Duke Williams-" I Can Play If I Stay Out Of Trouble"

[Fan in Chicago]

1 minute ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

It wasn't Williams who looked foolish, it was the DB who taunted him - and he pancaked

oh good !! I was confused about the lineup and this now makes sense.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Just now, Fan in Chicago said:

oh good !! I was confused about the lineup and this now makes sense.

 

Yeah, if he wants to block and works on it, he could be a beast.

[Saxum]

Ironically since he never made the regular roster for Rams he is eligible for PS.

[Patrick Duffy]

Hope he does well, but IMO I don't see him making the team. Unless he does good on ST, which is a possibility. So we shall see soon enough.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Patrick_Duffy

[Saxum]

Looking at film from CFL it certainly looks like be would be a good target for Allen.

 

[simpleman]

3 hours ago, Formerly Allan in MD said:

How about if his chips and attitude get him in trouble outside the stadium, even if he's religiously doing his assigned tasks in games?

I don't care what he does outside the stadium as long as he can play the game. He is hired to play football, period. Not to be a boy scout or a choir boy in his free time.  He has to answer to different authorities outside the stadium and the game. Whatever he does, if he does it and it and it does not affect his performance or availability on game day it is none of my business. I don't confuse the two. He is hired to play football on the field. I don't care if he has to do community service or even spend weekends in jail if he can still make to all the games and perform well there. His personal life is his own personal problem.

Edited May 4, 2019 by simpleman

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, Lurker said:

 

More like one year.   This is a guy who was dropped by Auburn, failed miserably as an UDFA with the Rams and came into his first training camp in the CFL unprepaired?   What kind of 5-watt light does he have burning upstairs??

 

https://buffalonews.com/2019/05/04/buffalo-bills-josh-allen-brandon-beane-nfl-draft-vic-carucci-football/

 

"...Early in his first training camp with the Eskimos, one night after mandatory practices and meetings, Reilly hosted a players-only walkthrough on the field.

 

Reilly was the franchise quarterback, a two-time Grey Cup champion on the way to being named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player of 2017. He’s since become the third quarterback in league history to throw for more than 5,000 yards in three consecutive seasons, joining Anthony Cavillo and Doug Flutie.

 

Reilly commanded respect. And he didn’t think twice about holding Williams to account.

 

“We were going through some of our no-huddle hand signals,” Reilly recalled, “and I noticed he wasn’t really paying attention how I wanted him to, and so I called him out in front of everybody and asked him what the previous play was and what his route was on it and all that stuff, and he didn’t have an answer for me.”

 

Williams stammered and tried to guess.

 

“And he’s like, ‘Nah, you wrong,’ ” Williams remembered. “He was like, ‘You ain’t going to be here long doing that. This is our job. We feed our families with this.’

 

 

Apologies for double replying the same post, but I had to sort my TBN subscription and get my password reset to read the article.

 

To be fair, need to include Williams follow up to being called out by his new QB:

 

Williams returned to the team hotel and studied his playbook late into the night.

The next day at the practice facility, Reilly was eager to gauge the rookie’s reaction.

Would he be defensive? Unwilling to learn? Those guys don’t last long.

“He came up to me, he wasn’t pouty, and he said, ‘Hey, Mike. I appreciate that. You were absolutely right. I’m here to win a job. I’m here to take this seriously. And I want to do everything I can to help this team,’ ” Reilly recalled. “And from that day on, he was about the best teammate that you could hope for. He was always putting in extra hours after practice in the film room with me, on the field after practice, getting extra work in, extra throws in, things like that.

 

I'm sure it's the ending to the story - that Williams got it together, accepted the rebuke, and put in the grind - that made the Bills take a chance on him.

I also appreciated Williams being honest that after getting cut from Auburn, he fell apart, didn't work out and that led to his crap showing at the combine and Auburn's pro day.  It took being called by the Rams then cut to wake him up:

But that just humbled me," Williams said. "That made me more hungry. I thank the Rams. I ain’t mad at them. That just made me more of a dog, made me want it more. I sat out the whole year after I got cut and watched the games on TV. I was grinding then, though.

