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Ticats.ca
Justin Dunk
It has been a long football road for Renauld Williams.
His pro football journey has landed him in his second Steeltown in as many years.
Edmonton Eskimos GM Eric Tillman and Joe Womack, who is currently Hamilton’s assistant general manager, were instrumental in introducing Williams to the Canadian Football League. The pair of football personnel men were in Saskatchewan together for four seasons, from 2007-2010. They brought in the talented linebacker – whom Tillman had his eye on since Williams’ junior season in 2002 at Hofstra University — during their first year in the front office with the Riders.
“I was bouncing around and I was going from team to team trying to find a home in the NFL,” Williams said.
After being released from San Francisco and almost signing with Seattle, Miami signed Williams to their practice roster midway through the 2004 season – the Dolphins actually called him during a meeting with Seahawks management to tell Williams to catch the next flight down to Miami and he jumped aboard.
Three weeks later, Williams was activated from the practice roster and suited up for the Dolphins in his first career NFL contest; a primetime AFC East division match up on December 20.
“My first game, Patriots, Monday night game, I have three special teams tackles. I have a really good game and broke my thumb,” Williams said. “I split a bone, so they just put me on IR the rest of the season.”
A broken thumb would not be the last of Williams’ injury troubles in his attempt to stick on an NFL roster. After a good training camp with Cleveland in 2005, Williams suffered yet another injury which led to his release. San Francisco would come calling after his release from the Browns and he would sign there and bounce between the active roster, playing special teams, and the practice roster for two seasons and was a free agent after the 2006 campaign.
“I couldn’t get back on a team. The NFL is all about timing,” Williams said.
Numerous NFL coaches and personnel men liked what they saw of Williams in free agent workouts, but he was missing a key piece to his NFL resume – game film.
“Me and my agent made the decision, we want to get some game film and come to Canada for a couple years and try to get back,” Williams said.
The 238-pound linebacker would play three seasons in the Prairies with the Green Riders, winning a Grey Cup in 2007, and playing in the infamous 13th man championship game loss in 2009 to Montreal.
In 2010, Williams took advantage of the option year in his CFL contract, which allows players to sign with an NFL team if they so choose. So he went ahead and inked a deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers and attended their training camp in 2010 – a Steeltown where linebackers seem to flourish.
Williams learned from Pro Bowl linebackers like James Farrior, LaMarr Woodley and James Harrison.
“They all sacrifice, do their job, so that the guy next to them can make the big sack or forced fumble,” Williams said. “If they’re running with the ball they’ll pitch it to the other guy so he goes for a touchdown, a bunch of unselfish guys.”
The Steelers defensive attack comes from the brain of coordinator Dick LeBeau and he wanted all of his players to be on the same page, every snap.
“The one thing about a LeBeau defence, he stressed you have to communicate. If there’s no chatter then you are going to be beat,” Williams said. “It’s sort of similar here. I think Corey [Chamblin] is trying to get us to that point.”
Near the end of Steeler training camp Williams would suffer another injury and he was let go on September 3.
After seeing the injury issues catch up with him in his pursuit of the NFL, Williams decided to head to the CFL once again. With Womack joining the Ticats front office in January, it was a natural fit for Williams to bring his talents to the Black and Gold franchise north of the border just over a month later.
“I was supposed to be in Black and Gold. It looks good on me, my favourite colours,” he said.
Williams quickly showed why he was expected to come in and start in the middle of the Ticats defence during training camp and he just might be a fixture there for the foreseeable future.
“It’s a great coaching staff and this is really a classy organization,” Williams said. “I don’t plan on going anywhere else, I plan on finishing my career here if they’ll have me.”
Williams has spent a lot of time around winning organizations in his football career.
Of course the Steelers were defending Super Bowl champions when he was trying to crack their roster in 2010. On a CFL level, in each of Saskatchewan’s two Grey Cup runs that Williams was a part of, the team got off to mediocre starts, posting a 2-2 record in 2007 and 2009. In both campaigns the Riders lost two consecutive games early in the season – weeks three and four both years to be exact.
Williams knows the Ticats have not started the 2011 season the way he and his teammates envisioned, but he knows, from his days in Rider green, he would rather deal with losses early in the year.
“It’s a learning experience. Being in those situations in Saskatchewan, I would rather lose two games now in the season then lose two games at the end of the season going into the playoffs. You want to go into the playoffs on a winning streak,” Williams said of the Ticats less then stellar start. “Two weeks from now we can be two and two and we’re back in the mix of things.”
“I honestly feel here we have better athletes than when I was in Saskatchewan we didn’t have any big name guys.”
Williams’ well-traveled football road will come full circle on Saturday when he takes on the team where he put himself on the CFL map.
