A text or phone call might arrive an hour or two before Jets rookie free agent defensive tackle Leonard Taylor III is set to play his first NFL game of the season on Monday night in San Francisco.
For the past two years, the self-proclaimed “mama’s boy” has received motivational messages from his mother, Chelita Smith.
“What I always tell him before games is, ‘Greatness comes from within,'” she told the Post.
Just three months after declining the NFL Draft, Taylor unleashed his inner greatness during training camp and fulfilled a boyhood dream of becoming a five-star high school recruit while staying home to play for Miami (Fla.).
“I used to watch Lawrence Taylor a lot growing up,” the Jets’ “LT” told The Post. “Really, because he and I had the same number. When I was in Little League, I was No. 56. My stepfather [Rodney Frye]One day he told me to find Lawrence Taylor and watch how he plays. And then I watched him play growing up and I was just blown away by how he played, how fast he could move, how fast he could get the ball off the field… He was an outside linebacker, but he was still a distraction in a lot of ways that I liked. So try to match his game a little bit with my game.”
Of course, there is only one LT. This LT is 6’3″, 305 pounds.
“I think I can live explosively in the backfield,” he said. “Honestly, I think I’m a sack monster.”
The Giants’ LT was the ultimate sack monster.
Leonard Taylor said, “I think when you release the ball, you can go around it as much as you can.”
His mother wants to tell the story of how Leonard, at age 8 in Fort Lauderdale, became a completely different person.
“I remember when he first started playing football, he got hit because he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. I remember he was skipping and taking off all his gear and trying to quit,” she said. “And then I went up to him and I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and he was crying. So I said, ‘Look, I don’t raise players who don’t give up. If you don’t want them to hit you, you might as well hit them first.’”
He started hitting on enough guys to be expected as a first-round pick, and she urged him to leave Miami and turn pro.
“You can’t move,” she told him. “And there’s nothing these people can teach you. He plays, they pull him, he plays, they pull him.”
And on draft night, the phone didn’t ring.
“I know they were disappointed that they overlooked him,” Smith said. “He didn’t get drafted and we couldn’t figure out why, other than they said he didn’t like football. There were just other little things going on.”
It will be easy to cheer him on.
“He was just a big, humble giant,” his mother said. “He didn’t like problems, he didn’t like conflict. He always has, and he still does. The boy would give you the shirt off his back if he could.”
Except in cases where you hit him before the other person hits you.
“When he steps on that turf, it’s like he’s a completely different person,” Smith said. “It’s like it’s game time. Let’s go.”
She worked three jobs to support her four sons, and he’ll never forget it.
“Everybody back home knows I’m a mama’s boy,” Leonard Taylor said. “I could tell her anything honestly, and she’d always give me the right advice to make sure I was okay. So she was a huge part of it. When I wanted to give up the most, she’d always tell me to keep going. She grew up working three jobs and had to keep working to support us. If she could do it, so could I.”
Smith still works at the hospice and now runs his own business, Lee Lee’s Sweet Treats, which operates an ice cream and food truck. Leonard is proud that his dream is on life support, but he is continuing his dream with Young Money APAA Sports Agency. “God has opened another door for me, so I just embrace it,” he said.
He kicked the door down. And Quinn Williams keeps kicking the door down. “I always tell him that football is not about him, it’s about him,” Smith said.
The day Leonard found out he was a member of the New York Jets, mom and son shared a precious moment.
“I screamed. He called me on FaceTime, and I screamed,” Smith said.
Mother always knew best.
