{"id":17910,"date":"2017-04-09T22:31:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T02:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=17910"},"modified":"2017-04-09T22:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T02:31:00","slug":"pittsburgh-steelers-draft-jamaal-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/04\/09\/pittsburgh-steelers-draft-jamaal-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers Should Draft Jamaal Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Jamaal Williams<\/strong> led the BYU Cougars in rushing yards in all four years that he played there.\u00a0 Williams played immediately as a freshman and started eight games in his first season. Over his college career, Williams ran for 3,901 yards and 35 touchdowns, averaging 5.4 yards per carry.<\/p>\n<h2>Pittsburgh Steelers Should Draft Jamaal Williams<\/h2>\n<p>Williams decided to take a year off from school in 2015 due to personal reasons, but returned in 2016 seemingly better than ever.\u00a0 Williams finished fifth in the country in rushing yards per game last year with 137.5 yards per game, thanks in part to a 287 yard and five touchdown performance against Toledo.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tubrdY1jr8o\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BellLe00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Le&#8217;Veon Bell<\/a> Needs a Backup<\/h3>\n<p>Backup running back <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/W\/WillDe02.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DeAngelo Williams<\/a><\/strong> is still unsigned and it\u2019s unclear if the Steelers will decide to keep him on the roster.\u00a0 Williams is 33 years old and made $2 million last year.\u00a0 The Steelers also signed former Kansas City Chiefs running back <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/D\/DaviKn00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Knile Davis<\/a> <\/strong>to a one-year deal worth $775,000 this offseason.\u00a0 Davis is a nice addition, but it\u2019s still unclear if he\u2019ll be a good fit as a backup running back in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>After that, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/T\/TousFi00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fitzgerald Toussaint<\/a><\/strong> has been the Steelers next running back down the list.\u00a0 Touissant hasn\u2019t made much of an impact in his time as a Steeler and hasn\u2019t shown the ability to be a true number two running back behind <strong>Le\u2019Veon Bell<\/strong>.\u00a0 When Williams went down with an injury last season, Bell had to carry quite a heavy workload because of the team\u2019s lack of faith in Touissant.<\/p>\n<h3>NFL Combine Statistics<\/h3>\n<p>At the NFL Combine, Williams measured in at 6 feet tall and 212 pounds.\u00a0 His arm length was measured at 31 and \u00bc inches, and his hands were measured at 10 inches.\u00a0 Williams ran the 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds, which isn\u2019t all that fast, but isn\u2019t slow by any means either.\u00a0 He completed the three-cone drill in 7.25 seconds and the 20-yard shuttle in 4.53 seconds.\u00a0 Williams recorded a 123-inch broad jump and a 30-inch vertical leap.<\/p>\n<h3>Question Marks<\/h3>\n<p>Williams had some off-the-field issues at BYU, including a suspension during his junior season for multiple team code violations, including an underage drinking citation.\u00a0 As stated earlier, Williams sat out the 2015 season for personal reasons, but it seemed to do him some good since he returned in such impressive fashion in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Williams needs to work on his patience when looking for a running lane.\u00a0 He sometimes gets a bit too antsy and runs into his own blockers.\u00a0 Williams is a banger and a power runner, but his forward lean causes some issues with his contact balance.\u00a0 He lacks elite breakaway speed, but can still break off some long runs.<\/p>\n<h3>Strengths<\/h3>\n<p>Williams is an exceptionally versatile runner, combining size, quickness and elusiveness.\u00a0 He\u2019s also a good pass-catcher and made plenty of plays coming out of the backfield as a receiver.\u00a0 Williams made an immediate impact as a receiver during his freshman season, accumulating 315 receiving yards and a touchdown on 27 receptions.<\/p>\n<p>Williams is explosive and hard to bring down singlehandedly, as he often runs through arm-tackles.\u00a0 He&#8217;s shown that he is dependable and durable, only missing eight games due to injury over his four years at BYU.<\/p>\n<p>Williams would be a solid backup to Bell, bringing a change of pace with his power running and explosiveness.\u00a0 He can learn how to be more patient, which is his main weakness, from the best in the game.\u00a0 Bell is known for his incredible patience before hitting the hole and he can show Williams how to improve in that category.\u00a0 He wouldn\u2019t be asked to do a lot right away, especially now that Davis has signed, so he could take time and develop behind arguably the best running back in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/180010811\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 60.101010% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/180010811?et=1qDta4HUQv5Gjp5CzD3eNA&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=VsqpCrvGZtacU8sA-70Zlon6vL59gAsorA2xxrQmONc=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"357\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Steelers need a dependable backup running back to fill in for Le&#8217;Veon Bell when necessary.  Jamaal Williams from BYU may be the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":948,"featured_media":17919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2,1647],"tags":[39,175,563,2040,1584,365,98,40,81,629],"class_list":["post-17910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-steelers","category-featured","category-nfl-draft","tag-afc","tag-afc-north","tag-deangelo-williams","tag-fitzgerald-touissant","tag-jamaal-williams","tag-knile-davis","tag-leveon-bell","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pro-football"],"modified_by":"Parker Hurley, Team Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/948"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}