Green Bay Packers safety Evan Williams played a season-high 78 snaps in Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Rams. In fact, it was more snaps than he had played in the first four games combined.
For the first month of the season, Williams had primarily served as the third safety behind Xavier McKinney and Javon Bullard. However, Green Bay decided to shuffle their secondary in Week 5, allowing the rookie fourth-rounder to take on an expanded role on defense.
Williams made the most of the opportunity, leading the team with 10 tackles and breaking up two passes, including one on the final fourth-down attempt to secure the win.
“Evan is another guy that’s very smart. He’s instinctive, and he has a knack for the football,” said Matt LaFleur. “He made a couple critical plays today on some critical downs, be it third or fourth down, where he was able to defend some passes. I think Evan is going to continue to get better and better and better.”
It was a highly anticipated performance for Packers fans who had heard so much about Williams’ ball skills and playmaking during training camp. He finally got his chance to showcase them against the Rams.
If it’s not obvious by now, for this week’s film review, we are going to break down some of Williams’ top plays from his outing in Los Angeles. Let’s begin.
Coming out of Oregon, many believed Williams (#33) would be best served as a box safety in the NFL. However, he certainly looks comfortable as the deep safety in this Cover 3 look. Williams gets depth using a smooth backpedal and opens his hips to the Z receiver, who is running vertically. He then flips his hips as the receiver crosses his face. Realizing his man is being targeted, Williams does a solid job of breaking on the route and causing disruption at the catch point. Overall, he showcases some pretty good technique on this rep.
Williams is a hyper-aware run defender, as he showcases here. Notice how he triggers as soon as the tight end goes in motion on this toss play. Williams attacks downhill with urgency while maintaining leverage and also takes on a block to help with the tackle. LaFleur said Williams is smart and instinctive, and you can certainly see his processing skills on display here.
Here, we get a good look at Williams’ closing speed and ability to tackle in space. The Packers run a zone blitz, with Williams dropping down underneath. He shows good awareness to pick up the wide receiver running into the flat as he sprints to the ball and makes a good tackle short of the line to gain.
The Rams picked up a decent gain on this play, but it is still a good example of the type of player Williams is. He is clearly not afraid to be physical seeing that he lowers the boom on the tight end trying to block for his running back. As you can see, Williams is tough, competitive, and plays to the whistle. He’s sort of a throwback strong safety who brings a hardened mindset when he is on the field and is a nice complement to Xavier McKinney’s ball-hawking.
Here is the play that sealed the win for Green Bay. Los Angeles got the ball back with less than three minutes remaining to try and score a touchdown to take the lead. They moved the ball into Packers territory but ended up facing a 4th and 5 do-or-die situation with just over a minute left. The Rams tried to create some confusion for Green Bay’s defense by running a trail concept out of bunch formation. Fortunately, the Packers’ defenders do a good job of executing their responsibilities against this concept. The blitz forces Matthew Stafford into a hurried throw, so he tries to get the ball to tight end Colby Parkinson running the trail route, except Williams has excellent coverage and forces the incompletion. It was a collective effort by Williams and the defense to get a stop when they needed it most.
Conclusion
In the end, Green Bay has to be pleased with Williams’ performance from Sunday, but it’s difficult to say what it means for his role moving forward. The Packers will continue to use Bullard, and McKinney isn’t going anywhere, having played 100 percent of the defensive snaps during his historic run of five interceptions in five games. In Week 5, they experimented with Bullard in the nickel spot, but that could revert to Keisean Nixon’s role once Jaire Alexander returns from injury. It’s a good problem to have a secondary full of talented players, though not everyone will play as much as they’d like. Williams certainly deserves more opportunities, but his snap count will likely be gameplan-specific, depending on the opponent.
