Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos are mourning the loss of one of their original Ring of Fame players in Lionel Taylor. He was 89 at the time of his death on August 6, 2025.
When I first came to MHR, Taylor was one of my favorite guys to write about in my many history posts over the years — especially during the 2008-2009 timeframe when history was all I wrote about. He and Goose Gonsoulin were fun to learn about. In fact, I remain convinced that if Taylor had played for any other team in the 1960s he’d be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. There were few players in that era who were double and triple covered every play because a team literally had no other offensive weapons on the field. Yet, Taylor still dominated.
He led the AFL in receptions in five of six seasons and set a mark for most receptions in a six year span that stood until Sterling Sharpe broke the record in the 1990s. There are at least five other wide receivers from the pre-1980s eras with worse stats overall than Taylor who are enshrined in Canton because they played on championship teams. That’s just how those with the votes do things.
One of my favorite highlights of Taylor showed him climbing the ladder for a reception with three defenders all around him. He truly was a dominant threat on the football field back then.
After he retired, he ended up catching on as a wide receivers coach and even won two Super Bowl titles with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 70s as a coach. He would keep coaching all the way into the late 90s. He surely impacted more people through coaching than he did for fans on the field, but in Denver we’ll always remember him as the first of a long line of great wide receivers.
For those of us who weren’t around in the 1960s, it is still hard to imagine what he did on the field. Perhaps some of those who were there in the stands back then can share some stories below.
