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…
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