The Packers’ rookie safety has a very consequential role in the secondary.
Evan Williams hasn’t played a snap for the Packers since Week 15, and he’s already been ruled out for Week 18. But heading into the playoffs, he’s one of the Packers’ most consequential defenders.
Is that the right word? He’s not one of their most important — Xavier McKinney, Rashan Gary, Kenny Clark, even Edgerrin Cooper probably have bigger claims to that title. Nor is he their most valuable. Anyone from the previous list, again, is probably more deserving of that designation.
But Williams’ absence creates a ripple effect throughout the secondary, and his return to the field could be a stabilizing presence.
Let’s rewind to early in this season. As Williams was ramping up, Javon Bullard took the bulk of the safety reps next to Xavier McKinney, playing primarily as what Pro Football Focus charts as a free safety. He played at least 29 snaps in that role in each of the Packers’ first four games
But beginning in Week 4, Bullard began to play the bulk of his snaps as the Packers’ primary slot corner, with Williams playing more and more as a deep safety.
That, in turn, allowed Keisean Nixon to play more outside corner, first giving the Packers a reliable option across from Jaire Alexander, then giving them a viable replacement for Alexander when the injury bug again showed up to wipe out another season.
But with injuries hitting the Packers’ young safeties (first Williams, then Bullard) a lot of those playing time trends have reversed. When Bullard went down against the Lions, Nixon again slid back into the slot, and then when Williams went down, Bullard spent his first week back in the lineup filling in at deep safety, a move in part necessitated by Zayne Anderson’s injury in Minnesota.
(As an aside, even in a season where the Packers safeties as a unit are better than they’ve been in a decade at least, how funny is it that they still had to turn to Zayne Anderson in a crucial divisional matchup?)
Getting Williams back would at least stabilize some of this constant movement in the secondary. I don’t know if Bullard is the answer in the secondary, but I like the combination of Bullard in the slot and Nixon outside a lot better than putting Nixon in the slot and having a random number generator spit out cornerback results on the outside.
What does that make Williams? Important? Consequential? Just a key cog in the Packers’ defensive machine? I don’t know exactly how you’d put it, but I’d much rather have him on the field than not, and I have to think Jeff Hafley feels much the same.