MY Roy Williams Thread

[BigDFan5]

He gave up 2 TDs against the Hawks. TWO. The Cover 2 play he got there late, the man coverage on the TE, he got destroyed and owned. .

He gave up 1 TD as was said in the OP

On the other he was like you said in cover 2 covering the OTHER wr.

 

[ilovejerry]

Yes, its another Roy Williams thread.. SURPRISE! And, unfortunately for you lazy people... its LONG.

Anyway, I'm hoping that most of you that know me know that I'm not going to waste the space of another thread with the same old stuff everyone else has been posting about moving Roy to LBer. I'm going to ATTEMPT to show a few things that will hopefully make you think a little more about Roy's situation.

1. First and foremost, Roy Williams is under a microscope for every play that he makes or misses. No passing defense has allowed more passing TD's during the 2006 season than the Washington Commanders. This is due in no small part to Sean Taylor and Adam Archuleta. Taylor allowed 4 TD's in the first 4 games alone (all to TE's I believe). Do we hear about this as much as we hear about Roy Williams being awful in coverage? NO!
Taylor allows 4 TD's in the first 4 games. Williams allowed only 3 TD's through the first TEN games! Yet, Williams is the one that is continually blasted by fans and the media.

2. I'm not going to sit here and attempt to say that coverage is Roy's strong suit. We ALL know its obviously not. BUT, when you compare Roy to other safeties around the league, its nowhere near as bad as many people try to make it seem.
Lets take the Jeremy Stevens TD as an example.
FIRST! Take a look at this video of Troy Polamalu vs Jeremy Stevens during Super Bowl XL.
CLICK HERE 4MB divx video

SECOND! Take a look at this video of Roy Williams vs Jeremy Stevens in our recent game against Seattle.
CLICK HERE 2.8MB divx video

What's the first thing you notice about these 2 videos?....
Its the SAME exact play in both videos. Its a play designed to get a matchup with Jeremy Stevens on a safety and have the WR do a pick on the safety. Stevens drives hard off the line as if he's running a deep route then cuts it off and runs an out. The results are exactly the same. The safety is peaking into the backfield and Stevens hits his out route and gets separation. Well designed play to get a favorable matchup for the Seahawks.

Does this excuse Roy Williams from giving up the play? Absolutely not. But, what it shows is that he's not the only Safety that is scored on. Its just that he's the only one that is highlighted for EVERY catch he gives up.

3. Roy Williams is blamed on plays where he is truly not at fault. On the 2nd Jeremy Stevens TD, Roy wasn't even covering Stevens. Roy was helping Newman cover the WR over the top. Bradie James was responsible for covering Stevens (yes, another favorable matchup for the Seahawks). Roy catches the blame because he happens to make it to Stevens before Bradie does.
Why is this true? Consider this: The RB runs out in motion and lines up wide before the ball is snapped. That winds up leaving a RB with Newman guarding him, and the WR with Bobby Carp guarding him, and Jeremy Stevens lined up at the TE position. There's 1 reciever to the far side with Henry guarding him. Right off the bat, this play is designed to exploit zone coverages. You wind up with Stevens running a deep route right up the middle of the field, the WR running deep as well which draws Roy to help Newman with him, and Carp has the zone in the flat where the RB goes. The Seahawks knew they'd have their TE being covered by our ILB and it worked for them... like it has for so many teams against us recently.

4. Roy to LBer? As I've posted many times already. I believe this is NOT the way to go. My thinking for this is primarily based on the assets that Roy has from playing in the OPEN FIELD as a safety. If you throw Roy Williams in as a LBer he'll be FORCED to take on blockers that outweigh him by 100+ pounds. As a LBer in the NFL you CANNOT run around blockers. RB's are too good for a LBer to be able to be successful by running around blockers. He'll be caught up in the traffic of the trenches and The Real Roy Williams will be gone forever. Roy's play recognition is 2nd to none. When healthy, he flies to the ball immediately when he's coming up to support the run and MAKES PLAYS. From the safety spot, he's not normally blocked by offensive linemen; he's usually being blocked by a FB or TE. When healthy, I'll take my chances with Roy versus a FB/TE and I expect he'll win that battle many times. The problem lately is that he isn't healthy... its obvious that he's wearing a shoulder brace and isn't unloading into people like the Roy Williams we know from previously.

