The feeling among the Steelers coaches in 2019 is that the team's defense would be better suited if inside linebacker Vince Williams played fewer snaps than he had in the previous two seasons.
A very good run stuffer and blitzer, Williams was seen as something of a liability in pass defense -- at least not up to the standard the Steelers wanted at the position. It was something opponents exploited in 2018, when Williams and Jon Bostic manned the inside linebacker spots for the Steelers.
But with the additions of Mark Barron and first-round draft pick Devin Bush a year ago, the Steelers felt they had two linebackers better capable of handling the coverage duties required to play inside linebacker in today's NFL.
That meant Williams, while still technically a starter, saw his snaps cut nearly in half a year ago.
Fast forward to 2020, and Barron is now gone, released in the offseason in a salary cap-related move, and the Steelers are counting on increased snaps from Williams once again. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
"He is a great communicator. A lot of times as we went back and looked at our film and kind of graded ourselves, we felt like our communication — if anything went wrong with our defenses, it was more on our communication and really our secondary communication," Keith Butler said. "There’s primary and secondary communication, which starts at the first part of the play. As the play starts to play out a little bit then, sometimes you have to make adjustments. Vince is really good at doing that for us and getting the calls to the guys, making sure that they know that we are all on the same page. That’s big for us in terms of Vince Williams. That’s what he brings to the table."
Barron played 750 snaps in 2019, serving as the nickel and dime linebacker. Bush led the Steelers' inside linebackers with 889 defensive snaps, seeing time in the base and nickel defenses, but coming off the field in the dime. Williams played primarily in the base defense but saw 396 defensive snaps. He did play more in the sub packages later in the season after defensive lineman Stephon Tuitt was lost for the year and Williams was used in the nickel package as an additional pass rusher.
"It's Blitzburgh. We always want to get after the quarterback and everybody has to be able to do that," Williams said. "Even in the secondary, we seek out guys who can get after the quarterback."
Still, for a player who had logged more than 700 defensive snaps the past two seasons, last season could have been viewed as a demotion, even though he made eight starts.
But Williams will play more snaps in 2020. And even if he's asked to cover running backs and tight ends more often, he doesn't see it as an issue.
"It hasn't come up in situations where my coaches don't ask me to do things," Williams said Wednesday. "I'm not asked when we're game planning to not cover because it would seem like a perceived limitation of mine. I don't go into the gameplan room and coach Butler says, 'We're going to blitz you because you can't cover.' He doesn't say that. I think it's an outside thing that people talk about outside the organization. But inside our building, they know what I can do."
Even though his snaps were down last season, the production was there. Williams made 55 tackles and had nine quarterback hits and 2.5 sacks in his limited playing time, showing he could still be a valuable contributor.
"He’s very physical. We feel like if we get him one-on-one with a back, he’s going to win that," Butler said. "We feel like he’s a good rusher on the passer. We think he can cover, maybe not as good as Devin, but he does a sophisticated job for us. We will see when we get to different personnel groups, in terms of what offenses give us and stuff like that, how we will use our personnel."
The Steelers also could use a safety in the box more often on passing situations, dropping Terrell Edmunds or Minkah Fitzpatrick down in the dime defense. But Williams is obviously going to play more than he did a year ago.
A former sixth-round draft pick in 2013 -- when he was the last pick of that round -- he's carved out an eight-year career. He's already beaten all of the odds just to stay in the league this long when many of his draft mates have long ago moved on.
"I always set high expectations for myself," he said.
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