Checking in on Mario Williams
posted:
Monday, November 6, 2006
I'm sandwiching the weekend with travel for ESPN The Magazine stories, so I was parked on the couch for this week's games. I tuned into the Giants-Texans' game, and decided to track Mario Williams. I've been thinking a lot about him this fall since I did a cover story in the Magazine about the impossible position he's facing this year. His first month was rough, and at one point coach Gary Kubiak singled him out, saying the rookie needed to play better. But as I talked to opposing coaches, many seemed to be really impressed by his talent and thought that if he had one other star on the D-line and wasn't constantly double-teamed he'd be all over the highlight shows every week.
Facing the Giants midway through the year was a good barometer for the No. 1 pick because New York runs and throws well. I charted all of Mario's plays, so remember these figures are unofficial. But what I found was that the Giants targeted and relied on his aggressiveness, didn't fear him as a run-stopper and, most interestingly, spent most of the passing game single-blocking him.
Williams lined up at right end for 18 snaps and left for 35. The Giants ran at him eight times and passed at him five. The Giants toyed with Williams by constantly running bootlegs and counters at his direction. In the first half, Williams was twice caught out of position on bootlegs to Jeremy Shockey, and on Tiki Barber's 16-yard touchdown run, the Giants ran right at Williams, who ended up on his knees.
For a while, the Giants didn't seem to fear Williams at all. Despite surrendering 45 pounds to Williams, Shockey single-blocked him on many plays and did so successfully. On the game-deciding touchdown that made the score 14-10, the Giants bootlegged at Williams, giving Eli Manning plenty of time and Shockey was wide open.
Williams was double teamed on only four passing plays. Sometimes he struggled to get past tackles; other times he didn't. At the end of the first half, he showed the dominating style that made him the top pick. On first-and-15 from the Houston 19, Williams bull-rushed Giants tackle Bob Whitfield, throwing the 318-pounder aside with his right arm, and sacked Manning. On the next play, he moved over a gap and plowed over Whitfield again *- like, planting the dude on his butt and hurdling over him *- and helped crumble the pocket for DeMeco Ryans to get Manning. Then, from the right side, Williams creamed tackle Luke Petitgout and forced Manning into an incompletion. On the next series Williams again beat Whitfield and forced Manning into an interception, although it was the final play of the half.
I know one game isn't indicative of the season, but there's no doubt Mario has moments where he looks like the most dominant player on the field and others when he isn't even a nuisance for the offense -* a reflection of his NC State career, when he was benched for ineffectiveness. Considering the pressure he's under amid the controversy surrounding his selection, pressure that he did nothing to earn, for his sake I hope his overpowering play develops into the norm.
Random T.O. Note
--T.O.'s "Sleeping on the Football" touchdown celebration was terrific. I'm on the fence in general about touchdown celebrations. I don't think they're too excessive but I don't get a lot of entertainment out of them either, even the good ones -- kind of like Super Bowl commercials. But T.O.'s making fun of himself for dozing off in meetings was clever.
Blog readers will recall a few months ago when I detailed how T.O. constantly nods off in meetings. Many, many players do, but Owens being Owens, it takes on a different life when he does. A former teammate of Owens' once told me about a story from the San Fran/Jeff Garcia days. He said that during Garcia and Owens' last season together, the offense held a players-only film session to go over SF's redzone offense. Garcia was running the meeting, holding the clicker, and at one point told Owens how to adjust if an opponent gave a particular defensive look. Garcia paused, waiting for T.O. to respond, and at that point players were biting their lips to keep from cracking up as Owens' face was planted in his hands and he was snoozing at the back of the room.
As the story goes, Garcia lost it and started screaming. Owens woke up, realized that everyone was laughing -* both at him and at how ticked off Garcia was -- and yelled back at Garcia before storming out.
