Mario Williams is an adult
May 26, 2007 Big dudes doing the little things, Overexposure, Preview, Simulpost, Super Mario
Megan Manfull has an article over at Chron.com about Mario Williams‘ personal and professional maturation since last year and his expectations for the upcoming season. According to the article–the Lambo Incident notwithstanding–Super Mario has been pretty much perfect this offseason. He has followed the rehab for his foot to the letter. He has hit the weight room with intensity and focus. He is showing maturity in the wake of the YouTube fiasco.
But it’s just one of those things that bring you back to reality and let’s you know you can’t even do any little thing now.
This attitude is the underlying point of the article–that Mario is more mature than last season and this wisdom should translate into better play.
I don’t disagree with that premise, I suppose, but I think the most exciting part of the article for Texans fans should be this throw-away line:
He also is making strides in his technique. He is working on improving his footwork and improving the way his hands work with his feet.
Now, I am already on record as a Super Mario fan who thinks that the Williams draft pick was completely justifiable. That said, I’ll be the first to admit that he relied too heavily on sheer athletic ability as a pass rusher. When his foot got injured and his athletic explosiveness was limited, his lack of a repertoire of defensive moves made him almost non-existent in the pass rush. (His run defense was still surprisingly good–teams actively ran away from him for much of the second half of 2006–but that’s not really what he’s here for, you know?)
One of the hardest things to do in life is to admit that you are lacking in some area. This is doubly true in sports, where machismo reigns, and probably even more true when that deficit is a facet of the thing that you are expected to do. That Mario can objectively look at his game and see a need for technique improvement speaks more to me about his maturity than his reaction to some YouTube video.
I already expected big things out of Mario this season; I’m thinking it might already be time to upgrade those expectations.
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For those of you who have checked out my appearance over on Texans Talk, thanks. I am still trying to get a feel for that place–frequency of posting, seriousness of topics, annoyance at footnotes–so you’ll have to bear with me for a while. I still say that I will (at some point) get some stuff up over there that you won’t find here; it just might take a little while before I figure something out.
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Also, I assume that most of my readers who don’t also know me in real life are from Texas. That being the case, I was hoping one of you might give me a good recipe for a brisket rub. Email me at mattycamp -at- gmail.com (or you can just click the link in the upper right).
