Bills defensive end Mario Williams didn’t win much love from the masses for the way he played against the Jets in Week One or for the way he blamed the officials for contributing to making him a total non-factor for Buffalo in his first regular season game since signing a massive free agent contract with the team this offseason.
He even took a slap from Rodney Harrison for choosing to sign with the Bills in the first place. All in all, it feels like a tough week to be Mario Williams. Or, more precisely, it would be a tough week to be Mario Williams if you were paying attention to what people are saying about you. Williams said Wednesday that he isn’t letting the chatter get to him because he isn’t paying attention to any of it.
“I mean, everybody’s going to have something to say, regardless,” Williams said, via Jerry Sullivan of the Buffalo News. “Good or bad. I can’t control somebody else’s opinion. But I will do what I’m supposed to do here and perform. So I’m not worried about that after this first game. I would be angry every day if I actually paid attention to what everybody else said.”
Especially this week.
He’d be wise not to read the rest of Sullivan’s piece, either. Williams gets lightly criticized for not sticking up for the franchise in the wake of Harrison’s comments, tweaked for a weak attempt to back away from the comments about the officiating and Sullivan wonders why there’s suddenly talk of a wrist injury that was never mentioned before the Jets game. It’s fairly light stuff, it has only been one game after all, but it doesn’t take much to see where things could head if Williams and the Bills don’t put up some better efforts in the weeks to come.
Should that come to pass, Williams might not notice it. He’ll probably be the only one, though.