Building a Reputation : Lee Williams Does It by Demolishing Offenses

The guy in the song says you’re not supposed to tug on Superman’s cape or pull the mask off the Lone Ranger.

And the guys in the baddest part of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will tell you not to mess with Lee.

But this is real life, guys. In America. You know, time is money. Money talks. Talk is cheap. And houses are cheaper by the dozen.

A luxury house is what Charger defensive end Lee Williams began building in Fort Lauderdale during the off-season. Williams acted as his own general contractor. The sub-contractors acted as villains.

“Subs,” Williams calls them, spitting the word out like a rusty nail.

Anybody who has ever waited an extra half an hour for the plumber to show can appreciate Williams’ bind. Anybody who has turned on their answering machine to hear the roofer woofing knows the battles Williams has had to fight.

But perhaps the nice part of all this--the misery-loves-company part--is finding out that certain tradesmen in South Florida often act the same as certain tradesmen in El Cajon.

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Williams said. “Their car will break down on you. Their wife will have a heart attack on you. If they don’t want to work that day, they’re not going to work that day.”

But Lee Williams is 6-5 1/2 and 265 pounds. He is a local hero in Fort Lauderdale. He has friends in the right places there. He is known in the community. His enemies cross the street and walk on the other side when they see him coming.

In the construction business, nobody cares.

“It doesn’t matter,” Williams says, “if you weigh 130 pounds or if you’re King Kong Bundy.”

Fortunately for Williams, it does matter in the NFL.

Meanwhile , the house that Lee built is getting there. Someday, he will build houses for other people -- when he’s finished tearing down opposing offensive blocking schemes for the Chargers.

He hasn’t missed a game for them in five years. He missed just one in college at Bethune-Cookman. He never missed one in high school at Fort Lauderdale Stranahan. And he almost never misses a practice. To hear his coaches talk, the last play he missed was “Hello Dolly.”

“He’s there every play, every down and every practice,” says Gunther Cunningham, the Chargers’ defensive line coach.

Williams will advise other people planning to build their own homes. (“Check the subs out thoroughly. And watch them all the time. If you give them a chance to cut corners, they will.”)

Joe Phillips will advise offensive coordinators trying to protect their quarterbacks: Don’t mess with Lee.

“A lot of guys with Lee’s speed are not that big,” Phillips says. “Lee’s got the strength to go with the speed. He can do almost anything he wants to an offensive lineman.”

Phillips starts at defensive tackle for the Chargers in the 4-3 alignment they have been utilizing in the absence of outside linebackers Billy Ray Smith (injured calf) and Chip Banks (holdout). The Chargers (2-2) would like to have more than seven sacks (Williams has just one). But five of those seven have come in the past two games, both victories.

Phillips compares Williams favorably with Chicago’s Richard Dent and Minnesota’s Chris Doleman, two of the premier “speed” pass rushers in the league. “Lee’s big enough to do other things,” Phillips says.

David Richards learns a little bit more about that every day. Richards is the 300-pound rookie right offensive tackle who has started all four Charger games this season. One of the reasons he acquitted himself so well against Seattle’s Jacob Green two weeks ago is because he has to mess with Lee. Every day in practice.

Green came to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium Sept. 18 leading the NFL in sacks. He got none against the Chargers. During that same game , Williams separated the right shoulder of Seattle quarterback Dave Krieg, an injury that has shifted the balance of power in the AFC West and created a wide-open division race.

In the season opener, the Raiders’ Howie Long turned Richards every way but loose. That was due, indirectly, to Williams’ long contract holdout. He had just reported. Richards’ professional education had just begun.

“Lee just has unbelievable quickness and strength,” Richards says. “He’s really focused in on what’s going on.”

Richards says Williams’ favorite move starts with an outside rush. That gets the offensive tackle running “upfield” in an attempt to “ride” the pass rusher outside and around the quarterback. Typically Williams will use his quickness to reverse his rush to the inside. The tackle will lean left to counter. But his feet will still be moving to the outside.

At that point, Richards says, “It doesn’t take too much pressure for him to just throw you on the ground. He reads body weight really well.”

