Williams runs to breakout season
By David Scott
dscott@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Sunday, Nov. 09, 2008
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/panthers/story/314103.html
Carolina Panthers tailback DeAngelo Williams does not want to get caught again.
Every Wednesday during practice, when a play is called for Williams, he often finishes it with a long sprint to the end zone at the other end of the field.
“That's how it works,” says Williams. “Whether it's 90, 80 or 70 yards, it's something we're going to do.”
Williams' practice habits have helped him to what's rapidly becoming the kind of breakout year many expected when he was chosen by the Panthers in the first round of the 2006 NFL draft (No. 27). He has gained 522 yards halfway into the season and leads the Panthers (6-2) today against the Oakland Raiders (2-6) at McAfee Coliseum.
Williams is on pace to become the Panthers' first 1,000-yard rusher since Stephen Davis gained 1,444 in 2003 and only the third in franchise history (Anthony Johnson had 1,120 in 1996).
Williams' Wednesday motivation stems from a game last season against Arizona, when he broke off a 75-yard run. Tiring, Williams was caught by the Cardinals' Adrian Wilson before he could score.
It doesn't matter to Williams that the run against the Cardinals was the longest from scrimmage in Panthers history: He didn't make it to the end zone, and it still bothers him.
“I got caught from behind – allegedly,” Williams says, laughing. “But clearly the tape shows (Wilson) had an angle.”
Three years removed from his record-setting college days at Memphis, Williams has established himself as the Panthers' starter.
Fending off a challenge for that spot from rookie Jonathan Stewart, Williams is the NFL's 16th-leading rusher.
He's got two 100-yard-plus games this season, and his 123 yards against the Kansas City Chiefs were a career high.
Shorter tailbacks get it done
At 5 feet 9 inches tall (but a sturdy 217 pounds), Williams calls himself as a “peek-a-boo” back.
“Once I get the ball, you can't really see me behind the line of scrimmage,” he says.
Panthers running backs coach Jim Skipper thinks Williams sells himself short with that description.
“You look around the league the past few years, you don't know if he's really that small,” said Skipper. “Look at guys like Emmitt Smith (who is 5-10).”
Smith is the NFL's all-time leading rusher.
The two players behind him on the league's career rushing list – Walter Payton (5-10) and Barry Sanders (5-8) – might have qualified as “peek-a-boo” backs, too.
“If you look around the NFL, you'll see those 6-2, 6-0 guys are maybe not becoming extinct, but there aren't as many today as there were back in the day,” says Williams. “I think teams are going more to the ‘peek-a-boo' back idea.”
Height doesn't seem to be a factor with this season's top running backs, either. Of the NFL's top five rushers, three – Washington's Clinton Portis, Atlanta's Michael Turner and San Francisco's Frank Gore – are under 6-0.
And the NFL's most productive running back of recent seasons – San Diego's LaDainian Tomlinson – is 5-10.
“Usually if you're a bigger back or a power back, you're going to lose quickness anyway,” says Skipper. “It's not size, it's production.”
Panthers defensive tackle Damione Lewis says he's always had a tough time tackling Williams, whether it's in training camp or practice.
“Yeah, it's hard to find him back there,” says Lewis. “He's a shorter guy, and you're used to seeing guys at eye level when they're running at you. It's hard to get a visual with him.
“But he runs with power. He keeps his pads low, his feet moving. He's expecting that hit. He's able to break that one tackle he needs to break that long run.”
Lewis says there's more to Williams than that.
“Now he's making adjustments,” Lewis says. “He's using his eyes on the field, not just running blind. He's looking and seeing. That comes with experience. He's really seeing the field.”
Williams is uncomfortable talking about what he's learned over the years.
“I just want to be a guy who's known as being consistent,” he says. “That I make plays more often than not.”
Small-town opportunity
Williams has lived much of his life in the South's large cities. He was born in Little Rock, Ark., played college football in Memphis, Tenn., and lives in Charlotte now.
But he was molded by the years he lived in Wynne, Ark., a dot on the map between Little Rock and Memphis in eastern Arkansas.
“It was very … I wouldn't say country, but there were a lot of pickup trucks. I have a pickup truck,” Williams says of Wynne, where his family moved from Little Rock when he was in middle school. “Everybody loved to hunt, fish, do wildlife stuff like that. That's what we did. We couldn't wait for deer season. You'd be at the fast food joints at 6 or 7 in the morning and all the hunters would be coming through.”
By the time Williams was in the seventh grade, he began to excel in football. In his last season of pee-wee football in Little Rock, he started out as a fifth-string defensive end.
“We were playing a team called the Northside Bears, or something of that nature, and two of the guys in front of me didn't show up,” Williams said. “Then the other two got hurt.”
Williams clearly remembers what happened next.
“They put me in,” he says. “I was the rushing the quarterback and getting to him every time. I forced him to throw two interceptions, had a sack and a host of quarterback hurries. I stayed at defensive end the rest of the year.”
But after moving to Wynne the next year, his middle school coach moved Williams to tailback. He didn't have the size to be a defensive end – and still doesn't.
“I wasn't big enough,” he says. “I'm 5-9 now, so think of what I was like then.”
Williams leans back his head, as if he's wearing a too-large football helmet. “I couldn't even look through my face mask. I looked underneath my face mask, down where the chin strap is.”
But Williams quickly discovered something wonderful: As a tailback, he got to carry the ball.
“Touching the ball,” he said. “It was one of those things. Really, at defensive end you can't do that. No disrespect to the defensive ends in the NFL, college or high school, but you can't touch the ball playing that position. I'm a little biased about it, because I touch the ball.”
As a senior at Wynne High, Williams played on a state championship team that included future NFL players Arrion Dixon and Antonio Warren.
Williams was recruited by Memphis, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi and Toledo.
He chose Memphis, thinking that playing in college was something most high school football players went on to do.
During his freshman season, Williams received an e-mail. It was from a high school teammate, a standout offensive lineman whom Williams credits for opening holes for a substantial number of the yards he gained at Wynne.
“He said he got a scholarship to Arkansas State, and we were playing them the next week,” Williams says. “Before the game, he runs up to me and shakes my hand.”
Williams couldn't believe what he was seeing.
“He has a cheerleader's uniform on! That's what he had his scholarship for.”
Williams was stunned. “Right then, I knew not everybody was going to always be great in football,” he says. “That opened my eyes.”
On the mentoring path
Williams had a memorable college career. He became the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly I-A) all-time leader with 7,573 all-purpose yards, a mark he still holds. Conference USA's offensive player of the year for three consecutive seasons, Williams' 34 100-yard games also remains an NCAA record.
He played behind DeShaun Foster his first two seasons for the Panthers, then watched as the team chose Stewart in the first round last spring.
“That never bothered me,” says Williams.
Instead, Williams has served as mentor to Stewart, as Foster did to Williams and, before that, Davis did to Foster.
“We have bridges like that on this team,” Skipper said. “We cultivate that. (The running backs) are a big section of the team and we try to breed it.”
There's no friction between Williams and Stewart, who became fast friends. Williams spends a lot of his free time at Stewart's condo playing video games.
He's also trained Stewart to make those long runs during practice. That brings Williams back to how he plans for the lung-burning sprints to pay off, perhaps as soon as today against the Raiders.
“If it happens, if I get out there by myself again, I'll know I've been there before,” he says.
And, Williams hopes, he won't get caught again.
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