5. We totally misuse Roy Williams. This problem is born out of 2 things. 1) The lack of a dependable FS to play deep centerfield rather than having to play cover 2 with Roy playing deep. Heck, we even had Roy playing the deep centerfield position when we faced New Orleans. We need a good FS to play that position rather than having Roy back there. 2) As Jon Kitna and various other Detroit Lions players stated, our defense REFUSES to adjust to what the offense is doing. What does this cause? MISMATCHES LIKE CRAZY. Sean Payton knew it, and after that EVERYONE knew it. This defense doesn't adjust! So, what does Payton and all the rest of the coaches after that do? They immediately get their offense into position to get mismatches on our players. A SHINING example of this is Roy Williams (Lions WR) being covered by Aaron Glenn man to man. We should have being doing EVERYTHING we could to avoid that matchup. You obviously can't avoid every mismatch, but you can certainly do a hell of a lot more than we did to avoid them.

Roy Williams should be played like a SS. He should be played exactly like Troy Polamalu was played last season when the Steelers had Chris Hope as their FS. Let him roam the field. Let him play within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage. Avoid having him in deep coverage whenever possible. Obviously, no SS ever gets to play STRICTLY close to the line and never cover... but when you minimize it, you minimize the risk of having your VERY GOOD player having to play in a position that exposes the weakest part of his game. Its like expecting the Denver OLine to all the sudden just win their individual matchups with brute force... they're not built like that.

6. The walking off from the media after the Seattle game. Well, sure, its not as upstanding as Tony Romo... but, personally, I completely understand why he does it. He gets absolutely no credit from the media for anything he does, then we expect him to stand there and act like he's hunky dory and everything is ok? I certainly would not be able to do that.

7. This defense does a pretty poor job of redirecting/jamming recievers at the line. In the NFL, if you let a reciever release without being touched, the reciever has an advantage over the cover guy right off the bat.
If we had guys that would cause the recievers problems in releasing from the line of scrimmage, it would benefit in 2 ways. 1) It takes longer for the reciever to run his route which WOULD FORCE THE QB TO HOLD THE BALL LONGER and allow our pass rush a split second longer to get to the QB. 2) It gets the reciever off their route and allows our coverage guys a split second longer to recognize that it is a pass play and begin moving in position to cover.

8. The missed tackle on Alexander when he shot into the backfield. VERY DISAPPOINTING! I expect more from Roy than that. He left his feet WAY too early and Alexander made a good move to avoid him.

I'm sure I'll think of more later on but that's it for now. Sorry for rambling some and making it so long.

Hey TEK,
I agree with you , I love Roy and I wouldnt want him on any other team, Yes this was a disappointing season for Roy, but if you play him to his strengths , he would be an incredible asset again,

 

[bbgun]

For all the people bashing Roy, they have to face the fact that the Cowboys are stuck with him.

Right you are. Thanks for that, Jerry. You're the king of the pre-mature, unnecessary extension.

 

[BigDFan5]

Right you are. Thanks for that, Jerry. You're the king of the pre-mature, unnecessary extension.

LOL even if he was not resigned before this season, he would have been resigned for the same money in the next 2 months before he became a free agent:laugh2:

 

[TEK2000]

More mindless Roy idolatry.

I've heard a lot being said about the FS, but that's bullcrap. Watkins did fine. The FS was not the problem against the Seahawks. It was the SS, Roy Williams. Quite honestly, its time for him to take some responsibility. I don't want to hear about how a quality FS will allow him to play in the box and either blitz or cover the flats on passing downs.

That's not what a safety does. You have LINEBACKERS for that. A safety is supposed to cover a deep zone and cover the TE; something that Roy is ridiculously inept at doing. You're telling me his job is to cover the flats or blitz on pass downs? If that's the case, why not just come out with 5 LBs? Roy is not a safety, not at his current frame. He either needs to shed 20 Lbs and become a safety who can cover, or he needs to be traded into a different system as a Cover 2 LB. Because in his current state, he is not a safety. He gave up 2 TDs against the Hawks. TWO. The Cover 2 play he got there late, the man coverage on the TE, he got destroyed and owned. He's the problem, not Watkins. Bradie, who has massive problems of his own, was merely his partner in crime. TEK, in the interests of fairness and not blind homerism, how 'bout making a vid of Roy's bad plays? Trust me, it would be voluminous and damning. Stop trying to turn this lemon into lemonade.

You'd love to see anything and everything that shows the Cowboys in a negative light huh?

Did Watkins do fine when we actually left him in centerfield all alone against Philly game 1? NOPE, and we didn't leave him in that position again all season, nor any of our other safeties (except Roy... which was interesting).

Is Roy a safety that should be running a COVER 2 defense? Troy Polamalu isn't... and, Pitt doesn't run a COVER 2. Imagine that... the coaches running a defense that actually fits the style of play their players are capable of.

