Is there room for another LaVar?

Everything we hear about Sean Taylor, one of the Redskins’ first-round candidates, sounds swell. In scouting reports, he comes across as a combination of Godzilla, Forrest Gump and a cruise missile.

“The best safety prospect since Ronnie Lott,” one evaluator says.

“Packs a wallop. … Could dominate,” says another.

“A thrilling film actress, the last brilliant star to emerge from the great Hollywood studio system,” says a third.

Whoops, my bad. That last one is talking about Liz Taylor.

Anyway, Sean Taylor, the safety off the University of Miami assembly line, is one of the players the Redskins are strongly considering taking with the fifth overall selection. And — who knows? — maybe he will turn out to be the best safety prospect since Ronnie Lott, maybe he will dominate, maybe he’ll even be a thrilling film actress. A lot of gridiron gurus seem to think so.

There’s only one thing about him that gives me pause: He appears to have a little LaVar Arrington in him.

“Taylor is intense and plays with passion,” Dennis Dillon writes in the Sporting News, “but he doesn’t always play under control. He’ll go for the ’SportsCenter’ highlight play — but it often turns into a blooper. He’ll try to make a big hit but miss the tackle. He’ll go for the big interception and wind up misreading the play. And that’s risky when you’re often the last line of defense. Scouts don’t question Taylor’s talent … but they wonder about his commitment to the game.”

Doesn’t that sound like LaVar — the LaVar whose ups and downs we’ve been enduring for four seasons? The LaVar who knocks the tight end cuckoo one minute and overruns the play the next? The LaVar who wears Lawrence Taylor’s number but has yet to develop into a first-class pass rusher? The LaVar who, for all his pretensions about being a Team Man, clearly marches to his own drummer — to the extent that he’s the only player in the NFL who won’t let the league sell his jersey?

Taylor’s last college season was even similar to Arrington’s. He had a tremendous year individually, was an All-American and all that, but his team underachieved. It’s reasonable to ask how a defense with four probable first-round picks — defensive tackle Vince Wilfork and linebackers D.J. Williams and Jonathan Vilma being the others — gave up 33 points against Florida, 31 in a loss to Virginia Tech and 20 in a near-loss to West Virginia (which Maryland held to a total of 14 points in two meetings).

If Taylor really is such a difference-maker, how come he couldn’t make more of a difference?

I’m not trying to run the kid down here, I’m just wondering whether he’s the right player for the Redskins. He obviously has many fine attributes, not the least of which are his near-linebacker size (6-foot-21/2, 230) and near-cornerback speed (4.5). Teams don’t normally draft safeties as high as the fifth pick because, well, they’re safeties. There are more important positions on the field. But Taylor’s rare ability makes him worthy of consideration. He can blitz, he can cover slot receivers, he can hit like a blacksmith — he’s “the whole package,” Cardinals coach Denny Green says.

And the Redskins could certainly use somebody like that, especially playing in the same division with Jeremy Shockey, Taylor’s old Miami teammate. Shockey has torched the Washington secondary for 21 receptions and 265 yards in just three games (fortunately, he sat out last year’s rematch with an injury). The Eagles also have a young tight end who bears watching, L.J. Smith, and Cowboys coach Bill Parcells, you can be sure, is on the lookout for the next Mark Bavaro. No, upgrading the safety spot wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Redskins.

It’s just that their defense has so many other needs, particularly in the line. They need tackles, they need a pass rush, they need just about everything. And as Redskins fans learned in the 1990s, when the team splurged on free agent safeties Stanley Richard and James Washington and failed to improve significantly, it makes more sense to build a defense from front to back than from back to front.

More than anything, though, it’s a matter of personality. Do the Redskins really want a safety who’s wired like LaVar Arrington … playing behind a linebacker who is LaVar Arrington? I mean, what if the two ever whiffed on the ball carrier and smacked into each other? That would be one expensive collision.

I’ve got two words for Dan Snyder: double indemnity.