Overlooked and underappreciated, the Tennessee Titans aren't used to the national spotlight.
That might change if exciting young talents such as second-year wideout Taywan Taylor continue to flash the playmaking ability on display in Saturday's preseason tilt versus the Buccaneers.
On the heels of a standout training camp, Taylor erupted for 95 yards and two touchdowns on four receptions against Tampa Bay's defense. The highlight was a 47-yard scoring scamper, showing tantalizing speed on a screen-pass play that garnered the attention of basketball royalty.
When the video of Taylor's touchdown was posted to the NFL's official Instagram account, @kingjames replied, "SPEED KILLS! Sheesh."
For the uninitiated, "King James" has over 40 million Instagram followers and is better known as Los Angeles Lakers megastar LeBron James.
Needless to say, the social-media shoutout was exhilarating for an unheralded 2017 third-round draft pick who played his college ball away from the limelight at Western Kentucky.
"When I heard that, my heart kind of dropped," Taylor said, via the Titans' official website. "LeBron, that's my favorite player there. That's unbelievable, and that's motivation to see he's watching. It's crazy. ... I want to tell myself, he must be a Titans fan."
Although Taylor ran an unofficial 40-yard dash time of 4.39 in college, he was clocked at 4.45 and 4.50 at the NFL Scouting Combine. He reached a maximum speed of 20.54 mph, per Next Gen Stats, on the 47-yard touchdown.
"I felt him," teammate Nick Williams said of Taylor's mad dash to pay dirt. "I felt the air zoom past me."
Now that Eric Decker is out of the picture and veteran Rishard Matthews is nursing an undisclosed injury, Taylor has a chance to emerge as a breakout player in his second year with the Titans. No matter how his 2018 season plays out, though, he can always look back with pride at the time he gave one of the world's most exciting athletes a momentary thrill.
"I love King James," Taylor said. "He is one of the reasons I played sports growing up, watching how he goes about work. His whole career is second to none. So that's always been the guy I look up to. He was my role model growing up. I can't believe that really happened."
