If Cowboys receiver Roy Williams were playing as well as he was expected to play when the team gave up a first-round pick, a third-round pick, and more for him during the 2008 season, the Cowboys wouldn’t have felt compelled to draft Dez Bryant with a 2010 first-round selection.
Despite the handwriting that has been sandblasted into the wall, Williams remains resolute regarding his role.
“This ain’t my first rodeo,” Williams said, according to Charean Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I got recruited [to Texas] with B.J. [Johnson] and Sloan Thomas, so those are two top-notch guys. I came in and did my thing. I was the third one on the totem pole in that deal, and I came out No. 1. I don’t really see it as a competition thing. I see it as us getting better.
“But I know in the back of my mind and the back of his mind, [Bryant] wants to play, the only way he’s going to play is to get No. 11 off the field, and that’s going to be tough to do. But it’s going to make us better as a football team.”
Williams also vows to stop dropping so many passes. “It won’t even be half,” Williams said regarding the number of just-ate-popcorn moments from last year. “Do you want to take that bet? I won’t even come close. Promise you.”
We’re not sure what would be worse. Williams continuing to be a mediocre player, or Williams suddenly getting better because he feels like he’s being challenged to stay in the starting lineup. If it’s the latter, it means that Williams relies too much on external motivations to get the most out of his abilities, and that’s one of the worst traits an athlete can have.
Meanwhile, when Williams says that this “ain’t his [first] rodeo,” he’s leaving out a certain Megatron calf roping in Detroit, the one that made Williams irrelevant. Indeed, less than two years after Calvin Johnson joined the team, the Lions opted to ship Williams back to Texas.
Even the Lions wouldn’t have been stupid enough to give up on a first-round wideout with talent. For now, the decision to dump Williams remains one of the wisest moves the Lions have made since the retirement of Barry Sanders.
For the Cowboys, trying too hard to justify a failed trade would be one of the franchise’s biggest blunders.