Taylor Decker could be the next Jack Hanna, but he’d rather be the next Orlando Pace

Taylor Decker is massive. At 6’7 and 310 pounds, he has the size NFL teams are looking for, but as Stephen White noted in his breakdown of Decker, the former Ohio State left tackle played too high in college. His technique wasn’t perfect, and at his height, flawed technique could result in struggles at the NFL level.

Still, the first-team All-American was pretty dominant in college. Decker has the versatility to potentially play guard or right tackle if necessary. The projected first-round pick is physical and has the nastiness teams covet along the offensive line.

He has all the tools to succeed, and has been working hard to get even better.

“I want to be a professional who people look at and are like, ‘Man, that guy does it right every single snap,’” Decker said.

But if football doesn’t work out, Decker could end up in a wilder profession.

Decker was an animal sciences major at Ohio State, and his parents insisted he come back for his senior year and finish his degree. As part of his major, he was required to complete 200 hours of internship work, and he served his over two summers at the Columbus Zoo. He worked in Animal Programs, which is legendary zookeeper Jack Hanna’s department.

Decker loved the experience because of the passion and enthusiasm of the people he worked with as well as the opportunity to be close to the animals.

“They genuinely love what they do,” Decker said. “I don’t know how you wouldn’t, because you get to be working with all these cool animals. You get to be hands-on, and you get to do things that most people would never get to do in their life.

“Everybody there is so passionate and they love what they do, and I think that’s contagious, and it makes it a fun work environment.”

Obviously, Decker’s plan A is to build a successful NFL career, but he recognizes that isn’t in the cards for every player who gets drafted.

“[Football is] obviously my first passion, but to know that you have something that interests you and something that you enjoy to fall back on, I think that is important,” Decker said. “We always talked about, when I was in school at Ohio State -- you’ve got to have your plan B in motion before your plan A fails.”

For now, plan A awaits. Decker has been taking steps to become pro-ready before the draft even arrives, enlisting the help of former Buckeye great LeCharles Bentley to refine his technique and learn how to be an effective lineman in the NFL. Decker says working with Bentley at his O-Line Performance Academy out in Scottsdale, Ariz., has been an “enlightening” experience and has prepared him for the next level more than he could have expected.

“I’m learning so much. Nothing like, ‘oh, there’s this huge big thing that I never knew.’ It’s just these little subtleties,” Decker said. “But the little subtleties, if you get really good at them and you understand them and why you’re doing what you’re doing, they can make a huge difference when it comes to your on-field performance. So that’s the football aspect.”

But his lessons at Bentley’s academy aren’t just about refining his technique. It’s a more complete experience.

“From the workout standpoint and the diet standpoint, I’m getting stronger, but my body composition is way better, and my diet’s cleaned up,” Decker said. “It’s just everything that you need, everything that you need to be successful, it’s going to be there for you. There’s never going to be a time where you can ask a question or ask about something that you’re not going to get the response you need.

“So I feel like if you’re a lineman, this is where you want to be.”

“LeCharles always says you’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing, and that’s football,” Decker said. “You can’t get caught up in everything else -- all the extra testing and everything. I understand that testing at the Combine is important, but since day one here, we’ve kind of been getting ready to play football.”

Every player wants to have a great Combine performance, Decker noted, but when they take the field in September, they’re not going to be running 40s.

“If you can’t play once you get to your team, those numbers don’t matter,” Decker said. “I’m never going to run a 40 again in my life.”

As much as Decker is soaking in from Bentley, he realizes he’ll still have a learning curve as a rookie. He thinks that the time spent working with Bentley put him in the best position to succeed as a pro.

“Not in a conceited way, but I do think that I have high football intelligence and that I can pick up things as they talk to me, but that doesn’t mean that I still don’t have to learn things, and there are things -- like I said, little subtleties -- and all sorts of aspects of the game that I’m learning now that I didn’t necessarily know in college, that I think will help me going in,” Decker said.

“But again, when I arrive at whatever team that I’m fortunate to be drafted by, there will be still more learning to go, you know? You’re always learning, always trying to get better, but I think I put myself in the right position to succeed.”

In addition to training, Decker has spent quite a bit of time before the draft meeting with teams and doing private workouts for them.

“I think the more you put yourself in front of them, the more you can show them what you do. It’s good for you.”

Even though it’s been hectic, he understands that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

“It’s definitely a stressful time, but you’ve got to step back and take a look at it and be like, I’m getting the opportunity to hopefully play professional football,” Decker said. “That’s something amazing. I’m enjoying the process because you only get to do it one time.”

Until draft day, though, everything is so up in the air for these prospects. Decker expected to go in the first round, but there’s no way of knowing how things will shake out until the moment his name is called.

The biggest challenge for Decker has been the uncertainty. Still, he’s embracing it.

“You don’t know where you’re going to be living in the coming months. You’re just kind of blind, I would say, but at the same time, that’s kind of the beauty of the process,” Decker said. “It’s what you’re working for. So you put the work in so wherever you do arrive, and you’ll be prepared. You’ll be ready for what’s going to happen.”

And Decker says adjusting to life after college football is a challenge in and of itself. Everything about a college football player’s schedule is very structured. Discipline is basically built into the process for them. They know when they have class, when they have tutoring and when they have practice.

Once they leave college, it’s up to them to develop or maintain that necessary level of discipline.

“I’ve just bounced some simple questions and stuff off them,” Decker said. “Like okay, so after the draft, what will the schedule be like? Going to your team, what do you guys do? What’s the rookie minicamp like? Just things that I don’t know anything about. They’ve gone through it, and they’ve gone through it recently.”

When asked the same question in previous interviews, Decker’s Buckeye teammates had struggled to come up with an answer. Not Decker.

Ohio State faced Mack’s Buffalo Bulls back in 2013. It was Decker’s first college start, and it was trial by fire.

“He’s legitimate. There’s no questions about that,” Decker said. “That was my first start of my whole career at Ohio State against the best player that I would play against in my entire college career. That was a tough day of work, but I played a lot of great players, but to me, no question. He was the best.”

Depending on where he ends up, Decker may have the opportunity to face Mack again at the next level.