 

Anyway, it's a good story.  For the Bills and for his own sake, I wish him success on this shot.

17 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

Looking at film from CFL it certainly looks like be would be a good target for Allen.

 

 

He's making some catches there I only dreamed about Bills WR catching.  The talent level he's going against is the Q.  Some of those are "College Open" catches.  But some of those are genuine high-degree of difficulty haul ins.

[eball]

All I’m gonna say is, some guys DO grow up and learn from their mistakes. Hope Duke is one of them. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

39 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I suppose I should add this to your thread about Zay, but you read this article, and particularly when you read about his 50-50 ball skills and the fact that he made himself a serious route runner in the slot, it's not hard to imagine Duke ahead of Zay on the depth chart by the end of August.  That leaves Zay head to head with Sills.  

 

But here's the catch (see what I did there?)  Zay has shown what he can do (or occasionally what he can't do) against top DB and an opponent-customized game plan in for-real NFL games.    Whatever they do in the preseason, Duke and Sills have not.

So even if Williams and Sills look "ahead of Zay" on the depth chart at the end of August, there's always that thing happened last year....

 

 

[3rdand12]

35 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Apologies for double replying the same post, but I had to sort my TBN subscription and get my password reset to read the article.

 

To be fair, need to include Williams follow up to being called out by his new QB:

 

Williams returned to the team hotel and studied his playbook late into the night.

The next day at the practice facility, Reilly was eager to gauge the rookie’s reaction.

Would he be defensive? Unwilling to learn? Those guys don’t last long.

“He came up to me, he wasn’t pouty, and he said, ‘Hey, Mike. I appreciate that. You were absolutely right. I’m here to win a job. I’m here to take this seriously. And I want to do everything I can to help this team,’ ” Reilly recalled. “And from that day on, he was about the best teammate that you could hope for. He was always putting in extra hours after practice in the film room with me, on the field after practice, getting extra work in, extra throws in, things like that.

 

I'm sure it's the ending to the story - that Williams got it together, accepted the rebuke, and put in the grind - that made the Bills take a chance on him.

I also appreciated Williams being honest that after getting cut from Auburn, he fell apart, didn't work out and that led to his crap showing at the combine and Auburn's pro day.  It took being called by the Rams then cut to wake him up:

But that just humbled me," Williams said. "That made me more hungry. I thank the Rams. I ain’t mad at them. That just made me more of a dog, made me want it more. I sat out the whole year after I got cut and watched the games on TV. I was grinding then, though.

 

Anyway, it's a good story.  For the Bills and for his own sake, I wish him success on this shot.

 

He's making some catches there I only dreamed about Bills WR catching.  The talent level he's going against is the Q.  Some of those are "College Open" catches.  But some of those are genuine high-degree of difficulty haul ins.

I do love the scouting done by Bills for this guy. A bit more than i expected honestly : )
Plenty of reasons to wish this Kid well.Hard to project at this point though.

 Do believe he will put in the work, and that he is in exactly the right place.

 Bills are going to push him to succeed. If has what it takes after all? 

 Buffalo is just the spot to show it to be true.

Hope Allen helps him along as well..
 

Has to work on his blocking as he will likely be playing tight to the linemen and chipping second level run blocking etc.

Go Bills 

 

 

[Shaw66]

46 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Apologies for double replying the same post, but I had to sort my TBN subscription and get my password reset to read the article.

 

To be fair, need to include Williams follow up to being called out by his new QB:

 

Williams returned to the team hotel and studied his playbook late into the night.

The next day at the practice facility, Reilly was eager to gauge the rookie’s reaction.

Would he be defensive? Unwilling to learn? Those guys don’t last long.

