THE ONE TIME Williams wasn’t as detailed from start to finish? After he tore his ACL in his final college season.
All the work he had been doing felt worthless. He was down. Bad.
He did his rehab both at college and leading up to the draft as he was asked. But he wasn’t doing extra. Then the Cardinals drafted him and he realized that they “legit cared for me.”
“It flipped a switch in my brain,” Williams said. “These people are putting so much time and effort into this, you don’t want to let them down.”
He pushed to return by midseason. He made his first NFL interception in Seattle. He’s evolved into the Cardinals’ top cornerback. Not that he’ll notice, whether fans or media are propping him up. He made that mistake in college, feeling the love of social media until he had a bad game, and then saw all the love turn to criticism.
Since then, Williams stays on X (formerly Twitter) but mutes his name and stays away from that conversation.
“When I make good plays I’ll watch it a bunch of times, like ‘Damn, that’s what’s up,'” he said. “But when I am writing down my notes, It’s not ‘You did this good.’ That’s my job. It’s what I’m messing up, what I need to focus on in practice.”
So the journey on Sunday night postgame begins each week, rewatching the game he played. Monday, it’s two games of the upcoming opponent, and the wide receiver release tapes of the next team, and studying the depth chart.
That begins the days of watching “normal down” pass plays, and watching concepts, and then third downs, and red zone. All the while, Williams’ notebook grows. However the result on Sunday, he trusts his process. Not every game will be perfect.
“The funny part?” Williams said. “When the game is over, I literally forget everything I wrote down.”
(Not to worry – the notebook doesn’t go anywhere, so he has a reference point to start with the second division games.)
One note that never changes each week: Williams writes “Win” near the top. Not the game. Each play. It might be the most important point he must make to himself.
“Sometimes you’re not going to know what they are going to do,” Williams said. “So you just have to play ball.”
