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In recent years, the NFL has seen its share of star players who also excelled in basketball at the college level (e.g. Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens), perhaps most notably at the tight end position (think Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, Jimmy Graham, etc.). On the defensive side of the ball, a couple of dual-sport standouts who spent their Sundays terrorizing opposing quarterbacks were defensive ends Julius Peppers and Jason Taylor – both long and lanky with great athleticism, they were two of the best pass-rushers of the 21st century and each accumulated well over 100 career sacks, thus making for an apt comparison:
Who was better – Julius Peppers or Jason Taylor?
The Beginning
While they were both multi-sport stars as high schoolers, Peppers and Taylor entered college with very different pedigrees – the former parlayed that potential into a dominant college football career and a top draft selection, while the latter had more modest accomplishments and was a mid-round pick.
Peppers grew up in North Carolina and starred in football, basketball, and track and field while in high school, earning Parade All-American honors for football and being named the Male Athlete of the Year for the state. Post high school, he was a coveted football recruit and stayed in-state at North Carolina, where he also walked on to the basketball team for the Tar Heels. While solid on the basketball court, Peppers dominated in football – after redshirting as a true freshman, he led the nation with 15.0 sacks as a sophomore to make both the All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) First Team and the All-American Second Team; he was even better as a junior, earning both First Team All-ACC and First Team All-American honors, and winning the Chuck Bednarik Award (best defensive player), the Lombardi Award (best lineman), and the Bill Willis Trophy (best defensive lineman). Upon declaring for the 2002 NFL Draft, he was selected second overall by the Carolina Panthers and would go on to win Defensive Rookie of the Year with 12.0 sacks, 36 total tackles, 5 forced fumbles, and an interception; however, he was suspended for the final four games of the regular season for taking a banned dietary supplement.
Similarly, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Taylor was actually homeschooled for much of high school, but nevertheless went on to play both football and basketball at the college level at the University of Akron. He made his mark mostly on the gridiron, earning First Team All-Mid-American Conference (MAC) honors as both a junior and senior, as well as All-American honors as a junior. Originally a linebacker, Taylor made the transition to defensive end his senior season and would eventually be drafted 73rd overall in the third round of the 1997 NFL Draft by the Miami Dolphins; a starter during his rookie season, he posted 5.0 sacks and 42 total tackles in his first season with Miami.
Career Comparison
During their primes, Peppers and Taylor were two of the league’s top defensive ends, perennial threats to rack up double-digit sack seasons en route to numerous Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections and the exclusive 100-career sack club.
Despite the rocky end to his rookie season and somewhat of a sophomore slump (7.0 sacks in 2003), Peppers quickly established himself as one of the league’s top pass-rushing forces – starting in 2004, he made three straight Pro Bowls with a pair of All-Pro selections and double-digit sacks each year:
- 2004: 11.0 sacks with a career-high 65 total tackles and 4 forced fumbles, as well as a 97-yard interception return for touchdown; First Team All-Pro
- 2005: 10.5 sacks with 50 total tackles and 2 forced fumbles
- 2006: 13.0 sacks with 58 total tackles and 3 forced fumbles; again named First Team All-Pro
While he cratered to a career-worst 2.5 sacks during an injury-riddled 2007 season, Peppers quickly rebounded with a pair of Pro Bowl seasons with double-digit sacks in 2008 (a career-best 14.5 sacks) and 2009 (10.5 sacks).
As a free agent after the 2009 season, Peppers signed a lucrative contract with the Chicago Bears and paid immediate dividends, earning a third and final First Team All-Pro selection in 2010 with 8.0 sacks, 54 total tackles, and 3 forced fumbles. Including his final two years in Carolina, he would make five straight Pro Bowls across the Panthers and Bears, twice achieving double-digit sack seasons in Chicago (11.0 sacks in 2011, including his 100th career sack, followed by 11.5 sacks in 2012). However, following a down year in 2013 (7.0 sacks), Peppers was released by the Bears and would sign with the rival Green Bay Packers.
Though no longer the dominant pass-rushing force of his prime, Peppers remained a highly productive player with the Packers – in three seasons with Green Bay, he put up at least 7.0 sacks each year, including a final Pro Bowl season in 2015 with 10.5 sacks. Like Taylor, he would ultimately return to the team that originally drafted him, memorably having a final double-digit sack season with the Panthers in 2017 (11.0 sacks) before retiring post the 2018 season at age 38; with 159.5 career sacks, he ranks fourth all-time in NFL history behind only Bruce Smith (200.0), Reggie White (198.0), and Kevin Greene (160.0).
Together with linebacker (and future brother-in-law) Zach Thomas, Taylor would form the nucleus of Miami’s defense throughout the 2000s. Following a couple of up-and-down seasons to close out the 1990s (9.0 sacks in 1998 followed by just 2.5 sacks in 1999), he broke out and established himself as a true star in 2000 with the first of six Pro Bowl selections and the first of three First Team All-Pro nods on the strength of 14.5 sacks, 65 total tackles, and 2 forced fumbles. Though he dipped to 8.5 sacks the next year, Taylor rebounded in 2002 with a league-best and career-high 18.5 sacks, plus 70 total tackles and 7 forced fumbles for another Pro Bowl/First Team All-Pro season.
Over the next half-decade, Taylor would either rack up double-digit sacks and/or be named a Pro Bowler every year; in fact, his only non-Pro Bowl season during this stretch was 2003, when he nevertheless compiled 13.0 sacks. For the next four years, he was an annual fixture in Hawaii, highlighted by a 2006 season in which he was named Defensive Player of the Year and surpassed 100 career sacks: 13.5 sacks, 62 total tackles, and a career-high and league-best 9 forced fumbles with a pair of defensive touchdowns. Coming off this career year, he had another 11.0-sack season as an encore (the last double-digit sack and Pro Bowl season of his career), also earning the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2007 for his work off the field.