“The key is to get the tackle moving upfield,” Williams agrees. “That’s when I club ‘em and go inside. If the lineman holds his ground at the line of scrimmage, then I’ve got my work cut out.”

This is Williams’ fifth year with the Chargers. He has amassed 33 1/2 sacks in that short period. And both he and Cunningham figure he’ll break Gary “Big Hands” Johnson’s career Charger record of 67 sacks without any problem.

“I think if Leslie O’Neal were in the lineup, Lee would probably have that record right now,” Cunningham says.

O’Neal is the Charger right defensive end who went down with a major knee injury in 1986, near the end of his rookie year. He hasn’t played since, although there has been hope recently he may return as early as Oct. 16. The more attention offenses pay a Pro Bowl type such as O’Neal, the less blocking help they can provide their right tackles to deal with Williams.

The numbers bear this out. In 1986, Williams finished with 15 sacks, second in the AFC only to Raider Sean Jones (15 1/2 ). Last year his sack production dropped to eight. Still, his fellow AFC players named him an alternate to the Pro Bowl team.

At least part of Williams’ effectiveness as a pass rusher comes from the time he spent as an offensive lineman his senior year in high school. The coaches at Stranahan had decided his best position as a junior was defensive tackle.

“But he was horrible there,” says Rick Perry, Stranahan’s head coach. “We had to bench him. He didn’t play the rest of the year.”

Perry immediately converted Williams to offensive tackle. But he wasn’t ready for prime time at that position until his senior year.

“By then he was unbelievable,” Perry says. “There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.”

Williams made all-league in the Broward County Athletic Conference. Which might not sound like much. A guy good enough to play in the NFL should be all-league in high school.

But the quality of Florida high school football, in the minds of many, has surpassed that of Texas and Pennsylvania and Ohio, the more traditional strongholds. Earlier this month, Sports Illustrated credited Florida high school football for the rise to prominence of that state’s three top college football programs--Miami, Florida and Florida State.

The honor role of players that have made all-league in the Broward County Athletic Conference includes Tucker Frederickson, Rubin Carter, Lorenzo White, Barry Krauss, James Jones, Michael Irvin, Bennie Blades, Brian Blades, Anthony Bell, Preston Pearson, Jim Osborne, Dean Biasucci, Stefan Humphries and many more.

Both Michigan and Illinois wanted Williams in the worst way out of high school. But he decided on Bethune-Cookman, up the coast in Daytona Beach. A knee injury his freshman year caused him to miss the only game of his life. If he’d really had to, Williams says, he could have played.

After college, Williams played briefly with the USFL’s Los Angeles Express. He became a starter with the Chargers in 1985. And now he is the anchor of a 4-3 defense that, at times, resembles the old 5-2 played by teams in the NFL’s formative years.

Cunningham says it’s more like the 4-3 the Chargers and the Rams used to play before the advent of the 3-4, which could showcase “endbackers” such as Lawrence Taylor. The Vikings and the Redskins still play 4-3.

Actually, the Chargers play whatever suits their personnel best on a given week. Right now it’s a 4-3.

“There have been a lot of busy Tuesdays around here,” Cunningham says.

Through it all, Williams has remained at left end even though the conventional NFL wisdom says you play your best pass rusher at right end, from which he can attack a right-handed quarterback’s blind side. The Chargers toyed briefly with the idea of moving Williams to right end this summer.

But, says Cunningham, “none of the bigger, stronger guys were able to do the job over there (at left end).”

That was fine with Williams.

“I’ve been there 10 years,” he says. “I’m comfortable there.”

Lee Williams, healthy and under contract with the Chargers for 5 more years, will be 26 in 2 weeks. He hopes to be at left end 10 more years.

His plan is to retire from pro football, return to Fort Lauderdale, and become big enough in contracting business to hire sub-contractors to work for him. Full-time.

For Williams, the pleasure in building is not so much in the creating. Indeed, his personal motto on the football field is “Attack, seek out and destroy.”

“The best part of contracting is after it’s all over,” he says, “and you’re counting the money you’ve made.”