Introduction to these player comments
Index of player comments
Glossary of terms
Fred Taylor career statistics

Fred Taylor missed 24 games in the first four seasons of his career. The question is: has anyone else had a similarly dismal health history in the early part of his career, and then recovered to eventually be healthy and productive after that? Answer: yes, sort of. History does provide a few thin rays of hope for Taylor fans.

1. Wendell Tyler - Tyler missed 26 games in his first four seasons. In his next four, he missed only three games and he amassed 348 VBD points, which is a pretty nifty total (for comparison, that's about as many as Curtis Martin had in the last four years).
2. Robert Smith - he missed 23 games in his first four years. He missed seven games in his next four seasons while piling up 212 points of VBD.

And that's pretty much it. That's a complete list of the guys who have missed 20 or more games in their first four seasons, and then gone on to amass 100 or more VBD points in their next four.