Through three weeks of the NFL season, Kansas City Chiefs right tackle Jawaan Taylor has racked up eight penalties. No other lineman has been flagged more than six times. In fact, Taylor is the most penalized player in the league since his rookie season in 2019. He signed a four-year, $80 million contract to join the Chiefs this offseason; his job is to protect franchise quarterback Patrick Mahomes (who just scored a massive deal of his own). Yet penalties have made Taylor a costly signing in more ways than one.
Notably, three of Taylor's penalties this year have come on illegal formation calls. An NFL rule states a lineman's helmet must "break a vertical plane that passes through the beltline of the snapper."
Taylor has been standing further back to try and gain more leverage against oncoming defenders. He also commonly predicts a snap's timing to get out of his block in tandem with it being exchanged from the center to Mahomes. This isn't a new approach, and he had never been called for this particular penalty prior to this season. Suddenly, he can't seem to avoid it.
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During the Chiefs' Week 1 loss to the Detroit Lions, officials only whistled Taylor for one penalty, a false start that pushed the Chiefs from a 4th-and-20 to a 4th-and-25. The next week, a 17-9 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, opposing coaches and the officials had looked at how Taylor was lining up. And he was penalized five times throughout the game.
In Week 3 against the Chicago Bears, much of the media attention was on Taylor Swift attending as a guest of tight end Travis Kelce. However, Taylor (Jawaan, not Swift) was continuing to get called for penalties — including one that would have been a touchdown otherwise.
The Chiefs ended up winning that game 41-10, so it wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But what happens when they play a more talented team than the Bears?
Both Reid and Mahomes have defended Taylor, who said he needed to clean his play up. Based on how the season has started, it seems like Taylor might be getting targeted by officials. He's always lined up this way, and trying to adjust such a routine habit on the fly during the season could be tricky to do.
The Chiefs have had targets on their back over the past half-decade as one of the consistently best teams in the NFL. This will be another moment of adversity they'll need to overcome.
