Seventh-round pick from UWs O-line factory became mainstay at RT

Cliff Christl

Mark Tauscher

• Inducted: 2018
• Tackle: 2000-10
• Height: 6-3; Weight: 320
• College: Wisconsin, 1997-99

Looks can be deceiving.

It's a catchphrase that Mark Tauscher had to put up with throughout his pro career in his quest for recognition. It dated to the day he was drafted in April 2000, when Packers general manager Ron Wolf characterized his first of five seventh-round draft picks as the "Pillsbury Doughboy."

The description was intended as a backhanded compliment. That while Tauscher might not look the part of an NFL offensive lineman, he possessed certain distinctive qualities that made him an attractive prospect regardless.

For one, Tauscher was deceptively athletic, having also been an all-conference basketball and baseball player at Auburndale High School in Central Wisconsin. In addition, his baseline included two of the most important essentials for offensive line play: good hands and feet.

Drafted as a guard, where with his build he would have been more of a prototype, Tauscher played his entire career at right tackle, where he was on the short side at 6-foot-3 and lacking some in bulk at 320 pounds. Nevertheless, he rarely lost his week-to-week matchups.

"Is he flashy?" Larry Beightol, the Packers' offensive line coach during Tauscher's first six seasons, once asked rhetorically. "Nah, but those defensive ends know they've got an all-day sucker with this guy."

By 2000, the University of Wisconsin was becoming an offensive line factory under coach Barry Alvarez. Counting tackle Chris McIntosh, a first-round pick the year Tauscher was selected, seven other Badgers' O-linemen had been drafted since 1993, Alvarez's fourth season, and all higher than Tauscher.

But it was Tauscher who had caught Wolf's eye during a playful moment at a UW practice.

"You consider all the guys that have come out of there," said Wolf. "The (Cory) Raymers. McIntosh. Tauscher is better than those guys. I liked him, but I didn't know. The thing I was so impressed with was his feet. His feet were unbelievable.

"He looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy. That kind of stopped me a little bit. But I couldn't believe a guy that looked like that had those kind of feet. They kind of monkeyed around down there the linemen did before practice one day with a soccer ball. I was standing there watching Tauscher with that soccer ball and I couldn't believe what he was doing."

With Wolf, those feet never stopped passing the eyeball test.

"In order to play the offensive line, the one thing you have to have other than size, certainly is you have to have balance," Wolf said at the end of Tauscher's career. "And this was the thing Mark had that was just unbelievable."

Although Tauscher took an unorthodox approach to pass blocking, his hands, too, left a lasting impression on Beightol. That and his moxie. No doubt, the combination was what allowed Tauscher to excel as a pass blocker by turning himself into a human shock absorber.

Rather than keeping pass rushers at bay with his arm extension and punch, he'd let them get inside him and then essentially smother them. What's more, it worked against the best of the best. And by embracing pass rushers inside the plane of his own body, he was rarely called for holding.

"He is uncanny about his hands," Beightol once said. "If he gets them outside, he brings them right back in. He just blocks people, you know. Very, very aware. Seldom makes a mistake. Loves to play."

As a rookie in 2000, Tauscher took over as the right tackle on the second offensive play of the second game when veteran Earl Dotson injured his back and was lost for the season. Other than 2002, when Tauscher missed all but two games with a knee injury, he remained a fixture at right tackle through his ninth season. In 2009 and '10, his last two seasons, he played in 12 games total due to knee and shoulder injuries.

In all, Tauscher played in 134 games and started 132 over 11 seasons. He also made eight postseason starts. In July 2011, Tauscher was unable to pass his physical with the Packers and was released.

While he wasn't a decorated player in terms of all-pro and Pro Bowl selections, Tauscher was extremely consistent and vastly underrated. Although a better pass protector, he also possessed the willpower, and used angles and leverage to be effective as a run blocker.

"Very good pass protector," said James Campen, Tauscher's offensive line coach for his final four seasons. "He just wills it that he's not going to get beat. He's 'Steady Eddie.' As smart a football player as anyone in that room."

Born June 17, 1977, in Marshfield, Wis. Given name Mark Gerald Tauscher.