"Those three [Taylor Sheridan] movies are all Oscar-grade." That Reddit comment summed up the mood on r/movies after news broke that Taylor Sheridan (Paramount's golden cowboy who created Yellowstone) had now signed a $1 billion+ deal with NBCUniversal in 2025.While studio execs spun it as something of a "bold new chapter," Redditors ranked and roasted. The verdict was that Sheridan's best work was behind him!Forget the ranches and cowboys of Yellowstone and 1923. Fans pointed to Sheridan's "frontier trilogy" as the apex of his career. These included movies like Sicario (2015), Hell or High Water (2016), and Wind River (2017). How did Taylor Sheridan's career begin?Before he became the mogul of cowboy TV, Sheridan used to be a screenwriter for some of the most politically-charged American thrillers of the 2010s.Hell or High Water earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and fans still gush over its dialogue. As a Redditor wrote, "Jeff Bridges basically modernized (...) Rooster Cogburn. Chris Pine is phenomenal, too."Then came Sicario. It was a nerve-wracking masterpiece directed by Denis Villeneuve. Yes, the one behind Dune! One summed it up: "That's a top-tier film (...) probably because you got Villeneuve to elevate the solid material."And finally, Wind River (Sheridan's directorial debut movie) still gets cited as his most personal and haunting one. It's now proven that this was the kind of trilogy that built Taylor Sheridan a myth of a career.Did Taylor Sheridan lose his spark?Somewhere between the Emmy red carpets and his real-life ranch, many fans say that Sheridan's storytelling lost its edge."I'm convinced after they gave him the bag, he never wrote a second draft again," joked one user, referring to his seven TV series between 2018 and 2024. Another observed, "Not using writer rooms for his shows is a huge factor. He’s spread thin, and nobody is there to check his worst impulses." View this post on Instagram Instagram PostThat overextension and sheer volume of output have led to what we can call cowboy content fatigue, right? As a user put it, "The hunger that drives creativity diminishes when overindulgence becomes the norm."And though Yellowstone is his biggest hit so far, it didn't escape criticism. "It had legs early on," one fan noted, "then it just went off the rails." Another said, "It nose-dived the moment Sheridan wrote in a character for himself."Still, some defended him: "He (...) propped up Paramount+ with his output," one pointed out. That's not even an exaggeration at this point. Taylor Sheridan was the network's engine. He was responsible for 1883, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Lioness, and more. Losing him to NBC is practically a firing offense!RELATED: Jeremy Renner reveals Mayor of Kingstown S4 is "intense"Fans may soon see Taylor Sheridan go back to his OG cinematic style thanks to his NBCUniversal deal, which will cover both film and television. Viewers yearn for an emotional drama rather than cowboy soap operas, clearly. After all, fans are asking for more heart. And maybe with NBC, Taylor Sheridan will be able to give his fans what he has come to be known for.