Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy has been a coach in the NFL for over 30 years and probably has his fair share of regrets, but one of his biggest seems to be letting go of New Orleans Saints very own Swiss army knife, Taysom Hill.
On Thursday, McCarthy with praised Hill’s abilities and deemed him “the one that got away.”
McCarthy said, “We thought he was a hell of a quarterback. Frankly, I think every year when you sit down at the end of training camp, I know it’s the way I’ve done it: you have 58, 59, 60 different numbers every year. Obviously where players you feel like they really earned the opportunity to be on the 53. Taysom was one of those guys. He clearly played well. I think he may have led the league, the whole NFL, in rushing in the preseason. He played extremely well that year. Frankly, we thought we’d try to slide him on the practice squad. That lasted about two minutes.”
Adding, “He’s still in New Orleans. His career, what he’s done, it’s been awesome to watch from afar. He came in as an older player. Obviously very mature. I really liked him as a quarterback. With then-head coach Sean Payton and then the offense doing everything with him down there is fun to watch. I think just like anything, more value that you can add obviously your job security will be a little longer. He’s mastered that. He’s a weapon. He is a weapon. He does a lot of things. He’s a bigger man than when I had him in Packers training camp. I thought he was a very good, young quarterback prospect. Put that down.”
McCarthy coached Hill back in 2017 during the Green Bay Packers training camp. Former Packers general manager Ted Thompson and McCarthy had a disagreement on how to handle Hill’s potential roster spot with the team. While McCarthy thought they needed to find a spot for Hill, Thompson disagreed and thought that Hill would clear waivers, and they could just sign him to their practice squad. Fortunately for the Saints, they claimed Hill off waivers the next day after he was released, and the rest is history.
McCarthy will get another up close and personal look at what could have been when the Saints face the Cowboys on Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Dallas.
