Dadrion Taylor-Demerson manifested getting drafted ‘home’ by Arizona Cardinals
May 2, 2024, 12:55 PM | Updated: 12:56 pm
Texas Tech safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson felt a connection to the Arizona Cardinals in the pre-draft process and it came to fruition during the fourth round.
He told general manager Monti Ossenfort how many picks Arizona had in the top-100 and his desire to be one of them. He bought a Cardinals hat from a friend’s store he visited during his time in Arizona meeting with the Cardinals. He told his friend during the draft how crazy it would be if the Cardinals called him before the phone rang and then he began laughing as he answered it.
“This is exactly where I wanted to go play at,” Taylor-Demerson said of his mindset when he got drafted to Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta. “I love the state of Arizona, I love all the cities out there, it’s a beautiful place. So when I got the phone call, it just felt like I was going back home, man.”
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Taylor-Demerson, who goes by “Rabbit” because of a childhood nickname from youth football, has spent plenty of time in the past training in the Valley during the offseason. One of his college teammates is from Chandler and he told him back in January that he wants to move to Arizona one day. The Cardinals made that desire easy enough.
Taylor-Demerson played 60 games for the Red Raiders and totaled 224 tackles, 10 interceptions, two sacks, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries. The scouting report on the defensive back notes that he makes up for a lack of size due to his versatility, something he prides himself on.
“I’m very scheme versatile so with this new defense I’m putting myself in, I’m going to be able to do a lot of thing in the defense and I feel like playing in a NFL style-defense my last two years with my head coach Joey McGuire really set me up for this new journey and kind of prepared me and gave me a step over a lot of guys,” he said.
He will be in good hands. Budda Baker and Jalen Thompson form one of the better safety duos in all of football, and Baker specifically is someone who had a similar type of scouting report coming out of Washington in 2017, so there probably isn’t a better fit for Taylor-Demerson’s mentor than him.
