If you’re not paying attention, all 6-foot-5, 311 pounds of Kevin Williams will sneak right by you.
The Minnesota Vikings’ All-Pro isn’t much of a talker, and when he’s off the field, he moves with feathery soft steps uncommon among his heavy-footed fellow defensive tackles.
“You can make a lot of noise without saying stuff sometimes,”
Williams said in the syrupy Southern drawl honed in the small Arkansas town where he was raised. “That’s the way I try to look at it. A lot of times when you’re doing a lot of talking, you ain’t saying nothing. I try to lead by example and not by just talking about it.”
Williams has been proving that mantra for six years, but his production this season is unique even by his lofty standards.
Despite playing on the interior of the line, where sacks are typically harder to come by, Williams leads the team with six after a four-sack day against Detroit last week. That’s twice as many as he had all last season, and his 29 tackles are just nine behind his total for 2007, when he made his third Pro Bowl appearance in four seasons and was named an AP All-Pro.
Williams says he might be playing the best football of his six-year career, but is quick to point out that he cemented himself as one of the best defensive tackles in the business years ago.
“I had a couple great seasons starting out and I think I’ve been playing gradually better every year,”
Williams said. “Yeah I have more sacks than I’ve had the last two or three years, but I think I’ve been playing great in all phases.”
It didn’t take Williams long to assert himself as a star. He had 101/2 sacks as a rookie defensive end in 2003 and 111/2 when he moved to tackle the following year. He was slowed by a knee injury in 2005, then saw his sack totals plummet the last two years while opposing offensive lines doubled him and fellow defensive tackle Pat Williams on almost every play.
Safety Darren Sharper says Williams is the best there is.
“He’s naturally a quiet guy,”
Sharper said. “It’s like Jekyll and Hyde. On game day, he’s like a monster. He’s a beast out there. But he’s more of a quiet type guy in everyday life.”
The acquisition of reigning sack champ Jared Allen in the offseason has only made things easier for a player who has never had much difficulty controlling the game. With Allen rushing from the outside, opposing offensive lines aren’t always able to double team the Williams Wall.
“You can attribute a lot of that to him,”
Williams said of Allen. “You’ve got to account for him coming off the edge and me getting push up the middle, it allows me to get some of those sacks.”
The pick-your-poison scenario was never more evident than in Sunday’s 12-10 win over Detroit. The Lions tried to single-block Kevin Williams for most of the game while sliding extra help toward Allen on the edge.
The result was a dominating performance from Williams which helped pick up the slack for a bumbling offense. Four sacks. Eight tackles. One win.
“He really doesn’t have any weaknesses,”
said Vikings center Matt Birk, who has practiced with Williams over his nose for six years. “He’s big. He’s strong. He’s explosive.“
“I think the thing that probably gets overlooked is that he’s very smart. I think he sees things before they happen, anticipates schemes. Obviously, he’s an awesome player and has been for a long time.”
In this era of specialization, Williams takes pride in his ability to do it all.
“I’m able to do a little bit of everything,”
he said. “You can’t just label me as one guy, a pass rusher or a run stopper. I think I’m pretty versatile and can do a little bit of both.”
That’s about as much boasting as you’ll get from him, but he still wields significant influence in the locker room. When middle linebacker E.J. Henderson went down with a foot injury a few weeks ago, Williams’ teammates voted for him to take over as defensive captain.
“You don’t have to sing the praises about yourself,”
Williams said. “If you’re doing things the right way, somebody will notice.”
The Vikings (3-3) play at Chicago (3-3) on Sunday. After manhandling the Lions, he doesn’t expect to see many more one-on-one blocking schemes the rest of the way.
But hey, a guy can hope.
“I don’t know,”
he said with a smile. “I’m going to say my prayers at night and hopefully we can get that the rest of the year.”
