Williams Tackling His Position Change

You don’t want to get Lee Williams upset. Two years ago, the Charger defensive end went on a rampage against the Seattle Seahawks and put quarterback David Krieg out for six weeks with a separated shoulder.

His idea of a fun Sunday, he has said, “is to eventually break the quarterback’s face.”

When he took exception to the way contract talks were going this past summer, rather than dismantle training camp, he opted to walk out.

The Chargers, however, continue to tease the volcano. They made a position change: They shoved him to defensive tackle to make room for pretty boy Burt Grossman at defensive end.

As Grossman said, “If I’m Lee Williams, I’d fight it. You don’t think Joe Montana would want to be moved from quarterback to wide receiver, do you? That’s sort of the way it is. Both Montana and Williams are at the top in their positions, and now they’re playing Lee out of position.”

Williams went to the Pro Bowl the past two seasons as the AFC’s starting defensive end. He led the AFC in sacks last season with 14. No one has piled up more sacks in the AFC in the past five years than Williams.

But now Grossman is at defensive end, Williams is lost inside, and Grossman is tied for the lead in the AFC with eight sacks. Grossman is prepping for Pro Bowl interviews in Honolulu, while Williams has been asked to fall on a grenade for the good of the team.

“I feel for him,” linebacker Leslie O’Neal said.

If Grossman or O’Neal finish the season tops in sacks for the Chargers, and if Williams doesn’t attract Pro Bowl attention, Williams figures he will lose more than $100,000 in incentives.

And so you expect mad. A real mad Lee Williams, but instead you get the Welcome Wagon. Lee (Pollyanna) Williams. Is this an audition to replace Mister Rogers?

“Sure, I’ve been angry to the point where I almost wanted to explode,” Williams said. “I have felt like I was sacrificed, but it was just a move that had to be made for the betterment of the team.”

You expect Mr. T, and you get Mr. Congeniality.

“My preference is to play defensive end, and it’s a point I’ve made and a point that’s been heard,” he said. “But right now it’s a point that’s not relative because it’s more important to put the best athletes on the field.”

Williams, the Chargers’ best athlete, has:

--The current longest starting streak on the team at 84 games.

--Played in all 92 games that he has been with the Chargers.

--Only six sacks to go to become the team’s all-time leader.

--Missed only one practice in seven seasons. “I went through warm-ups, so it shouldn’t be classified as a miss,” he said.

But now he’s been asked to sacrifice. And although he eventually may earn a contract extension and raise for service to the company, who pays the doctor bills?

“Playing inside is a real grind,” he said. “You get the hell beat out of you. It’s just flat out brutal.

“I’m probably up about 300% in visits to the training room. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that it’s not one thing or another. No doubt about it, it shortens your career.”

Is there any other choice?

“Where would you put Burt?” O’Neal said. “Regardless, somebody gets screwed. You going to move me? Somebody is going to get messed up when you have a lot of weapons.

“That’s great when you can stockpile a position, but eventually there’s going to be unrest and someone is going to be unhappy, so you end up getting rid of somebody down the road.”

Blame it on Grossman.

“When I got drafted they overstocked,” he said. “But they picked me, I didn’t pick them. I’m not at fault, but that situation I think is at fault. They only need two and they got three. The logical choice to go inside is the biggest one, and that’s Lee.”

But as a defensive end, Williams was one of the game’s standouts.

“Nobody can handle him one on one,” said tackle Broderick Thompson, who has to contend with Williams in practice. “He’s proven that year after year.

“Defensive linemen get their notoriety through sacks. And when he looks up and down the list and sees the people who are leading, and knowing they aren’t better than him, that has to frustrate him.”

You want frustration: Williams had 4 1/2 sacks when this week began, but upon NFL review, it was determined he was credited with a half sack that should have gone to linebacker Henry Rolling.

“When you get to be a Pro Bowl player, you start to attract more attention from offensive people,” defensive coordinator Ron Lynn said. “People make specific plans to make sure Lee Williams doesn’t get as many sacks as he had a year ago.

“When that happens and a guy doesn’t see the big picture, he has a tendency to get frustrated. Even if he does see the big picture, he has a tendency to get frustrated.”

When the Chargers played Cincinnati earlier this season, the Bengals had a tight end or running back block Grossman. They placed a guard in front of Williams and then had a 300-pound tackle on call to double-team him.

“I was totally neutralized,” he said. “But you can’t find a tight end or a back that’s going to be able to block Burt. I think he hit the quarterback 10 times in that game.”

Grossman also had two sacks in that contest, and unless you have a thing about watching pileups, you’d have never known Williams was on the field.

Moving Williams inside to tackle has negated his speed. If he puts an evasive move on one blocker, “there’s another to hit you in the ribs,” he said.

“It’s a lot like Secretariat,” Williams said. “Take Secretariat and hitch him up to a beer truck and have him compete against a Clydesdale, and the Clydesdale is going to beat him because you’re in the Clydesdale’s element.

“Now you take them and run them a mile and a quarter, and you got total domination. When you’re on the outside as a defensive end, you’ve got room to work. Generally, if you make the first good move, you can go and make something happen.”

That would be Grossman’s present assignment. Williams’ draws go nowhere in the trenches, and Grossman appears headed to the Pro Bowl.

“Don’t start that crud now,” Williams said, and he was not smiling. “I haven’t conceded defeat by a longshot.”

Grossman, though, has eight sacks, has made the cover of Sports Illustrated, and was interviewed nationally by ESPN’s Roy Firestone. There are 10 players in the AFC, including O’Neal with 5 1/2, who have five or more sacks.

“What are you trying to say?” Williams said with a look reserved as a rule just for quarterbacks. “He’s got my job in the Pro Bowl? What about O’Neal?

“We’ll see. I think that’s a chapter that hasn’t yet been written.”