DGDB&D: a Texans blog.

Brian Baldinger, NFL Lineman and Amateur Gynecologist

Jul 31, 2007 2006 Draft, Inanity, Super Mario

Just when I think I am relegated to writing second-hand stories about training camp, I get an email from a reader asking me if I had seen a certain article in last September’s SportingNews by Brian Baldinger regarding Mario Williams. (Side note: People still get the print version of the SportingNews?)

Because this is a year old, it really has no bearing on much of anything. But I am starved for something to complain about and, anyway, the reader went to the trouble of typing out the entire (I assume) article for me. As it is so far beyond dumb, I feel the need to post it here, for your enjoyment.

Lack of a fast twitch will slow Williams’ impact as a rush end.

When the Texans made defensive end Mario Williams the No. 1 pick of the 2006 draft, they said, in essence, this iwas a guy who would dominate as a pass rusher. He’d make offenses change their protection schemes. He’d demand double-teams.

Not gonna happen.

At 6-7, 291, Williams has amazing size for an end. He’s smart, and he’s hungry. He wants to live up to his draft status. But he’ll have a hard time doing so because he isn’t a fast-twitch guy.

Muscle fibers are different. Some are slow twitch, sort of like they’re built for a marathon. Others are a fast twitch. They have a suddenness to them, like a cobra striking. All the good pass-rushing ends - Dwight Freeney, Jason Taylor, Michael Strahan, John Abraham, and a few others - are fast-twitch guys. You either have it or you don’t, and Williams doesn’t.

An example from Houston’s season-opening loss to Philadelphia: Donovan McNabb faked a handoff going right, then turned and flipped the ball to Brian Westbrook going left. Williams, the right end, wasn’t even blocked. He went with the fake then turned to chase Westbrook. In that situation, Williams has to put his foot in the ground and change direction instantly to make the play. But he didn’t have the muscle fiber to do that. Westbrook ran for 17 yards.

Without that quick twitch, Williams will have a hard time making offensive linemen miss him. He invites contact. He may someday have the strength and savvy to deal with contact to some degree, but the ends who dominate are the ones who avoid contact by flashing past blockers before they can react. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Willims to do that. In fact, the Texans are moving Williams inside to tackle on obvious passing downs and bringing in a couple of fast twitch guys - Jason Babin and Antwaan Peek - to rush from the outside. Teams don’t move elite pass rushers to tackle. What does that tell you ?

The Texans switched from a 3-4 to a 4-3 this year and are rebuilding their defense around Williams. That’s what you do with a player taken first overall in the draft. But I don’t see him having the impact they envision. He wasn’t noticeable on his NFL debut, and he won’t be noticeable most Sundays.

“Paging Dr. Baldinger. Dr. Baldinger please report to Shut The Fuck Up.”

Not to burst Brian’s obviously learned bubble, but this is ridiculous. First of all, the discussion of “fast-” v “slow-twitch” muscle fibers is flawed beyond comprehension. Everyone–including Mario Williams–has both fast- and slow-twitch fibers. While percentages may vary slightly, we all–yes, including Mario–generally have an equal mix of both. Sure, some athletes (most notably world-class sprinters) have a slightly higher percentage of fast-twitch, but even they have slow-twitch as well. Thus, Brian’s entire underlying premise is, well, retarded. (It’s even more egregious when you realize that he could have googled “fast twitch muscle fibers” and avoided this whole thing. Asshat.)

Second, Dr. Brian is basing this diagnosis on one play in Mario’s first professional game. In the play in question, Mario bit on a fake and then tried to run down an NFL running back from behind. I don’t know that there are any defensive linemen in the league who can bite on the fake, change direction, and still catch up with a running back who already has a four or five yard cushion on them. Maybe Julius Peppers, but he is a mutant of the highest order. He’s also not a rookie playing in his first NFL game.

Even if his reasoning is ridiculous, I suppose Baldinger’s underlying point is that, while Mario is straight-line fast and very strong, he lacks the agility to make blockers miss. I’m not sure I agree with that at all. What he lacked last year, especially in the early games, was technique. Mario had spent his entire life being bigger, faster, and stronger than the players on the other side of the line. He never had to learn swim moves and the like because, when push came to shove, he could just push and shove the other players out of his way.

Mario knows this, too, which is why he spent the entire offseason working on technique.

Looking ahead, the 6-7, 291-pounder is eager to improve multiple facets of his game. He credits his physical presence as his greatest asset, but realizes he still has a long way to go to be dominant in the NFL.

“I want to take it to the next level and gain the knowledge I need to make playing easy for me and get things done,” Williams said. “Basically I need to work on my technique as far as leverage. I’ll also work on adding a couple of moves and get those working 100 percent and I’ll take it from there.”

I realize that I praised Baldinger once before, following his NFL TV assessment of Schaub v. Zoolander. But that is exactly my point, in a way. Baldinger is qualified to view tape and compare two QBs in terms of the skills an NFL QB needs. He is not qualified to watch one game and then make a determination about Mario Williams’ biological makeup and how it will relate to Mario’s future. (This is doubly true when said determination is wrong, top to bottom.)

It’s pretty simple in the end. If you want to say that, as of kickoff of his first NFL game, Mario had zero finesse moves, you are basically correct. If you want to say that he lacks a biological component necessary to develop those moves, you are basically an idiot. An idiot with a really weird pinkie.