INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 25 -- On the day last year when he announced that he was leaving the University of Southern California to enter the 2004 NFL draft, Mike Williams said he was making a grown-up decision. A federal judge's ruling in Maurice Clarett's lawsuit against the league temporarily opened the proceedings to college freshmen and sophomores and high school players, and Williams understood there was a chance that his decision could backfire. If it did, he said, he would accept it like a grown-up, as gracefully as he could manage.
He has stuck to that. He was barred from last year's draft -- along with Clarett -- when the original ruling was overturned on appeal, then was denied by the NCAA in his bid to return to USC for his junior season. He lost a year of his football-playing life and now, as the 2005 draft approaches, some wonder whether the standout wide receiver will be able to knock the rust off his game.
Former Trojan wideout Mike Williams sat out last season after being told he could not enter the NFL draft.
(John Harrell - AP)
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But he said here Friday that he isn't bitter and he was angry only briefly. It was difficult watching USC win a second straight national championship without him, he said. But he talked about how the year off enabled him to carefully plan for the transition to being an NFL player, instead of rushing through draft preparations with little thought to anything but running a faster 40-yard dash.
"There were probably 20 minutes of last year that I really was down," Williams said at the NFL scouting combine, "that I really felt like I had the world on my shoulders . . . . I'm blessed to have a really good support group, people that really care about me, really care about my best interests."
NFL officials said they warned Williams after the initial ruling in the Clarett case that they were lifting their draft-eligibility requirement -- that a player must be at least three years removed from high school -- because they had to, but they would do all they could to reverse the decision and would keep him out of last year's draft if they could. USC Coach Pete Carroll advised Williams at the time to spend another year playing college football. But Williams felt he was ready for the NFL after two spectacular seasons at USC, and the opportunity suddenly was put in front of him. He couldn't resist.
And when Williams ended up without a team, even Clarett sympathized. "I probably felt [worse] for him than for myself," he said here this week. "I started it. He got kind of caught up in my web."
Clarett and Williams spoke a few times over the past year, but Clarett never took up Williams on his offer for the two to spend time together.
"I said, 'If you need somebody to work out with, if you need some things, I'll be in California. We can work out together or whatever,' " Williams said. "But he was doing his own thing, and I respect that . . . . We're always going to be linked together. We both understood that. But I don't see him as the reason why I wasn't able to be in the draft last year. It's nothing personal against him [and] never has been. I just worry about maintaining my focus and my image and taking care of my business."
Williams is viewed as a likely top-10 selection in April even after his season off.
"You go back to the [college game] tape, and that doesn't change," Baltimore Ravens Coach Brian Billick said. "He was incredibly productive his last year at USC. But there are questions. You are going to have to take a leap of faith. But you have enough film. Even with all that happened, I imagine he's going to be a fairly high pick."
Williams is counting on that. "I think these guys have been in this business long enough to know football and know a football player," he said.
It appears that most NFL talent evaluators regard Williams as the second-best wideout in this draft, after Michigan's Braylon Edwards. But there is, as usual, a talented group of wide receivers in the draft. A half-dozen or so could be selected in the first round, and Williams could slip if he's unable to demonstrate to NFL decision-makers that he will be able to quickly regain his skills.
"When you sit out a year of football," Buffalo Bills President Tom Donahoe said, "it's still difficult to judge where a player is."
The question about Williams is his speed. He ran the 40 in about 4.6 seconds at his pre-draft workout for scouts last year. He vowed Friday that he will have that time under 4.5 seconds when he runs for scouts on March 10 in Tampa. He won't work out at this combine.
The Washington Redskins have the ninth overall pick in the draft and probably would love to have Williams. But they likely will have to trade up to get him, now that the Minnesota Vikings will have the seventh overall selection as part of the pending trade of five-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Randy Moss to the Oakland Raiders. Williams could be Moss's replacement in Minnesota, something he already discussed with Vikings Coach Mike Tice during his meeting with the club on Thursday.
"He brought that up," Williams said. "I told him I wouldn't be trying to fill Randy Moss's shoes. I think those shoes are cut to his feet. . . . I think I bring my own pair of shoes. I bring my own attitude and my own playing style and my own demeanor about myself, and I'd just really be me."
