Packers QB Tyrod Taylor: Huge Shoes to Fill for No. 25 Player in 2026

The Green Bay Packers might not have reached the postseason the last two years without Malik Willis.

Willis was sensational in place of Jordan Love. Acquired for the bargain-basement price of a seventh-round draft pick, Willis in 2024 won two starts not long after being acquired and came up big in a third game at Jacksonville. In 2025, he led a key touchdown drive in a win against the Giants.

Willis signed with the Dolphins in free agency, having earned the right to be a starting quarterback. Needing a new backup, the Packers signed veteran Tyrod Taylor.

He’s got huge shoes to fill.

Over the past two seasons, there were 115 individual seasons of a quarterback throwing at least 35 passes and starting one game. Willis in 2025 had the best passer rating, 145.5. Willis in 2024 had the second-best passer rating, 124.8. Willis last season completed 30-of-35 passes, a staggering 85.7 percent, and averaged 12.1 yards per attempt. Both were, by considerable margins, the best marks in the league.

Why Tyrod Taylor Is So Important

Jordan Love is not an injury-prone quarterback. But he’s not Brett Favre, either. Quarterback is a physical position and things happen, like Love going down awkwardly against the Eagles in the 2024 opener or being victimized by a helmet-to-helmet hit against the Bears in 2025.

The Packers, of course, don’t have much margin for error. They were the seventh seed in the NFC each of the last three years. Last season, they snuck into the playoffs with a 9-7-1 record, just a half-game ahead of Minnesota and Detroit for last place in the NFC North.

Even a series or two – let alone a game or two – can be the difference between playing a playoff game in January or playing a round of golf.

Taylor is a good player. He’s started more than 60 games since entering the NFL in 2011, including 43 starts from 2015 through 2017. He hasn’t started more than five games in any of the last eight seasons, which means he knows how to handle life as a backup.

During the practice week, Love might take all of the practice reps. That means Taylor must get ready through film study and mental reps. He’s good at it, which means he’ll be ready for whatever’s thrown at him.

Tyrod Taylor’s Strengths and Weaknesses

First and foremost, it’s the intelligence that comes from having 15 years of experience. He’s been there and done that. If Love were to break a shoelace or get knocked out of a game, he’ll be ready to roll. With almost 1,900 career passing attempts, he’s seen every coverage, every blitz and every combination thereof.

With his 37th birthday approaching, Taylor remains an athletic player. He’s not Malik Willis from that perspective, but he averaged 5.3 yards on 27 rushing attempts last season with the Jets. He made some on-the-money throws on bootlegs at OTAs last week.

New York Jets quarterback Tyrod Taylor (2) rushes the ball against the Atlanta Falcons. | Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

What Happens If Tyrod Taylor Gets Hurt

Coach Matt LaFleur doesn’t want to contemplate Love getting hurt. He really won’t want to complicate Taylor getting hurt. That would mean either Kyle McCord or Kyron Drones would be thrown into the fire.

Taylor has played in 100 games in his career. McCord, a sixth-round pick last year, and Drones, an undrafted rookie, have played in zero.

The situation wouldn’t be as dire as Week 18 last season, when LaFleur started Clayton Tune alongside a bunch of backups. Tune threw for 42 yards and lost 44 yards in sacks, meaning a net of minus-2 passing yards. At least McCord or Drones would line up with legitimate NFL players. Still, any team that has to play its No. 3 quarterback for important reps should might as well get the bus warmed up.

Why We Ranked Tyrod Taylor Here

In a vacuum, Taylor isn’t more important than some of the players who fell short of this top-25 list. Rookies Brandon Cisse, Chris McClellan and Dani Dennis-Sutton could wind up playing key roles, for instance. But quarterback is the most important position on the field. Even if in minimal playing time, his performance could be the difference between reaching the playoffs and going home.

“He’s been awesome, man,” LaFleur said at OTAs. “He’s really come into the room and is absorbing everything. He does have a little bit of familiarity with our system. Obviously, he’s played a long time in this league, but it is good that he was with [Nathaniel] Hackett a couple years ago in New York, and so it’s not foreign to him.”

The intangibles will be important, too. In 2023, Love’s backup was rookie Sean Clifford. In 2024, it was Willis, who had started three games in two NFL seasons and thrown passes in only seven when he arrived in Green Bay at the end of training camp. In 2025, it was Willis, again.

Now, it’s Taylor, who will bring a wealth of experience and should be an asset as an extra set of eyes throughout the week of prep as well as on gamedays.

Packers passing-game coordinator Jason Vrable was an assistant with the Bills when Taylor was a Pro Bowler in 2015.

“He’s a great pro,” Vrable said. “He’s a great leader of men. He’s a vocal leader, too. He talked to our team for a little bit, and he said, ‘I’ll be here to help out anybody. I’ve been through a lot in this league, and whatever anybody needs from any position group, if you guys want to come and talk to me, bounce ideas off.’

“He’s a vocal leader. He’s a worker. I can’t say that he’s going to be the first one in the building, because I don’t want to slight anybody in our building. But when I was at Buffalo, I want to say he never showed up past 6 [a.m.] maybe in an entire year that I was in the building. So, if you’re talking about first-one-in-and-last-one-out and truly working, that was him. …

“He’s had a really good career, solid career, and above everything, probably I think most people would say he’s an awesome teammate to be around.”

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