Brandon Williams, nose tackle, Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens have already targeted Williams as a key cog they can’t afford to lose this spring.
“He’s an ‘A’ player for us,” assistant general manager Eric DeCosta said, via the team’s official website. “He’s a rock inside. This guy can stuff the run, he can rush the quarterback, he can do everything we want him to do.”
Williams himself isn’t sure what the future holds. He recently made comments that make us believe he’ll be testing his value in free agency. We can’t blame him. Soon to be 28 years old, the nose tackle is going to be highly coveted by teams running a 3-4 or a variation of this scheme, like the one Gus Bradley and his pupils run.
As a third-round pick out of Missouri Southern State, nobody really knew if Williams was going to become a star in the NFL. He quickly answered that question in his second year, starting 14 games for Baltimore in 2014. He hasn’t missed a game since then, dominating the trenches with his 6-foot-1, 335-pound, low-center-of-gravity body.
Williams does a lot that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, and if he does bolt the Ravens will have a hard time replacing him.