EDMONTON – Cavaliers, assemble?
Maybe it doesn’t have the same ring as the famous phrase uttered by Captain America, but the Elks defence has slowly put together their own super team of ex-University of Virginia stars.
Th newest addition is freshly inked defensive lineman Noah Taylor, who joined the fray on July 7 and reunited with former teammates DB Darrius Bratton and DL Elliott Brown. The 6-foot-5 pass rusher is already making an impact in the Green and Gold, recording his first Canadian Football League sack and four tackles in his first game and the Elks defence’s standout performance of the season last week against the Ottawa RedBlacks.
Noah Taylor (#42) and Darrius Bratton (#24) celebrate during the Elks game in Ottawa
The reunion was one that was years in the making. Taylor was the unknown in the Elks wave of roster changes coming out of the bye week, when veteran CFLers like Derrick Moncrief, Shawn Oakman, and Les Maruo were added to the Double E’s defence. The 24-year-old comes to Edmonton with a solid pedigree, having played his four years with Virginia before wrapping up his college career with 3.5 sacks in eight games at the University of North Carolina.
A torn ACL in October of 2022 put an end to his college season and essentially took him off the radar when it came to NFL interest. Taylor has slowly been rehabbing since then and awaiting his opportunity. When the Elks called, he jumped at the chance to start his professional career.
“I was just going through a bunch of workouts and stuff, but the whole time I knew how good of a player I was, it was just a matter of getting opportunity,” Taylor said. “So far, it’s been going really well.”
In a foreign country and in a league he did not know much about, there has been a little bit of familiarity provided by the pair of friends inside Elks locker room.
“I mean, Ell’ (Brown) has been like my best friend since I got to UVA,” Taylor said. “He was one of my first friends there, so I called him and told him immediately (after signing).”
Brown remembered his reaction upon receiving the call that his pass rushing partner would be joining him in Edmonton.
“I was very excited. I felt like we were getting the Avengers together, you know?” Brown said. “Darius Bratton also played with us five years. I felt like I had a brother in him and then I get another one this year. We love being on the field together. We were competing against Ottawa it just felt like family out there.”
Elliott Brown (#41) and Noah Taylor (#42) talk in Ottawa – Photo credit: CP Press
There are a lot of similarities between Brown and Taylor when you look a the pair on the field. Both men are currently listed at 6-foot-5 and 225 lbs and are blessed with the length and explosiveness that is coveted from an edge rusher. However, it’s the experience away from the field that helped bond the duo while they were developing as players college.
“The first time I met Noah, I knew it was going to be cool,” Brown said. “We’re from the same area, like, probably about 10 miles apart. We grew up kind of the same way, so I knew we were going to hit it off. We play the same position. We were the same OLB room for five years. He’s one of my best friends, he’s one of my brothers.”
Taylor will get all the help he needs to adjust to the CFL game. As much as Brown has been a help, the rookie been privy to nearly two decades of CFL experience in new Elks defensive line coach Almondo Sewell and guest coach Odell Willis. The duo were the centerpieces of the Green and Gold’s defensive line for much of the 2010s and chased down CFL quarterbacks to the tune of 170 combined sacks over the course of their pro careers.
“(They’ve) been great because they’re young and they understand how we we operate, and how we want to operate,” Taylor said about the coaches. “They don’t want us to be robots like a lot of coaches nowadays that tell you ‘do it this way, do it my way.’ They give us freedom to play in the scheme of the defense.”
That freedom could go a long way to help re-establish an Elks defensive line that is starting to emerge after a four sack performance against the RedBlacks. Brown and Taylor do have a bit of history of being successful when given a little bit of freedom. The 26-year-old Brown recalled a story from from the pairs playing days in Virginia.
“We were playing against Illinois back in 2021. I was a middle linebacker, I came down and put the centre out the game and they had to bring in a backup,” Brown said. “So the next play, it was third down and we were like, ‘oh, the backup is not as good, we’ve got to blitz on this.'”
To decide who was going to run the stunt and potentially get the free shot on the quarterback, Taylor and Brown solved the problem in the only way possible.
“So we rock-paper-scissored right before the play started,” Brown laughed. “(Noah) won and wrapped around and got the sack. I was mad. We never played rock-paper-scissors again after that.”