“He came up to me, he wasn’t pouty, and he said, ‘Hey, Mike. I appreciate that. You were absolutely right. I’m here to win a job. I’m here to take this seriously. And I want to do everything I can to help this team,’ ” Reilly recalled. “And from that day on, he was about the best teammate that you could hope for. He was always putting in extra hours after practice in the film room with me, on the field after practice, getting extra work in, extra throws in, things like that.

 

I'm sure it's the ending to the story - that Williams got it together, accepted the rebuke, and put in the grind - that made the Bills take a chance on him.

I also appreciated Williams being honest that after getting cut from Auburn, he fell apart, didn't work out and that led to his crap showing at the combine and Auburn's pro day.  It took being called by the Rams then cut to wake him up:

But that just humbled me," Williams said. "That made me more hungry. I thank the Rams. I ain’t mad at them. That just made me more of a dog, made me want it more. I sat out the whole year after I got cut and watched the games on TV. I was grinding then, though.

 

Anyway, it's a good story.  For the Bills and for his own sake, I wish him success on this shot.

 

He's making some catches there I only dreamed about Bills WR catching.  The talent level he's going against is the Q.  Some of those are "College Open" catches.  But some of those are genuine high-degree of difficulty haul ins.

I agree with you.   I think this is an unusual guy - a guy who had round one or round two written all over him who completely blew up his life.  Now, it seems, he's back on track.  Think about that for a minute - this is round one, round two talent who's been sitting on a shelf somewhere, doing more or less nothing.  And now, it seems, he's back on track.   I watch the video (not today, but back when he signed) and I am amazed at his hands.  He fights for balls all day long.   

 

I wrote this several weeks ago talking about Williams: he's in Buffalo because he identified McDermott as a father-figure or an AA leader.  This guy is quoted in the article saying he's good so long as he doesn't get off track.  He stays on track by staying committed to football, and in McDermott he sees someone preaching exactly what Williams thinks he needs - focus on the right stuff, all the time.  McDermott's culture, his values, are exactly what Williams wants for himself.  

 

McDermott sees a guy who is, apparently, a genuinely nice guy, straight shooter who turns into a really, really tough competitor when he gets on football field.   He sees a guy who will do anything to win football games.  The problem is that once he turned into that really, really tough competitor in a bar and did some serious damage to people.  McDermott loves that competitive spirit, and he believes his brand of commitment to life and football is perfect for Williams.

 

It's a match made in heaven. 

 

I wrote once that Williams is a guy who plays like - LIKE, not necessarily as good as, like Hines Ward.   Tough route runner, tough fighting for the ball, tough after the catch, tough blocking.  Tough football player.   I think we're all in for a treat.  

 

 

And for the old timers, if you think about it, you've heard this story before.  One really, really tough, nasty football player, maybe a little too tough for civilized society, comes out of Canada and tears up the league, winning an AFL championship in Buffalo.   That was fun, and if Williams makes it he's going to be fun, too.  

Edited May 4, 2019 by Shaw66

[Lurker]

I see a guy who continually falls off the wagon.  Gets called out, straightens up for a while, then reverts to bad / lazy habits.

 

He's got some physical talent but I'm not sure about the rest of the package.  The NFL is not going to put up with guys who have to be chaperoned very much--especially if they're FAs...

[3rdand12]

25 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I agree with you.   I think this is an unusual guy - a guy who had round one or round two written all over him who completely blew up his life.  Now, it seems, he's back on track.  Think about that for a minute - this is round one, round two talent who's been sitting on a shelf somewhere, doing more or less nothing.  And now, it seems, he's back on track.   I watch the video (not today, but back when he signed) and I am amazed at his hands.  He fights for balls all day long.   

 

I wrote this several weeks ago talking about Williams: he's in Buffalo because he identified McDermott as a father-figure or an AA leader.  This guy is quoted in the article saying he's good so long as he doesn't get off track.  He stays on track by staying committed to football, and in McDermott he sees someone preaching exactly what Williams thinks he needs - focus on the right stuff, all the time.  McDermott's culture, his values, are exactly what Williams wants for himself.  

