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jeanpierre

BY JOEL A. ERICKSON | JERICKSON@THEADVOCATE.COM SEP 1, 2018 - 7:00 PM

Somewhere in an alternate reality, Taylor Stallworth spent Saturday night pulling on his spikes and taking batting practice, a beefy, power-hitting September call-up ready to take his first cuts in the majors.

That was Stallworth's dream for so long. While other kids in Mobile, Ala., grew up dreaming of playing football at Bryant-Denny or Jordan-Hare, Stallworth was thinking about hitting a ball out of Fenway.

If football wasn't such a powerful draw in Alabama, Stallworth's first dream might have come true. Instead, he spent his Saturday celebrating the realization of another dream.

Undrafted out of South Carolina and thrown into a position that ended up being one of the most competitive in training camp, Stallworth made the Saints' initial 53-man roster as the team's backup nose tackle.

"He's been a huge surprise," defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins said. "Any time you get a guy come in, drafted or undrafted, me personally, I just like to give guys a clean slate. ... Once he started playing, it was evident, it was clear he could be a player for us."

Stallworth hated football the first time he played.

When he was a kid, he tried Pee Wee football once and disliked the sport so much that he told his father he didn't want to go back. Even in Alabama, Stallworth didn't watch football growing up. During the month of October, he was locked in on the MLB playoffs.

Then he got to high school. A power-hitting infielder who played first and third base, Stallworth was hitting the long ball, but nobody seemed to dig it as much as a tackle on third-and-short.

"All the football players were getting a lot of love," Stallworth said. "I'm over here at the baseball game, nobody's coming. (I decided), I'm going to try this other sport, see how it takes off."

He made the switch as a sophomore, left baseball behind and never looked back. Stallworth was an instant success on the football field, a three-star recruit from a recruiting hotbed who was good enough that both Alabama and Auburn were interested.

But again, he wanted to go his own way. Stallworth's family stayed away from the recruiting process, let him make his first grown-up decision.

Stallworth picked South Carolina.

"I wanted to get out of the state," Stallworth said. "I lived there my whole life, and everything I did was in Alabama. I wanted to get out of state and experience how other places are."

Stallworth's time at South Carolina got off to a rocky start.

Steve Spurrier, the legendary coach who'd landed him, left in his second season, ceding the team to Shawn Elliott. Under both coaches, Stallworth spent his first two seasons playing only nose tackle for two different coordinators, and both expected him to gobble up blocks rather than make plays.

Will Muschamp's arrival put him on an NFL path.

"It just felt strange," Stallworth said. Then Muschamp got there, and he flipped the whole vibe around. Having a consistent coaching staff for two years made me a better player."

Muschamp asked Stallworth to play all over the defensive line: as a nose tackle, as a penetrating 3-technique, as a massive defensive end on the strong side of the line.

His hard-nosed style also resonated with Stallworth.

"If he sees that you can be better than what you're putting out, he'll get after you, but it's out of love," Stallworth said. "From the first day, how he came and represented himself, I liked that."

Stallworth was a key starter for the Gamecocks for two seasons, but his numbers — 71 tackles, 5.5 tackles-for-loss, one sack — failed to make him a coveted NFL prospect.

Undrafted, Stallworth signed with the Saints, a team looking for somebody to fill a backup nose tackle position that cycled five players through it last season due to a rash of injuries.

From the moment he arrived, Stallworth looked better than his South Carolina statistics suggested.

"I think it's his balance, the way he is able to absorb blocks and not be moved, and play with strength sometimes in awkward positions against the run," Rankins said. "That's big, with as much double teams as teams are doing now, you've got to have guys who can kind of be able to play firm and play stout in weird positions."

New Orleans responded to Stallworth's revelation by giving him plenty of chances with the starters, both in practice and the preseason.

While veteran Jay Bromley and second-year undrafted free agent Devaroe Lawrence flashed in the pass rush, Stallworth was consistently strong against the run and earned the snaps.

"He’s young, he’s athletic," Saints coach Sean Payton said. "It's getting used to when you step up from maybe going with the seconds or the thirds and all of a sudden you're going against the first groups around the league, it becomes a little bit more challenging."

Stallworth tried to approach training camp like a veteran.

Motivated to make his time in this sport count, Stallworth embraced the daily monotony and minutiae of a camp that lasts six weeks.

"It's been a grind," Stallworth said. "Working every single day, getting better, talking to the vets, asking them questions on what I can do to make me better on this play. ... I take something little every day to try to get better."

All of his work ended up paying off in a way he could never have imagined as a kid in the batter's box.

It's not that my way is the right way, I just make the right way my way...

The Dude

Good story. Much better than the redundant kid with out a dad sob story.
Dads leave, it happens. No need to be a ***** about it.

FinSaint

I thought Lawrence would make it before him, but getting that 7th from the Browns made it an easy call.

nola_swammi

I'll rather give a 7th rd pick and keep Lawrence

ChrisXVI

Yeah but with Rankins, Onyemata, Jordan and Loewen all taking snaps at 3-tech I can understand it.

nola_swammi

I get what you're saying but isn't it possible Devaroe could back up Tyler at nose? Bench 31x, the strength and stamina is there. I just don't see Stallworth with the stamina (18x) to withhold although his technique and balance is exceptional.