One of the most dominant players of his time on a bad football team, Lionel Taylor proved his worth for seven incredible seasons with the Denver Broncos.
As someone born nearly 20 years after the Denver Broncos began playing football, there is often an old school football player that — as a fan — you just wish you had seen play live. I actually have two of those on my list, one was safety Goose Gonsoulin and the other was wide receiver Lionel Taylor. Both were inaugural members of the Broncos Ring of Fame.
Taylor was a four time first-team All-Pro and made the AFL All-Star team three times in his seven seasons with the Broncos. He set wide receiver records that wouldn’t be broken until the 1980s and he did that while being mostly triple covered due to being the only offensive weapon the Broncos had in those early years.
He was the first player in NFL or AFL history to record 100 receptions in a season and did it in 14 games. In fact, only one other player (Charlie Hennigan – Houston Oilers 1964) ever reached this triple digit mark on receptions until the mid-1980s. Another NFL record he had was the most receptions by any receiver over a six year span that wasn’t broken until Sterling Sharpe in the mid-1990s.
How Lionel Taylor isn’t a candidate for the Pro Football Hall of Fame is beyond me. There is a clear bias there as only a single player who played his entire career in the AFL is enshrined in Canton. That said, we can look at Taylor’s career and no matter what year we were born can admire what he achieved in his career.
Many other receivers in the Hall of Fame often did less with more:
I’m not saying any of those are not deserving, but Hall of Fame seniors committee needs to a take a long hard look at what Lionel Taylor did in his career. Especially considering the talent surrounding him on those Denver teams of the 1960s.
I never got to see him play, but I am and will forever be a huge Lionel Taylor fan.
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