 

McDermott sees a guy who is, apparently, a genuinely nice guy, straight shooter who turns into a really, really tough competitor when he gets on football field.   He sees a guy who will do anything to win football games.  The problem is that once he turned into that really, really tough competitor in a bar and did some serious damage to people.  McDermott loves that competitive spirit, and he believes his brand of commitment to life and football is perfect for Williams.

 

It's a match made in heaven. 

 

I wrote once that Williams is a guy who plays like - LIKE, not necessarily as good as, like Hines Ward.   Tough route runner, tough fighting for the ball, tough after the catch, tough blocking.  Tough football player.   I think we're all in for a treat.  

 

 

And for the old timers, if you think about it, you've heard this story before.  One really, really tough, nasty football player, maybe a little too tough for civilized society, comes out of Canada and tears up the league, winning an AFL championship in Buffalo.   That was fun, and if Williams makes it he's going to be fun, too.  

Shaw you have a fine perspective on the situation at hand. A bit rose colored ? But i think you are quite close calling out the reality of the matter.

may the stars align for this Kid. : )

[Hapless Bills Fan]

15 minutes ago, Lurker said:

I see a guy who continually falls off the wagon.  Gets called out, straightens up for a while, then reverts to bad / lazy habits.

 

He's got some physical talent but I'm not sure about the rest of the package.  The NFL is not going to put up with guys who have to be chaperoned very much--especially if they're FAs...

 

Really?  How you get that?

[HOUSE]

Heres a guy that needs another chance too. Can't get a tryout.

 

[without a drought]

If he does nothing else here, he can still be known as the 2nd best Duke Williams to play for the Bills.

[TigerJ]

5 hours ago, Marv's Neighbor said:

Do we sign him or his Mama?  Time for a dose of maturity Duke.

I don't think his words suggests he has doubts about his ability to stay clean.  He is simply admitting that he has a lot to prove off the field.

[MasterStrategist]

Wish him the best! But he will need to be a full level, maybe 2, above our other WRs on the field.  Bc his maturity and off field issues will not be working in his favor.

 

So that leaves me asking, who is he going to beat out?  Safe bet that Brown,Beasley, Foster, Zay, and Roberts are safe...which leaves one spot and hopefully he can play special teams, because that will be the concern vs McKenzie, Ray Ray, and Sills

[Lurker]

13 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Really?  How you get that?

Check out his last 6 games with Edmonton last year--when they were making a big push for the playoffs and failed miserably.  William's was a non-factor.  All his yards and TDs came in the first part of the season...then, meh.

[Shaw66]

21 minutes ago, 3rdand12 said:

Shaw you have a fine perspective on the situation at hand. A bit rose colored ? But i think you are quite close calling out the reality of the matter.

may the stars align for this Kid. : )

Yeah, it's absolutely rose colored.  Maybe he just can't do it.   But the picture of the guy is very clear:  if there is any way, any way at all that he CAN do it, he WILL.   This is one determined dude.  May not be good enough, may screw up, may not make it for any number of reasons.  But this is second-round talent with new-found determination to succeed that has stayed on track for two years.   

3 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

Wish him the best! But he will need to be a full level, maybe 2, above our other WRs on the field.  Bc his maturity and off field issues will not be working in his favor.

 

So that leaves me asking, who is he going to beat out?  Safe bet that Brown,Beasley, Foster, Zay, and Roberts are safe...which leaves one spot and hopefully he can play special teams, because that will be the concern vs McKenzie, Ray Ray, and Sills

If he makes it, he's beating out Zay.  Zay's not safe.   It sounds like this guy is as good or better than Zay at everything.   Definitely at making the big, contested catch.  But also route running, runs after catch, blocking.  He's a tough dude in all aspects of the game, and that's something we never say about Zay.