All-Time Great Coach Sees Tory Taylor As Hall Of Fame Material

You’d think a punter like Tory Taylor wouldn’t be on the mind of an iconic coach. Anybody who has followed the NFL for a lengthy enough time has almost certainly heard the name Tom Moore. He is arguably one of the greatest assistant coaches in pro football history. He broke into the league as wide receivers coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, helping elevate Lynn Swann and John Stallworth to their eventual Hall of Fame status and winning two Super Bowls along the way. After stops in Minnesota and Detroit, he was brought in to oversee the development of a young quarterback named Peyton Manning in Indianapolis.

Moore’s influence saw the #1 overall pick morph into one of the best the game has ever seen, winning multiple MVP awards and a Super Bowl championship in 2006. Then, just for good measure, he eventually joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2019, where he helped Jameis Winston throw for 5,000 yards and then helped Tom Brady win his seventh Super Bowl. Moore is a legend. He knows everything there is to know about football, which is why his assessment of the new Chicago Bears punter on Waddle & Silvy was so fascinating.

Tory Taylor can give the Bears so many advantages.

Almost everybody agrees that Ray Guy is the best punter in NFL history. He went to seven Pro Bowls, won three Super Bowls, and made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was the first to normalize the idea of punts with five seconds of hangtime, something that had never been seen before. He could regularly send one 60-70 yards. No fewer than 210 of his kicks (out of 1,049) were downed inside the 20-yard line. Guy was the one who helped teams realize that punters could be weapons on the field.

That is what the Bears envisioned when they drafted Tory Taylor. His booming leg strength and uncanny accuracy can put opponents in headache-inducing situations. Going 65-70 yards in the NFL is hard enough for an offense. Going 80-90 yards, thanks to an accurate punt, is much harder. They don’t call football a game of inches by accident. Adding 10-15 extra yards to each drive is such an advantage for the Bears’ defense. If Moore is correct, Taylor is about to make life so much easier for this team.