However, post the 2007 season, Taylor was traded in the offseason to the then-Washington Redskins for two future draft picks (a second-rounder in 2009 and a sixth-rounder in 2010). Unhappy in Washington, he had just one unproductive season (3.5 sacks) with the team before rejoining the Dolphins in 2009 and rebounding to 7.0 sacks. Once again, at the end of the season, he joined another team, this time the New York Jets, before returning for a third stint in Miami in 2011; he would close out his career with 7.0 sacks for the Dolphins in 2011, retiring at the end of the season at age 37 – upon retirement, his 131.0 sacks with the Dolphins was a team record, his 139.5 career sacks ranked sixth all-time, and his 9 career defensive touchdowns remains an NFL record.
With the longer NFL career (17 vs. 15 seasons), Peppers was thus able to compile more career sacks than Taylor (159.5 to 139.5) with more forced fumbles, but the longtime Dolphins legend actually had more total tackles. Moreover, on one hand, Peppers racked up more double-digit sack seasons (10x vs. 6x), resulting in more Pro Bowls (9x vs. 6x); on the other hand, though, both had essentially the same per-game sack rate (0.60 sacks per game) and were 3x All-Pros, with Taylor earning Defensive Player of the Year honors and the Walter Payton Man of the Year awards vs. Defensive Rookie of the Year for Peppers. As two of the greatest pass-rushers in league history, Taylor was a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection in 2017 and Peppers is likely to follow in his footsteps once he becomes eligible in 2024.
Regular Season Statistics
| Julius Peppers | Player | Jason Taylor |
| 17 (2002-2018) | Seasons | 15 (1997-2011) |
| 266 | Games Played | 233 |
| 159.5 | Sacks | 139.5 |
| 52 | Forced Fumbles | 46 |
| 557 | Solo Tackles | 536 |
| 162 | Assisted Tackles | 252 |
| 9x | Pro Bowls | 6x |
| 3x | All-Pro | 3x |
| – | Super Bowls | – |
| Defensive ROY | Other Awards | 1x Defensive POY, 1x Walter Payton Man of the Year |
| – | Hall of Fame Induction | 2017 |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
While highly effective in the regular season, Peppers and Taylor both saw their effectiveness wane in the postseason and experienced differing degrees of team success, though neither won a Super Bowl title.
Across eight postseason appearances, Peppers notably helped the Panthers make it all the way to Super Bowl XXXVIII, where they fell to the New England Patriots 32-29; individually, he was quiet in the Super Bowl with just a pair of tackles. Peppers would make it to the NFC Championship Game on three other occasions, once with Carolina (2005) and twice with Green Bay (2014 and 2016) – personally, his best postseason came in 2014 with 2.5 sacks.
As for Taylor, he appeared 4x in the playoffs with the Dolphins in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but never advanced past the Divisional Round. Later on, in his lone season with the Jets, the team did make it to the AFC Conference Championship in 2010 before losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers by a 24-19 score, but Taylor’s impact was minimal; in fact, despite playing in a total of 9 career postseason games (i.e. the equivalent of more than half a regular season), he never racked up a single playoff sack.
Playoff Statistics
| Julius Peppers | Player | Jason Taylor |
| 18 | Games Played | 9 |
| 6.5 | Sacks | – |
| 2 | Forced Fumbles | – |
| 37 | Solo Tackles | 24 |
| 12 | Assisted Tackles | 10 |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; even past their dominant primes, Peppers and Taylor both remained productive situational players adept at creating pressure and getting to the quarterback. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams, of which Peppers and Taylor are both Second Team members for the 2000s; Peppers is also part of the 2010s Team), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.
Decade of Dominance
| Julius Peppers | Player | Jason Taylor |
| 2002, 2004-2006, 2008-2012, 2015 | Decade of Dominance | 1998, 2000-2007, 2009 |
| 156 | Games Played | 160 |
| 112.5 | Sacks | 116.5 |
| 34 | Forced Fumbles | 40 |
| 378 | Solo Tackles | 417 |
| 91 | Assisted Tackles | 201 |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
In looking at their respective best decades, Peppers and Taylor have very similar numbers – a comparable number of sacks (and again, an almost identical sack rate per game), though the latter piled up more tackles and forced more fumbles.
My Thoughts
To reach 100+ career sacks in the NFL is an incredible achievement (i.e. at least a decade averaging double-digit sacks annually), and to reach well over 130+ career sacks is extraordinary. For Julius Peppers and Jason Taylor, they were without a doubt two of the premier defensive ends of this past generation, elite physical specimens who were able to harness that athletic potential into top-end production. While Taylor may have been the better player at his absolute zenith (i.e. his 18.5-sack season or his Defensive Player of the Year campaign) and is arguably the best defensive player in Dolphins history, I have to give the edge (no pun intended) to Peppers. From the very beginning of his NFL career with a Rookie of the Year season, his ability to remain a double-digit sack master year in and year out for almost two decades across multiple franchises is nearly unmatched in league history, as evidenced by just shy of 160 career sacks. Ultimately, his peak may not have been as high as Taylor’s, but it was close and his longevity puts him over the top in my view and lands him just ahead of his contemporary in terms of all-time edge pass rushers – come 2024, Peppers will be well-deserving of his Hall of Fame gold jacket.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Julius Peppers
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
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