I already addressed the 2nd TD... something you conveniently must have skipped and just spewed a random comment about.

 

[ilovejerry]

Right you are. Thanks for that, Jerry. You're the king of the pre-mature, unnecessary extension.

I will take that as a compliment

 

[cowboyz]

hear hear :toast2:

 

[jbz64]

He didnt give up 2 TDs saturday

Two to Stevens. Bradie James is suppose to pick him up initially and then the safety (Roy Williams) should read the QB's throw and adjust his coverage.

Even Hasselback stated after the game the WR's did a good job of holding the safety's to get the throw into Stevens. That's our complain about Roy. He doesn't read the ball in the air properly and takes bad angles.

I think Bradie James makes Roy look worst than he probably is but he definitely takes bad angles. He needs to play the ball instead of the receiver better.

 

[bbgun]

You'd love to see anything and everything that shows the Cowboys in a negative light huh?

Same old smear.

Did Watkins do fine when we actually left him in centerfield all alone against Philly game 1? NOPE, and we didn't leave him in that position again all season, nor any of our other safeties (except Roy... which was interesting).

Watkins is a fifth round rookie. He gets a pass. Roy is an overpaid, top-ten pick who's been stinking in coverage for years. He's run out of excuses.

Is Roy a safety that should be running a COVER 2 defense? Troy Polamalu isn't... and, Pitt doesn't run a COVER 2. Imagine that... the coaches running a defense that actually fits the style of play their players are capable of.

Change coaches. Change defensive systems if you like. He can't cover effectively if he's more than 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Understand?

I already addressed the 2nd TD... something you conveniently must have skipped and just spewed a random comment about.

Baloney. You threw it in as aside. The whole point of your post was to exculpate Roy of his sins. I find that offensive, and you shant get away with it. Go peddle your ridiculous Roy sunshine somewhere else.

 

[BigDFan5]

Two to Stevens. Bradie James is suppose to pick him up initially and then the safety (Roy Williams) should read the QB's throw and adjust his coverage.

Even Hasselback stated after the game the WR's did a good job of holding the safety's to get the throw into Stevens. That's our complain about Roy. He doesn't read the ball in the air properly and takes bad angles.

I think Bradie James makes Roy look worst than he probably is but he definitely takes bad angles. He needs to play the ball instead of the receiver better.

Roy's primary responsibility was on the WR, James primary responsibility was the TE, James blew his coverage

 

[TEK2000]

Same old smear cuz its the same old crap from you. Nothing but negativity and hoping someone will make a LOWLIGHTS video for you to ENJOY.

Baloney. You threw it in as aside. The whole point of your post was to exculpate Roy of his sins. I find that offensive, and you shant get away with it. Go peddle your ridiculous Roy sunshine somewhere else.

An aside huh? That's why I tried to elaborate and explain as much as I could.

I made the post to provide information about 1) How we are not using Roy properly. 2) How Roy is not as bad in coverage as YOU and so many others LOVE to claim. 3) Explain what happened on a few plays that I think is different from the general consensus.

You take ANYTHING that tries to provide information on WHY a player is performing like they are as excuses. Its just a shame that you can't realize that the scheme and usage of players DOES make a difference in how they perform.

 

[chinch]

Which has nothing to do with the conversation at hand, but hey +1 to your post count huh

says the guy with 7,914 posts since Join Date: Mar 2005



(i have 1/4 the amount and joined a year earlier)

 

[TEK2000]

says the guy with 7,914 posts since Join Date: Mar 2005



(i have 1/4 the amount and joined a year earlier)

Judging by your posts in this thread. It makes sense that you would have a hard time coming up with things to post.

 

[bbgun]

Same old smear cuz its the same old crap from you. Nothing but negativity and hoping someone will make a LOWLIGHTS video for you to ENJOY.

This from a guy who's so tone deaf as to post an unsolicited, pro-Roy thread after a devastating loss and another horsecrap Roy performance. No one's in the mood, Tek.

Stalin had a term for people like you: "useful idiot."

 

[superpunk]

Great thread, TEK.

The trouble with those that bash Roy, is that they don't pay attention to the other safeties around the league. They don't see them getting beat week in and week out. Roy is viewed in a vacuum, perfection is expected, and he is put under a microscope to extract it. Maybe it's because people's expectations are so high as to make them unrealistic. I don't know. I just know I'm glad that such a dynamic playmaker is on our squad, and I hope he lets the criticism continue to motivate him.

