A groin injury forced Williams to start camp on the physically unable to perform list. Now off it, and with Ed Dickson out with a stomach bug, Williams jumped right into special teams and even took some snaps with the starters on offense.
“I’m a bit rusty, but I feel good. Really good, as a matter of fact,” he said.
Williams had minor surgery in June for an injury that occurred six months earlier. He first tweaked his groin running down on a kickoff during the regular-season finale in Atlanta. “It felt OK” during the playoffs, but then never fully healed in the offseason.
“I went through OTAs, and it wasn’t right,” Williams said. “Finally I realized there was something wrong.”
Williams made just four receptions his first two years, and returning midway through the preseason schedule has put him on the bubble. But his true value is special teams, and with four-phase special teams guy Richie Brockel dealing with a potentially serious shoulder injury, Williams still has a good chance to make the roster.
He hopes to play in Friday’s preseason game against the Patriots to “knock some of the cobwebs off.” If he doesn’t, he at least took a big step Wednesday.
“It’s so great just being able to be out here with my teammates and do what I love and take some of the load off them. I kind of felt bad not being here, not so much for myself, but for them because they had to take a bunch of extra reps,” Williams said.
“Training camp’s supposed to be a time where guys come together as a team; you lean on each other. It didn’t feel good them not being able to lean on me, so it’s good to be back.”[line]