John813
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Williams led the league in holding calls because he was too weak and had no anchor, so he had to hold. Smith is not weak and has a strong anchor, he just has poor technique. That can be fixed. Not saying that Philbin can do it, but the draft is about projecting what the player can become, not what he is.
So, year 4 of Williams being in the league he got weaker and had to hold? Or was it the hand technique/style that Philbin that brought in that caused him to be penalized more?
The first 3 years of Williams being in the league he had 6, 5, & 5 total penalties.
Then last year he had 14 accepted penalties.
I don't buy that Williams was too weak, unless he had an undisclosed injury hurting his play even more.
I'm not opposed to Smith as a prospect, but for a guy who will play guard to start here, I think we want a more rounded prospect. If this was a round 2 guy, sure, I'm fine with rolling the dice with his ceiling there.
But being strong as a bull is nice, but if his technique is poor he may win against the brute force guys that Williams struggled with but he can be a holding machine vs the quicker DTs.