Posts tagged MikeWilliams at FanHouse

In a sorta shocking development, the Titans released wideout Mike Williams last week after the Lions 2005 former first-round pick washed out in Detroit and Oakland. That he was cut isn't necessarily newsworthy, but that it happened just a week into training camp had to be unexpected. Or not, who knows.

Either way, the Titans were kind enough to explain why Williams is currently seeking employment.

"It was a combination of things we weren't getting from him. There were too many drops. We just didn't see improvement,'' Coach Jeff Fisher said. "He's had potential. He still has potential. Maybe he'll realize it someplace else.''

So, apparently, there's more to being an NFL wide receiver than not being fat. Interesting. What's most troubling, perhaps, is that the Titans current crop of wideouts aren't exactly Randy Moss and Wes Welker. That Williams couldn't make it more than a few days competing against the likes of Justin McCareins and Justin Gage pretty much tells you all you need to know.

Plus, when chronic underachiever LenDale White is giving you career advice, it might be time to look into a new line of work.

"No disrespect to Mike Williams, I love Mike Williams, but he is going to have show people that he is really serious about playing football,'' said running back LenDale White, who was a teammate of Williams at USC. "Unfortunately, they might be talking about him like Ryan Leaf as one of the worst draft decisions.''

Ryan Leaf has every right to be offended by that remark, by the way.

The Tennessee Titans have released wide receiver Mike Williams, closing yet another chapter in a disappointing career.

The Detroit Lions made Williams the 10th overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft, and he's been a huge disappointment. He showed up overweight and out of shape, never demonstrated the slightest bit of commitment to his sport, and was eventually traded to the Raiders for a fourth-round draft pick.

Williams didn't do much with the Raiders, either, but the reports out of Tennessee indicated that he had committed himself to his conditioning and lost weight. There was optimism that he could be a solid contributor this season.

Instead, he's booted off the team after just a week of training camp. It now seems possible that his NFL career is over, at the age of 24.

Detroit Lions fans will be thrilled to know that Mike Williams, the team's 2005 first-round pick who ballooned up to 270 pounds and never contributed anything to the offense, is suddenly taking his job seriously.

Jim Wyatt of the Tennesseean reports that Williams, now with the Titans, is so devoted to his job that he's down to 242 pounds and deflecting praise by saying he's just doing what was expected of him coming out of USC. When someone told Williams he was looking good, he replied:

"I was the No. 10 pick (in the draft),'' he said. "I'm supposed to look like that. It just so happens that I am finally doing what other teams picked me to do.''

Isn't that great, Lions fans? How come high-priced rookies so rarely look how they're supposed to look when they play in Detroit?

As soon as Javon Walker fully recovers from his second knee surgery in as many years -- and he drops a few lbs. -- he promises to show the Broncos, the team that released him earlier this offseason, what they're missing.

As it stands, Walker looks more like former Raiders' tight end-in-training/fatso Mike Williams, than an actual NFL wide receiver, but he plans to be ready for the Sept. 8 Denver-Oakland Monday night game.

"That team is going to see me in the opener," Walker said. "They are going to see me, I'll tell you that..." I'm assuming he means "see me on the field ready to play," not "see me because I'll be so big you can't miss me."

Apparently, the relationship soured after Walker felt the Broncos mishandled his knee injury last offseason. He played in the first two games of the regular season -- both wins -- and had 17 receptions. The Broncos lost the following week, and he had just two catches. According to ESPN.com's Bill Williamson, that was that for Walker:

"I was open and they didn't get me the ball," Walker said. "Here I was busting my butt, draining my knee, to be able to go out and make plays and they didn't get me the ball. After that, I started to take care of my knee."

Huh. Walker's mad because Denver didn't build the game plan around him every week? Um, okay. Whatever, Williamson writes that for the Broncos, the feeling is mutual:

Mike Williams has given up attempting to impersonate an offensive tackle as the wide receiver has dropped 30 pounds to give a full attempt in what might be his last shot at an NFL job.

After failing miserably in Detroit and Oakland, Williams was signed by the Titans late last year, but they weren't exactly impressed with the former first-round pick. And since they don't have anything invested in him, they don't have to be nice.

"That conversation with Fisher, only a fool wouldn't take it as such," Williams said of the coach's ultimatum after a recent minicamp session. "It was pretty much, `You make a commitment to be in shape when you come back or ... move forward."

Now here's where it gets tricky. According to the story, Williams weighs somewhere around 245-250 pounds right now, although he's laughably listed at 230 pounds on the Titans Website. Williams said he played at above 260 pounds last year (he wasn't more specific), but if his 30 pounds of weight loss can be believed, he actually tried to play receiver last year while carrying closer to 280 pounds--which would make him one of the bigger tight ends in the league, and the fattest receiver since William "The Fridge" Perry ran a route.

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When the Detroit Lions drafted wide receiver Mike Williams with the 10th pick in the 2005 NFL draft, most people thought it was stupid because the Lions had used Top 10 picks on wide receivers in the last two drafts.

As it turned out, it was stupid because Williams wasn't any good. He caught 37 passes in two seasons in Detroit, had some crucial drops in key moments, got morbidly obese and horribly out of shape, and was shipped to Oakland last year.

Now Oakland has let him go, and he's in Tennessee, where he says he's in good shape and down 30 pounds to 242, or only about 10 heavier than he was at USC. New offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger says he's excited about what Williams can bring to the offense.