He's not perfect, and he goes through some bad stretches, like he did to close the year. But he's a phenomenal player. There are far too many useless idiot's who can't recognize that, and love to bash him without looking at his performance at safety comparatively - instead rehashing the same tired, poorly researched lines they soak up from "journalists." Keep doing your thing, TEK. GREAT thread.

 

[TEK2000]

This from a guy who's so tone deaf as to post an unsolicited, pro-Roy thread after a devastating loss and another horsecrap Roy performance. No one's in the mood, Tek.

Stalin had a term for people like you: "useful idiot."

:jerk: Still trolling I see.

 

[acruther]

This from a guy who's so tone deaf as to post an unsolicited, pro-Roy thread after a devastating loss and another horsecrap Roy performance. No one's in the mood, Tek.

Stalin had a term for people like you: "useful idiot."

LOL BBgun. Tek is taking you to the woodshed in this argument, so you resort to the personal attacks. My favorite of your comments is this one:

Change coaches. Change defensive systems if you like. He can't cover effectively if he's more than 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Understand?

The whole point is that Roy is at his best when he is playing near the LOS. Same with Darren Woodson. The more you guys make them play deep safety, the more they get exposed. Every SS in the game gets exposed when they have to match up against WRs or very fast TEs. That's why offenses come out in >3 WR packages. You're expecting Roy to be Dawkins or Ed Reed. Those guys are FREE safeties.

You bring Roy down and play more cover 1. Your corners will have to be less aggresive and you're gonna have to get to the QB with more consistency. But you do that, and Roy becomes the disruptive force he was drafted to be.

 

[Ratmatt]

Yes, its another Roy Williams thread.. SURPRISE! And, unfortunately for you lazy people... its LONG.

Anyway, I'm hoping that most of you that know me know that I'm not going to waste the space of another thread with the same old stuff everyone else has been posting about moving Roy to LBer. I'm going to ATTEMPT to show a few things that will hopefully make you think a little more about Roy's situation.

1. First and foremost, Roy Williams is under a microscope for every play that he makes or misses. No passing defense has allowed more passing TD's during the 2006 season than the Washington Commanders. This is due in no small part to Sean Taylor and Adam Archuleta. Taylor allowed 4 TD's in the first 4 games alone (all to TE's I believe). Do we hear about this as much as we hear about Roy Williams being awful in coverage? NO!
Taylor allows 4 TD's in the first 4 games. Williams allowed only 3 TD's through the first TEN games! Yet, Williams is the one that is continually blasted by fans and the media.

2. I'm not going to sit here and attempt to say that coverage is Roy's strong suit. We ALL know its obviously not. BUT, when you compare Roy to other safeties around the league, its nowhere near as bad as many people try to make it seem.
Lets take the Jeremy Stevens TD as an example.
FIRST! Take a look at this video of Troy Polamalu vs Jeremy Stevens during Super Bowl XL.
CLICK HERE 4MB divx video

SECOND! Take a look at this video of Roy Williams vs Jeremy Stevens in our recent game against Seattle.
CLICK HERE 2.8MB divx video

What's the first thing you notice about these 2 videos?....
Its the SAME exact play in both videos. Its a play designed to get a matchup with Jeremy Stevens on a safety and have the WR do a pick on the safety. Stevens drives hard off the line as if he's running a deep route then cuts it off and runs an out. The results are exactly the same. The safety is peaking into the backfield and Stevens hits his out route and gets separation. Well designed play to get a favorable matchup for the Seahawks.

Does this excuse Roy Williams from giving up the play? Absolutely not. But, what it shows is that he's not the only Safety that is scored on. Its just that he's the only one that is highlighted for EVERY catch he gives up.

3. Roy Williams is blamed on plays where he is truly not at fault. On the 2nd Jeremy Stevens TD, Roy wasn't even covering Stevens. Roy was helping Newman cover the WR over the top. Bradie James was responsible for covering Stevens (yes, another favorable matchup for the Seahawks). Roy catches the blame because he happens to make it to Stevens before Bradie does.
Why is this true? Consider this: The RB runs out in motion and lines up wide before the ball is snapped. That winds up leaving a RB with Newman guarding him, and the WR with Bobby Carp guarding him, and Jeremy Stevens lined up at the TE position. There's 1 reciever to the far side with Henry guarding him. Right off the bat, this play is designed to exploit zone coverages. You wind up with Stevens running a deep route right up the middle of the field, the WR running deep as well which draws Roy to help Newman with him, and Carp has the zone in the flat where the RB goes. The Seahawks knew they'd have their TE being covered by our ILB and it worked for them... like it has for so many teams against us recently.

