Doug: Rookie of the team draft pick
Aug 4, 2010, 8:21 PM | Updated: Jul 26, 2024, 1:55 pm
So…did you make your pick in the Rookie of the Team draft?
You choose one player from the Cardinals roster who has impressed you. The catch is you have to pick someone drafted on day three or someone who wasn’t drafted at all.
My pick is Stephen Williams. He’s a 6′ 5″ 208 lbs. rookie out of Toledo. Let me give you his high school track numbers to show you his athleticism. He almost jumped his height in high school and had a long jump of almost 23′ (official numbers were 6′ 4″ in the high jump and 22′ 11″ in the long jump. Is he fast you ask? He ran the 100 in 10.7 seconds. At the combine, he ran a sub 4.5 electronic timed 40. If you watch him against Houston on 8/14, he’s wearing number 14.
Just the tangibles are reason enough to love him. He’s taller than every CB and he can out-jump most of them. Granted, none of this matters if he can’t catch the football. It’s easy to say, “There’s a reason the UT he went to was Toledo and not Texas,” especially since he’s from Houston. I’m not worried about that, I actually think it’s a positive. He’s already dealt with not getting the attention and he excelled at Toledo. He told Wolf and me it leads to extra incentive.
So far his camp hasn’t been stellar but it’s been solid. He admitted to us that the playbook is the most challenging aspect of his new job. There are times when you can tell he’s still thinking during his route instead of reading the secondary naturally. When you’re over-thinking, your natural athleticism doesn’t come out as well. He is a student of the game, though. Williams is not one of those players where you say, “Don’t think,” because you’re scared what could happen. He’s a very intelligent kid with a passion to get it right.
If you’re short on time, I had with him after practice.
If you’ve got a few more minutes, listen to Steve when he came on the show earlier in the first week of camp. His story of swordfights with his head coach at Toledo is priceless.
