Originally Posted by jays52

This is what I wrote about Williams in the draft forum free agents thread:

I'm with you a bit on that, but I can validate the money that Williams would command. There's a lot of players each year that command large money deals. Most of these players have a given position. Corner, defensive end, ect...but Williams is different to me. I could never validate spending quarterback money on a positional player. The thing about Williams, obviously, is his tremendous versatility, and truly rare versatility at that. We're talking about a guy who can play every three-point alignment other than the 0 technique at an extremely high level. On top of that, we're talking about a guy with the athleticism to stand up and play linebacker at 285 pounds. Even Julius Peppers doesn't have that kind of versatility. Quarterback money...there was a reason I used that term. I view that kind of versatility as the quarterback of the defense. On offense, all plays run through the quarterback, and with a good one you can do almost anything in the passing game. With a player like Williams you can do the same defensively. You can move him around as matchup dictates, better position your other plays, and (here's the real kicker) DICTATE where you want the offense to align their blocking. That is HUGE.

That's not all, though. Yes, Williams is a tremendous athlete with once in a generation versatility, but most freak athletes fall off dramatically when they lose their burst to old man time. Therein lies the beauty and risk mitigation of Williams' body type! When he loses his speed, he can easily put on an additional twenty pounds and become a fulltime 34 end- and play that at a high level for another 3-5 years! There isn't anyone in the league who presents that kind of package. It's probably a pipe dream, but they've got the cap, and they would go from a lower-mid tier defense to an elite one instantly. I would do anything that wasn't completely psychotic to wrestle him away from Houston.

Originally Posted by AndyJohnson

Excellent post, however, sonmething struck me as I read it.
Your description of Williams essentially adds up to a guy who single handedly elevates your entire defense. A stud who makes everyone around him better and dictates to an offense.
So, being the Devils Advocate, how do that reconcile with the fact that aside from this year where he only played 5 games, in his 5 year career, the Texan defense was never ranked better than 17/13 in points/yards and the second best was 22nd in either. What you describe makes sense but he has never had that result on his team so far.

Originally Posted by jays52

He needs some players around him to maximize his value and in turn, his versatility. Teams can scheme for one great player when there is nobody else to gameplan for. With the exception of their mike (name escapes me at the moment), they never had anyone else around him who could exploit the individual matchups he caused. The past few seasons they drafted well and have built a nice young defense. A healthy Williams in addition to that group would be scary. If you were to place Williams on the Patriots with guys like Wilfork, Love, Mayo, Fletcher, Spikes, Carter (hopefully), and Anderson (hopefully), all of those guys would exponentially benefit from having Williams in the mix.

It also helps having a coach creative enough to properly utilize his skills. The thought of what Belichick could do with such a weapon is really exciting.