Hero Jason Taylor Making More Jason Taylor

A swoll JT is a helpful JT

By JANIE CAMPBELL

Updated 3:45 PM EST, Mon, Sep 7, 2009

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Attention, chubby chasers: when an elite pass rusher is all of a sudden expected to hold his own against the run on the strong side, there's just one thing he can do. That's right, put a waffle on it.

Jason Taylor finds himself in a new role -- and new pants -- now that there's a giant fat hole where giant fat Matt Roth and his sensitive groin used to be. Is Roth secretly holding out? Was Drew Rosenhaus giving us a clue? Do the Dolphins even care any more? Will they wait for Roth, wait for him until October? Does his tiny little doll mouth accept coins? Who knows.

But anything that makes more Jason Taylor is fine with us. No. 99 is up to 255 pounds this week, after spending much of his fleet-footed career at 242. "I think it'll help in the long run once I find that perfect number," Taylor told the Sun-Sentinel. "It's good that I can maneuver my body around right now."

Here's a suggestion for that perfect number: 484, because if one Jason Taylor is a future Hall of Famer, imagine how much more we could love a whole extra one.

"Playing this position is a lot different,'' he told the Herald. "You have to be able to move around and play in space It's not a whole lot different [than what I did under Nick Saban]. But playing on the tight-end side is different...I'll probably drop [into coverage] a bit more with this defense than I did with Saban."

We can hope everything is a bit more than what it was with Saban, actually, but isn't it bizarrely typical of the torrid Miami-Taylor love affair that even as he returned to -- in the minds of the front office bots worried they'd have to cut him -- get one last shot, Taylor is once again saving the Dolphins defense single-handedly?

If he'd balked at the low pay or lack of playing time promises, Miami would be left with no Roth, no Taylor, and only Quentin Moses -- who barely made the team -- on the strong side.

Now, he's an even bigger hero for putting down a couple extra donuts for the team. If only our own jobs called for such a glory.