In a lot of ways, it's entirely unfair that both an impressive and an impactful rookie season has been diminished to nothing more than one disastrous tumble into most unforgiving section of the history books. Highlighted by the game-changing interception that preceded said tumble, Marcus Williams footprints were all over the work of a young defense that was wise beyond it's years in kicking in the door that it's predecessors had spent so many god-forsaken years as the mat of. For that reason, he probably deserves better than to have every play he's made in preparation for his sophomore season viewed through the same lens through which his freshman campaign fatally faded to black. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the Bill Buckner's of the the sports' world, it takes a hell of a lot longer than one offseason to have any noticeable success in scrubbing clean the type of stain that was left on the memory of Saints' fans when their first year safety did the exact opposite of upholding his job description by recklessly barrel-rolling through all his reinforcements en route to the sudden death of season-ending defeat. All may be forgiven, but all is not forgotten, as the making of history tends to be both heartless and context-free in its perpetual portrayal of its most notorious casualties. I personally hate harping back on a single play that couldn't be more misleading as to the potential of the player who was on the wrong end of it. However, otherwise accomplished careers have been defined by similarly indefensible and ill-timed blunders, so having it hang over the victim of one's head until his next game of consequence was as inevitable as the sun rising. Whether or not it's justified is completely moot, because Marcus Williams is very much fighting an uphill battle in showing the football world that he's much, much more than just a repetitive punchline to be directed, ad nauseam, at the nearest and dearest Saints' fan in your life. All that being said, his initial steps in overcoming what might seem like a Mount Everest-esque obstacle to men of lesser will has filled some pretty big shoes in the trained eyes that have been used to Jedi Mind Trick some of the best ballhawks in NFL history into galaxies alternative to the one in which his targets have often run free over the last decade+...
All praise that is heaped from across a locker room should be taken with a drop of glue, so as to helplessly attempt to keep inherently fickle fans somewhat grounded in their expectations of the endlessly mocked second year player that just got mentioned in the same sentence as a generational talent who might as well schedule the fitting for his gold jacket. The namedrop of someone who is going to be immortalized with their own bust in short order is liable to have the most loyal of its readership on the verge of a less honorable bust of their own. To put it simply, it's important to take a deep breath before considering Marcus Williams the second-coming. After all, there's reason to believe that someone as smart and calculated as Drew Brees was blowing smoke to cloud the haunting memory of this past January. On the other hand, there's also reason to believe that the future first ballot 'Hall Of Famer' was blowing smoke to fog the narrative of a training camp that has seen him repeatedly victimized by a face that was left weeping last time it took center stage. The last person I'm worried about is Drew Brees, but if Marcus Williams' performance thus far wasn't worthy of being singled out then the play of the quarterback who has repeatedly found himself flummoxed by his range would be...
Let's be honest, Ed Reed would probably be left rolling with laughter in a way that might give #43 flashbacks if he heard his illustrious name loosely attached to a someone who is still a league-wide laughingstock. Still, objectively (and prematurely) speaking, it's been more justified to view him in the mold of the former rather than the latter as of late. Even if it's highly, highly unlikely he ever comes close to filling it in a way that washes free his attribution with one of the most flagrant rookie mistakes in sports' history, Marcus Williams appears to have put it as far in his rearview as the New Orleans Saints could have possibly hoped for at this point, and he's done so with a lot more than just lip service...
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
January 2020
|