The Kansas City Chiefs saw veteran DT Brandon Williams play his first snaps for the team in Week 14 against the Denver Broncos.
Williams managed 15 snaps on defense in his debut performance, with several of those snaps actually coming on passing downs. The 6-1 and 336-pound nose tackle wasted no time getting active with his new team, recording one tackle, a half-sack and two quarterback hits on Broncos QB Russell Wilson. He also managed some impressive snaps in the team’s goal-line defensive packages.
Asked about what he saw from Williams in his debut, Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo likened the performance to Baker Mayfield’s comeback win over the Las Vegas Raiders on “Thursday Night Football.”
“Yeah! I tell you, (I was) really impressed with – it’s kind of like (Rams QB) Baker Mayfield, right (laughter)? I mean Brandon was only here three days or whatever and he did an admirable job,” Spagnuolo explained. “What he still can do as a D-linemen is knock somebody back. He really helped us on the goal line. You know we had the two or three goal-line snaps. I think they took a penalty and went back and then we were out of goal-line defense, but he helped us there. I was really impressed with how he picked it up. A true pro, you know, veteran.”
The nine-year NFL veteran managed to get accustomed to the playbook and acclimated quickly. Having played for both Spagnuolo and defensive line coach Joe Cullen in Baltimore during his career allowed for some carryover in the terminology and playbook.
“Yeah, you know Brandon (Williams) did a great job for coming in and he got familiar with the system, and he knows (Defensive Coordinator) Coach (Steve Spagnuolo) Spags,” Cullen said. “There’s some carryover but he did, he went in there and gave them some really good snaps. He was physical, did a great job down on the goal line. We brought him here to knock the run out, but he was in on a half a sack, so he did some good things, and we just know we want him to continue to get better.”
In Week 15 against the Houston Texans, you can expect to see even more of Williams on the field. He’ll continue to get acclimated and get his football-playing legs under him, but he also should earn more opportunities with Derrick Nnadi popping up on the injury report on Thursday.