4. Roy to LBer? As I've posted many times already. I believe this is NOT the way to go. My thinking for this is primarily based on the assets that Roy has from playing in the OPEN FIELD as a safety. If you throw Roy Williams in as a LBer he'll be FORCED to take on blockers that outweigh him by 100+ pounds. As a LBer in the NFL you CANNOT run around blockers. RB's are too good for a LBer to be able to be successful by running around blockers. He'll be caught up in the traffic of the trenches and The Real Roy Williams will be gone forever. Roy's play recognition is 2nd to none. When healthy, he flies to the ball immediately when he's coming up to support the run and MAKES PLAYS. From the safety spot, he's not normally blocked by offensive linemen; he's usually being blocked by a FB or TE. When healthy, I'll take my chances with Roy versus a FB/TE and I expect he'll win that battle many times. The problem lately is that he isn't healthy... its obvious that he's wearing a shoulder brace and isn't unloading into people like the Roy Williams we know from previously.

5. We totally misuse Roy Williams. This problem is born out of 2 things. 1) The lack of a dependable FS to play deep centerfield rather than having to play cover 2 with Roy playing deep. Heck, we even had Roy playing the deep centerfield position when we faced New Orleans. We need a good FS to play that position rather than having Roy back there. 2) As Jon Kitna and various other Detroit Lions players stated, our defense REFUSES to adjust to what the offense is doing. What does this cause? MISMATCHES LIKE CRAZY. Sean Payton knew it, and after that EVERYONE knew it. This defense doesn't adjust! So, what does Payton and all the rest of the coaches after that do? They immediately get their offense into position to get mismatches on our players. A SHINING example of this is Roy Williams (Lions WR) being covered by Aaron Glenn man to man. We should have being doing EVERYTHING we could to avoid that matchup. You obviously can't avoid every mismatch, but you can certainly do a hell of a lot more than we did to avoid them.

Roy Williams should be played like a SS. He should be played exactly like Troy Polamalu was played last season when the Steelers had Chris Hope as their FS. Let him roam the field. Let him play within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage. Avoid having him in deep coverage whenever possible. Obviously, no SS ever gets to play STRICTLY close to the line and never cover... but when you minimize it, you minimize the risk of having your VERY GOOD player having to play in a position that exposes the weakest part of his game. Its like expecting the Denver OLine to all the sudden just win their individual matchups with brute force... they're not built like that.

6. The walking off from the media after the Seattle game. Well, sure, its not as upstanding as Tony Romo... but, personally, I completely understand why he does it. He gets absolutely no credit from the media for anything he does, then we expect him to stand there and act like he's hunky dory and everything is ok? I certainly would not be able to do that.

7. This defense does a pretty poor job of redirecting/jamming recievers at the line. In the NFL, if you let a reciever release without being touched, the reciever has an advantage over the cover guy right off the bat.
If we had guys that would cause the recievers problems in releasing from the line of scrimmage, it would benefit in 2 ways. 1) It takes longer for the reciever to run his route which WOULD FORCE THE QB TO HOLD THE BALL LONGER and allow our pass rush a split second longer to get to the QB. 2) It gets the reciever off their route and allows our coverage guys a split second longer to recognize that it is a pass play and begin moving in position to cover.

8. The missed tackle on Alexander when he shot into the backfield. VERY DISAPPOINTING! I expect more from Roy than that. He left his feet WAY too early and Alexander made a good move to avoid him.

I'm sure I'll think of more later on but that's it for now. Sorry for rambling some and making it so long.

You lost me as soon as you started defending him

 

[Clove]

Parcells and Zimmer both need to move on. I can go further TEK. How about allowing Ware to be in coverage so much, when he needs to be getting after the QB.

How about staying in a 3-4 when the offense is in a 3 WR set, just tell me who's going to cover that third receiver when you have 2 speedy corners and no one to match up speed wise with the other receiver?

I'm so sick of how Parcells and Zimmer do their business, it's cocky, arrogant and quite frankly embarrassing. If I were coach, I would never allow Roy to cover anyone one on one unless he Jams them, period.

Putting Newman in the slot is a waste in my opinion. I'm sick of having Glenn come in in the nickel against the best of the best, and the tallest of the tall, when Newman is your best corner, and I know what BP and Zim are trying to do there, but give me a break, just stick to basics.

Davis playing FS this year was elementary at best. I'm really shocked that Parcells and all his credentials would do some of the most confusing and rediculous things on defense that he's done this year.

 

[BigDFan5]

Judging by your posts in this thread. It makes sense that you would have a hard time coming up with things to post.