I just don't buy it, though. The last time Williams looked like a good football player was at the 2004 Rose Bowl. I think Williams' football talent has atrophied.

Of course, the premise in the above headline is ridiculous -- Matt Millen certainly isn't getting unfair treatment from Lions fans and, if it's even possible, should probably get worse.

But Drew Sharp finally puts down his pitchfork to play devil's advocate -- maybe all the Lions' first-round blunders aren't his fault?

Only once has the team's early selections exemplified the kind of mouth-frothing football Millen identified with as a player. And that was his first draft in 2001, when he focused exclusively on the interior line ....

Joey Harrington was ownership's pick. Charles Rogers, Roy Williams and Mike Williams in successive years were Steve Mariucci's brainstorm. Ernie Sims was Rod Marinelli's idea. Calvin Johnson was Mike Martz's obsession.

Of course, Millen can still be blamed for hiring these poor drafters and signing off on the picks (except Sims, who so far looks great), but the point remains -- these were not Millen's choices. And two of the top three players in the '01 crop he picked -- Jeff Backus and Shaun Rogers -- turned out to be significantly less than anticipated themselves.

I don't agree that Millen has to take the reins this year; he should finally make this Marinelli's team. And I don't agree that the Lions "must" pick a rookie Pro Bowler this year; that's just setting an unrealistic goal. All the Lions have to do is resist the temptation to take a running back and address one of the lines. They'll get a good, impactful, immediate contributor if they do, and Ray Rice will still be there in the second.

We can all rattle off the list of Matt Millen's biggest draft blunders over the years -- Charles Rogers, Mike Williams, Shaun Rogers -- but what does it take to ruin an entire draft? Look at the crop Millen plucked in 2003. The numbers:

11 - players selected by Detroit; 7 - players currently out of the league; 3 - players who did at least something positive in the NFL, though not necessarily for the Lions; 1 - player who's still a Lion.

Those are awful results. Cory Redding (#66 overall) is the only player remaining, and the best of the crop overall, and it's not like he's been an impact player himself.

Charles Rogers (#2) is obviously the pick that hurts the most. The other six no longer active are tackle Ben Johnson (#216), receiver David Kircus (#175), linebacker James Davis (#144), receiver Travis Anglin (#260), fullback Brandon Drumm (#236), and cornerback Blue Adams (#220).

Boss Bailey (#34) has been bust-ish himself, but at least he and Terrence Holt (#137) have made plays. Kircus and running back Artose Pinner (#99) haven't done anything worth noting, but at least they convinced more than one team to employ them, which is ... um ... notable, I guess.

So, yeah -- you're 2003 Detroit Lions draft class. A testament to incompetence.

When I saw this headline,"Titans want WR Williams at 250 pounds", I took it to mean that head coach Jeff Fisher was going to let former Lions first-round pick Mike Williams play at a weight he found most comfortable. And when I say "most comfortable" I obviously mean "allows him to eat as much ice cream as he wants and still squeeze into his game pants."

Actually, Fisher wanted Williams to drop weight to get to 250 which is, well, mind-boggling. Of course, I had forgotten Williams was still in the league which is kind of ironic given that he's pretty hard to miss.

Fisher wanted receiver Mike Williams at 250 pounds by [last Thursday]. Earlier this week the former first-round pick was about four pounds short of the 20 he'd been told to lose.

"Very few people on this roster and other rosters accomplished what Mike was able to accomplish from the time the season was over until reporting," Fisher said. "He worked and it's obvious. I was pleased with his effort. That's a good sign, it's important."

So it sounds like Williams was pushing 270 at some point in the not-too-distant past. That's very Jermaine Wiggins-esque. To his credit, it sounds like he's working it off and if Fisher is happy with his progress then so am I. If Williams can flash any of the potential that made him a top-10 pick three years ago, it should make Vince Young's life a lot easier.

This assumes that some of Youngs' struggles are a consequence of not having anyone to throw to. If it's the case that Young's not a very good NFL quarterback then it won't matter how much weight Williams' loses. Which should be great news for the local Nashville eateries.

ESPN's Mel Kiper has been scouting college players for some 25 years now, but the NFL Network's Mike Mayock is probably the best draft analyst on the teevees these days. Mayock had Jay Cutler ranked ahead of Vince Young and Matt Leinart in 2006, and never thought wide receiver Mike Williams would be much of an NFL wide receiver. Kiper was a Leinart guy and ranked Williams as one of the draft's best players in 2005.

The point isn't to call out Kiper, but to show that Mayock's pretty good at what he does. Which makes it kinda surprising that in his initial list of top-20 draft prospects doesn't include Arkansas running back Darren McFadden.

Mayock tells Paul Burmeister that he's just starting looking at the juniors, but he's watched three of McFadden's games and wasn't as impressed as he expected to be. "Great burst, great acceleration, but I don't touch Darren McFadden in the first 20 picks of the draft."

Wow. Obviously, it's still early in the process -- the combine, Pro Days and individual team workouts are all in front of us -- but given Mayock's eye for talent, I wouldn't be surprised if McFadden pulled a "Brady Quinn" come draft day. And who knows, maybe Jerry Jones will get his (rumored) wish after all.

By the way, Kiper currently has McFadden No. 1 on his big board.

Hat tip: Pancake Blocks