Is there room in crowded Eagles' linebacker room for Taylor?

Davion Taylor isn’t thinking about playing time, roster spots or the depth chart. 

Not yet. 

For now, he's working together with the linebackers he'll be competing with this summer trying to help raise the level of the entire group.

“Right now, we’ve been trying to just get better as a group,” Taylor said as OTAs wrapped up last week.

“I haven’t really thought about my role, what my role’s going to be when the season starts. I feel like that’s going to play out. 

“So right now we’re all just really helping each other as individuals. I feel like if we help each other get better as individuals, we’ll get better as a group. You never know how the season may go, so we all need to just be ready to go at any time."

Taylor was limited to just nine games last year after suffering a knee injury in the first quarter of the Week 11 win over the Saints at the Linc.

He had played fairly well in six starts after replacing starting linebacker Eric Wilson, who was released. But even though the injury wasn’t expected to be season-ending, we never saw Taylor again.

“It was frustrating not being able to come back on the field because my biggest thing was trying to come back at least for the playoffs or something like that,” Taylor said.

“But as I was rehabbing I saw I wasn’t going to be ready so it was really just a decision by the trainers and myself to try to just make sure I’ll be back for OTAs and be ready to go then.

“It was very disappointing because I realized I was starting to get better, my processing was getting better, my movement was getting better, so the biggest thing coming off that injury was making sure I started off where I left off. 

“It was a setback but it let me hone in on my fundamentals during the offseason when I started healing back up.”

Since he got hurt, Taylor’s off-ball linebacker position has gotten much more crowded.

The Eagles signed Kyzir White, who is mainly a weak-side linebacker, and drafted Nakobe Dean, who is working at both weak and middle.

Taylor said he’s been working at both spots as well as he goes into Year 3.

“Whatever I have to focus on just to make sure I know the playbook,” he said. “Because I feel like last year I was able to master it for the most part. So now it’s being able to learn multiple positions. Because I don’t want to be focused on just one position because you never know how the game may go. I may have to move to a position at the last minute and I want to be able to know what I’m doing.”

Taylor said he’s learned a lot watching White, who’s going into his fifth year, and said he’ll worry about competition when the time comes.

“We all know we’re going to compete, but he’s a vet, he’s been in the league longer, so I ask him questions about things he’s seen that I probably haven’t seen,” Taylor said. “It’s helped me a lot.”

That really goes for all the Eagles linebackers. 

Taylor said they’re a close-knit group, focused on helping one another learn and grow and develop.

“We’re helping each other out,” he said. “When the time comes I know we’re going to have to compete, but right now it’s about getting better as a team and getting better as a group.”

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