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Taylor Mays Suspended 4 Games: Latest Details, Comments, Reaction
March 14, 2016
Safety Taylor Mays reportedly won’t be taking the field at the start of the 2016 NFL season.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network and NFL.com, Mays was suspended Monday for the first four games of the year for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy.
Mays' suspension couldn't come at a worse time, considering he is a free agent this offseason. Rand Getlin of NFL Network had an encouraging update in early March when he said “several teams” in both the AFC and NFC called Mays, but that was before news of this suspension broke.
The San Francisco 49ers drafted the safety in the second round in 2010 out of USC. He played there for one season and joined the Cincinnati Bengals from 2011-14 before a tumultuous 2015 with the Oakland Raiders.
Fox Sports reported in October that the Raiders signed Mays after having already signed and released him twice earlier in the regular season. Fox Sports also pointed out that he was released by the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings during the offseason before the 2015 campaign started.
Even with all the movement, Mays managed to appear in 14 games for the Raiders but didn’t make much of a statistical impact:
| Taylor Mays' Career Stats | ||||||
| Season | Team | Games | Combined Tackles | Interceptions | Forced Fumbles | Passes Defended |
| 2010 | San Francisco 49ers | 16 | 38 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 2011 | Cincinnati Bengals | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2012 | Cincinnati Bengals | 16 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2013 | Cincinnati Bengals | 8 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 2014 | Cincinnati Bengals | 16 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | Oakland Raiders | 14 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| ESPN.com | ||||||
While he was a consensus All-American in 2008 as part of the USC secondary, per Sports-Reference.com, his NFL numbers don’t exactly jump off the page. What’s more, he is already 28 years old and now has the suspension looming, which is bound to discourage any team that considers taking a flier on him.
Even though he was once a promising young playmaker at the back end of the Trojans defense, Mays could have difficulty finding a spot in the NFL a year after three different teams released him.