During the offseason, we'll be taking a close look at Philadelphia Eagles players of interest who are currently on the roster but we may not know a lot about just yet. Today we'll take a look at cornerback Greedy Williams.
Previous player reviews
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Howie Roseman and the Eagles' front office signed a bunch of outside free agent players this offseason, many of whom share similar backgrounds, in that they were mostly high draft picks who had injuries slow their careers, eventually landing in Philly this offseason on cheap, one-year deals. Williams fit all of those criteria.
Williams was originally a second-round pick of the Browns. In four years in Cleveland, he played in 39 games, starting 21. He has 99 career tackles and 2 INTs, with his best season coming in 2021, when he had 41 tackles, 2 INTs, and 10 pass breakups while playing in 16 games (8 starts).
The early part of Williams' pro career was slowed by injuries. He played in 12 games in 2019 as a rookie, but missed four games with a hamstring injury. In 2020, he suffered career-threatening nerve damage in his shoulder during an offseason practice, detailed by Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com here, costing him the entirety of the 2020 season.
He had his good season in 2021, as noted above, but in 2022, he was buried on the depth chart behind Denzel Ward and 2021 first-round pick Greg Newsome, and played just 105 defensive snaps, 77 of which were coverage snaps.
PFF had Williams down for 7 receptions allowed for 134 yards and 2 TDs on 8 targets, for an opposing passer rating of 158.3 last season. Yikes. I was curious what those targets looked like, so I found all of them. This is a quick watch:
Somehow, the film is even worse than the stats would suggest.
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• The first target in the video above was a pass interference call, which did not count as one of his PFF targets.
• On the one target that fell incomplete, the officials missed a pretty blatant hold by Williams on Tee Higgins. If Williams hadn't held him, Higgins might have dusted him for a TD.
• On the other deep ball to Higgins on the very next target, Williams got "Moss'd," which was a common theme during Eagles-Browns joint practices last summer, when A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith had their way with Williams on contested catches.
• Williams' effort on the last target against the Texans is alarmingly bad.
Overview
Williams has some intriguing traits. He's 6'2 and he ran a 4.37 40 at the Combine, which is a nice start for a cornerback. However, after cutting up his 2022 targets, it is easy to see why the Browns seemingly showed no interest in trying to bring him back.
The Eagles are deep at cornerback, with a great starting trio in Darius Slay, James Bradberry, and Avonte Maddox. They also used a 2024 third-round pick on Kelee Ringo, and at a minimum, Zech McPhearson has made himself into a quality special teams player while waiting for an opportunity to play in the regular defense. They also have Josh Jobe, who made the team as an undrafted rookie free agent a season ago.
Williams will have a chance to impress in training camp, but heading into the summer he can't be viewed as any higher than seventh on the Eagles' cornerback totem pole, and will probably have to decisively outplay McPhearson and/or Jobe to make the roster.
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