On Monday night, Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams tore through the Washington defense for 143 rushing yards. On one play in particular, Williams darted through a pair of Washington defensive backs, who made him look like Mike Vick vs. the Vikings in 2002.
I pointed that out on Twitter. Williams saw it after the game. He didn’t like the fact that it didn’t give proper credit to the men who blocked for him last night.
“Instead of knocking their D why not praise our OL?” Williams said.
I saw his tweet during Tuesday’s PFT Live, so I slid into his DMs (man, I’m hip) and I invited DeAngelo to call the show. To his credit, he did.
“That’s all the O-line man, all the O-line,” Williams said about his performance. “You can’t discredit those guys, man, because we’ve worked way too hard to put on a show for everybody.”
Williams put on a show, too, with his age making it even more impressive. He wasn’t impressed that I mentioned that he’s 33.
“Why can’t I just be a running back?” Williams said. “Why can’t I just be a running back? Why does my age have to play a part in the performance that I had last night? It ticks me off to hear people say, ‘Hey man, at your age you don’t look like you’re slowing down a bit.’ Like can I just be a football player? Why does the 33 age have to coincide with me when you talking football?”
It’s relevant because it reconfirms something Williams pointed out in a January 2014 visit to PFT Live. I asked him whether he believes that the use of a platoon system at tailback in Carolina extended his career.
“It definitely does that,” Williams said at the time. “It definitely does that. I’m year eight, and the shelf life for a running back is three years. I’m five years past that. . . . This is like a wine, you have to get finer with the times.”
He’s now in year eleven, and Williams was as fine as fine can be last night. While I can appreciate (and relate to) a good dose of #salty, people aren’t mentioning his age as a criticism but as something for which he should be proud.
