Taysom Hill has been on an absolute tear as of late, reaching multiple milestones as he’s been a pivotal part of the New Orleans Saints snapping a seven-game losing streak and replacing it with a two-game winning streak.
He’s a jack-of-all-trades that has never fully been able to be replicated, despite several NFL teams’ desperate efforts to do so. At the same time, it’s often said that a player like Hill is not to be invested in as a pure quarterback for the long-term.
That experiment has also been tried and failed as a part of a trend that ultimately faded away. Former Saints quarterback Steve Walsh is among those who shares that line of thinking.
“A guy like Taysom Hill is not going to last. You’re not going to invest 40 million dollars in a guy and let him run QB power, because those 10 million-dollar linebackers know how to hit you, and they know how to hurt you,” Walsh told me an interview for RG.org. “So you’re just not going to survive.”
A player like Hill is also, from a dollars and cents perspective, not going to be smart to go all in on for NFL teams.
“The economics don’t make sense in that type of quarterback. Now, is that somebody you like as your backup or your number three guy that can give you a change of pace?” Walsh continued. “Cam Newton played best when he was running QB power because that’s just how he played. But, he wasn’t going to be able to do that for an extended period of time; like a 15-year career.”
Quarterback or not, there is no denying the wave of success Hill has recently experienced.
Hill tallied 138 rushing yards on seven carries and 50 receiving yards from eight catches injury the Saints’ 35-14 win over the Cleveland Browns.
That wasn’t all he did to earn him the title of FedEx Air and Ground player of the week, though, either.
He also threw a pass for 18 yards and got some special teams action with 42 yards on a kick return. Very few players can put together a three-way performance quite like that.
How he and the Saints continue to build upon the new era they seem to have begun will be something to keep an eye on in a season that could ultimately be much more interesting that it looked like it would be just weeks ago.
