With Philip Rivers leaving the Los Angeles Chargers, Tyrod Taylor is in line to be the starting quarterback. Here are three bold predictions for the Chargers quarterback for the 2020 NFL season.
Taylor starts Week 1 … and Week 17
The most obvious question surrounding the Chargers heading into the 2020 season is how the franchise moves forward after the departure of Rivers. The current plan? Deploy Taylor under center.
While much has been made about Los Angeles potentially selecting a quarterback with the No. 5 overall selection in the 2020 NFL Draft, that doesn't necessarily preclude the Chargers from still moving forward with Taylor. (Especially in the case of Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa, who is coming off major hip surgery.) Developing a young signal-caller behind an established veteran is uncharted territory for the Chargers, but not a wholly novel concept around the league.
Free-agent quarterbacks Cam Newton and Jameis Winston are still available on the market to flip the script on these predictions entirely, but for now, Taylor is the best bet to not only start the year under center, but not cede his job in 2020, barring injury.
Taylor accrues second-most QB rushing yards
We're going bold with these predictions, not straight science fiction. Outrushing Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is a task that many running backs around the league will have enough difficulty doing in 2020, but Taylor racking up the second-most quarterback rushing yards is still a daunting task.
Last year, Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray accrued 544 rushing yards, the second-most in the league. Taylor's career high sits at 580 yards when he was a member of the Buffalo Bills in 2016. The veteran had 568 rushing yards in 2015 and 427 in 2017. Since then, Taylor has had two seasons of near inactivity near the top of rushing leaderboards, but entering his age-31 season, it's still undoubtedly an integral part of his arsenal.
Factoring in that Melvin Gordon has since signed with Denver and that the Chargers don't currently possess a star running back unless Austin Ekeler truly breaks out, Taylor may shoulder some of the rushing load. As for finishing ahead of Murray, it may be a tight heat, although the rest of the league is unlikely to present much of a challenge to what 16 games of Taylor rushing the ball can accomplish.
Taylor leads LA to the postseason
While there is a ton that goes into a prediction such as this, the door is open in the AFC West for the Chargers to walk through. While the Chiefs are likely to once again be an offensive juggernaut, neither the Denver Broncos nor Las Vegas Raiders jump off the page as stalwarts. With much of the AFC East and South in flux, teams with obvious paths to Wild Card spots aren't standing out heading into April.
So with that in mind, if Taylor can channel much of what made him successful in Buffalo and combine it with the Chargers' stout defensive unit, the result could be Los Angeles returning to the playoffs in its first season in the post-Rivers era.
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