Blitzing Hollywood

THE ILLUSTRIOUS FLACK has handled the likes of Hendrix, Joplin and the Beach Boys. On more than one level Sandy Friedman (a.k.a. the Sand Man) has enjoyed close to a pitch-perfect career. So when Friedman, the executive vice president for music and sports at public-relations powerhouse Rogers & Cowan, stares intently at a photo of Jason and Katina Taylor on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles, a great deal is riding on what he will say next. In the publicity shot a handsome, tuxedo-clad Jason, the Miami Dolphins' All-Pro defensive end, is posing James Bond-like while his gorgeous wife, resplendent in a flower-print dress, gets Bond-girl frisky, and it all makes the Sand Man light up like Jimi's Stratocaster at Monterey Pop. Friedman shifts his gaze to the real-life Jason, whom he had met only five minutes earlier, then looks at the photo again. Mindful that the Taylors will be visiting London in late October, when the Dolphins face the New York Giants in the first NFL regular-season game outside North America, Friedman foresees tabloid exposure worthy of the Beckhams.

"We sell Tim McGraw and Faith Hill as the First Couple of Country Music; that's how we want to position you [as an NFL couple] over there," the Sand Man says excitedly. "The trick is getting you off the sports pages and into the other parts of the paper--and that's what this allows us to do." Friedman slaps the photo on the conference-room table for emphasis. "They'll eat this up on Fleet Street. They love couples! We'll make sure you're seen with all the right people in all the right places. Because what you're giving us, with the business interests and lifestyle and charitable efforts and entertainment ventures, is perfect for the business we're in."

Fiddling with a pair of oversized Prada shades, Jason looks at his L.A.-based agent, Gary Wichard, and nods approvingly. The two men have plotted to raise Taylor's profile since his days as a lukewarm NFL draft project out of Akron, and this meeting is designed to bolster his appeal as a crossover celebrity. While Friedman and Wichard, who have known each other for years, ponder various marketing strategies, Taylor says little. A man who, in Katina's words, "gets out of bed to start his day like someone bursting out of a three-point stance," seems strangely locked in read-and-react mode. Later, he'll talk plenty--about his desire to transcend his sport; the challenge of repairing a marriage that nearly collapsed last year; and his frustration when the Dolphins used the No. 9 pick to draft wideout-return man Ted Ginn�Jr. instead of quarterback Brady Quinn. But now he's in L.A. to listen and learn.

The next day, in meetings with a big-time Hollywood producer and a high-powered agent, he'll be similarly subdued. "In this town, it's not about me," Taylor says. "All of us athletes have big egos, but I'm not so egotistical to come into Hollywood and say, 'Hey, I'm pretty damn good at football, so give me this project or this role.' I'm green. I've got to be coachable. Because in the end, I want to be the best. At everything."

When it comes to his day job, Taylor, 32, can justify having a big ego. Last year, in his 10th NFL season, he took his already formidable game to new heights, earning NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors despite lining up for one of the league's most underachieving teams. "He took over games," says coach Jeff Fisher, whose Tennessee Titans lost to the Dolphins 13-10 last September. "I don't feel there's been a player in our league the last few years who's had an impact on games, who people had to concern themselves with so thoroughly, the way Jason did last year."

The only person who made more plays in 2006 than JT was LT, and with all due respect to San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson, he didn't have the terrorizing effect on opponents that Taylor had. "I've never competed against anybody any tougher and smarter," says New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, Taylor's good friend and, in a 21-0 Pats loss in Miami last December, the primary target of Taylor's laser dot. "JT changes every game that he plays in."

Last season Taylor had 13 1?2 sacks, an NFL-leading 10 forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, 11 passes defensed, two interceptions (both returned for touchdowns), a blocked field goal and one rules-changing comment. In a conference call with Indianapolis reporters four days before the Dolphins' season-ending loss to the Colts, Taylor declared that Chargers outside linebacker and NFL sack leader Shawne Merriman shouldn't be eligible for 2006 honors because he served a four-game suspension for violating the league's substance-abuse policy; after the season the league and the players' association agreed that any player suspended for violating the policy would not be eligible for that season's Pro Bowl.

If the 6' 6", 241-pound Taylor was a tad surly in '06, he had his reasons. Miami, a trendy preseason Super Bowl pick, bombed like Poseidon, losing six of its first seven and finishing 6-10. It was Taylor who rousted the Dolphins from their slumber, defiantly proclaiming that his 1-6 team could beat the undefeated Chicago Bears when they met on Nov. 5. Then Taylor seemingly willed a 31-13 upset at Soldier Field, leaping to intercept a Rex Grossman pass and returning it 20 yards for a TD, and forcing a Grossman fumble on a play that put him over the 100-sack mark for his career.

From then on Taylor was tougher to contain than Lindsay Lohan on a party binge. Middle linebacker Zach Thomas, Taylor's longtime teammate and brother-in-law, remembers a promise JT made while they stood on the field during a timeout late in Miami's 24-20 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Nov. 19. "I'm out of rhythm, man," Taylor told him. "But watch--I'm going to get right back into it and make something happen on this series." Umpire Jim Quirk overheard the conversation. "Four plays later," Thomas recalls, "JT picks off Brad Johnson and takes it [51 yards] to the house. On the next series the [umpire] comes up to him and says, 'Man, you backed it up!' For a defensive end to keep making big plays like that, and to do it for a bad team, it's just amazing. It's hard when guys around you aren't playing up to your level, and he pretty much won some games single-handedly."

Taylor's decidedly matter-of-fact take: "Just 'cause s--- is going bad around you, it doesn't mean you've got to be f----- up too. I have too much pride to let it all go to hell in a handbasket. I've got things I want to do in this league, a mark I want to leave, and to lose a whole year because the team's doing poorly is unacceptable."