Plenty of college players make the business decision to not play in meaningless bowl games. For Patriots rookie receiver Kyle Williams, deciding to play in a meaningless bowl game may have been a very good business decision.
Williams opted to play in the Holiday Bowl for Washington State, injury risk from one more game that had little if any relevance be damned. As explained by Mike Reiss of ESPN.com, that mentality “appealed” to the Patriots, who made Williams the 69th overall pick in the draft.
Former Washington State coach Jake Dickert, who was hired to coach at Wake Forest before the bowl game, explained that Williams was fully committed to team. (More committed than Dickert, apparently.)
“When your best player puts his foot down and says, ‘This is important, we need to do it,’ and he’s the first one to step out on the field, there is a lot of power in that,” Dickert told Reiss.
Williams caught 10 passes for 172 yards and one touchdown in a 52-35 loss to Syracuse.
“[H]e was one of the catalysts for the type of effort and energy that team played with,” Dickert said. “He earned it, and you do that through a ton of action. He also knew the value he could create for himself. He went out there and people saw every step of the way, ‘This guy loves ball. He loves playing. He loves his teammates.’ To do that, I think, is a big stamp on the character piece of Kyle Williams.”
Teams seem to be paying attention more than ever to whether and what extent a player loves football. Williams proved that he did, by risking his ability to play in the NFL in order to play one last college game.
Source link : https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/kyle-williamss-decision-to-play-in-meaningless-bowl-game-appealed-to-patriots
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Publish date : 2025-05-04 16:36:00
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