in New Orleans did it better than Alontae Taylor, the 2022 second-round pick from Tennessee. Taylor had 460 slot coverage snaps, fourth-most in the NFL, and he allowed 65 catches on 96 slot targets for 672 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, 10 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 93.8. He also had one sack and three total pressures from the slot.
Why is a player with an opponent passer rating allowed of 93.8 Top 5 on any list? Because while Taylor was out of phase at times, he also showed more than enough reps as a top-tier slot match defender on everything from quick-game routes to deep end zone fades against speed receivers.
Farrar pointed to a couple of highlight reel-worthy plays in coverage from Taylor as proof of his high ceiling, like this interception against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 17:
Alontae Taylor of the @Saints had a couple of iffy moments in coverage in his second NFL season, but as a deep match slot defender, he erased far more big plays than he allowed. pic.twitter.com/NTcwRCNPSn
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) June 5, 2024
Still, Farrar acknowledged that Taylor must show more consistency if he’s going to meet that ceiling. He allowed more catches and yards in the slot than anyone else in the NFL last season, and the Saints benched him twice after he struggled to execute his assignments. But the ability is clearly there. Can he build on his experience in 2023? We’ll find out soon enough.
