Mike Williams Contemplates Moving Back To Tackle, Away From Casey Rabach
Posted by Matt Terl on October 12, 2009 – 2:07 pm
Head coach Jim Zorn really didn’t waste much time getting to the most newsworthy part of his press conference today, and he didn’t need any prompting to get there.
“The guy that I’m concerned about is Chris Samuels,” Zorn said, after explaining that Phillip Daniels is expected to be able to play despite his torn biceps. “[Samuels] got an MRI; he’s been playing with a stenosis, which is a narrowing — that was three or four years ago, this is something that he’s been playing with; you know, he’s got that big [neck roll] thing to protect himself. But he got popped and he got some tingling and we’re just checking this out. So right now, he will NOT be available to play next week, just to quiet this thing down.”
(Zorn declined to go into details about Samuels’ condition — “I couldn’t answer that question yet,” he said — but concerns with spinal stenosis contributed to the end of Michael Irvin’s career. I have heard NOTHING indicating that Samuels’ injury approaches that level of seriouness, but at the very least, “stenosis” and “stinger” are not an exciting combination of words to hear in regard to your Pro Bowl left tackle.)
This, of course, means that the offensive line will undergo another reshuffling for next week’s game.
“This won’t be etched in stone,” Zorn said, “because we haven’t even gotten together on a staff meeting, but it’ll probably be [Stephon] Heyer at left tackle, moving Mike Williams back out at right tackle, and then we’ll decide what we’re gonna do at guard as we work through it.”
Williams seems to be ready for the switch, if that’s what comes. “You just gotta be ready every week,” he told me, “because you don’t know. We’ve got some guys that are banged up, and it’s an opportunity for me. Playing right guard and playing right tackle, it’s really not too different. It’s not like I’m switching the whole side of the line, which would mean that your motor mechanics and stuff like that have to change.”
Williams was sitting next to where Casey Rabach and Chris Cooley were working on a crossword puzzle while he explained this, and apparently the constant back-and-forth were distracting to him. He got up, walked across the room to another chair, and sat back down. “Just needed to switch positions,” he said, apparently without irony.
“It’s kinda like this,” Williams explained. “If I gave you a new job to do, and it’s similar to what you do, but kind of a little different … it kinda keeps you back on your toes; it’s a pressure cooker, but it’s exciting. Not to take away from everything else, but it’s exciting.”
Of course, yesterday’s work at right guard was Williams’s first regular season action in … well, in quite some time — “goin’ on four years now,” he said — so you might think the sudden position switch would be jarring. But Williams thinks yesterday’s work will only help, even at a new position.
“There were some plays that really bother me,” he acknowledged, “where I know I could’ve done better, and there’s some things I did good that you build on top of. And that’s just the name of the game. That’s for any job: you correct the mistakes, and you build on the positives, even if you move. There’s things that I’ll build on that I learned from guard and can transition over to tackle.”
There is one thing Williams said he would miss if he had to move one position to the right, and it was still sitting across the room working on a crossword while we were talking.
“I’m gonna miss playing with Rabach,” he said. “I loved playing with Rabach. It’s just fun, different. Not that I’m not excited about the opportunity to play tackle, but the inside was … interesting.” It didn’t sound like interesting was the word he was looking for, but it’s what he settled on. When I started to walk back across the room toward Rabach , Williams said, “Ask him about the dot play,” but I started by asking what he had done Sunday that was so interesting.
“I played like a wild man,” Rabach said, in the most bored tone of voice imaginable.
But … the dot play? “Oh, we killed the dude,” he said, not looking up from his crossword puzzle. “It was a double-team and we killed him each and every time. He was [frustrated] — at one point my helmet popped off and someone hit me in the chin, which sucked.”
I tried one more time, asking if playing alongside Williams had been as interesting for Rabach as it was for Big Mike. “Mike always makes everything interesting,” Rabach said. “If nothing else, he’s the hugest human that I’ve ever played around. Even after the weight loss.”
Todd Collins was walking by at this point, and added, “Yeah, even after 150 pounds of him melted away. Do you ever wonder how that happens? I mean, more than a hundred pounds … where is it?”
Rabach was still focused on his crossword puzzle. “Where does it go? And what’s a six letter word for ‘wine cask sediment’?”
Tags: Casey Rabach, CaseyRabach, Mike Williams, MikeWilliams
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