The Shawn Williams bandwagon

Player Bio
Name: Shawn WIlliams
College: Georgia
Position: Safety
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 218

I love this guy in the 2nd round. It would not surprise me to hear some draft experts call this guy a 1st round talent. I see him as a complete safety. He is awesome in run support and he possess all the physical traits to be solid in pass coverage as well. VERY hard hitter, this guy flat lays wood on people. I could easily see this guy filling Dashon Goldsons shoes. We would be wise to draft him and then franchise tag Goldson for one more season so that Williams can learn under him.

Many people will make the mistake of thinking that his lack of INT's in 2012 is a sign of his inability to be effective in pass coverage. This guy will be big time ball hawk and will be an absolute stud for whoever is smart enough to draft him. Below is some insight on Shawn WIlliams, courtesy of Scouts, INC.

Instincts/Recognition 2: Diagnoses quickly. Does a nice job of reading his keys and also shows good natural playmaking instincts. Adept at reading WRs routes. Understands leverage and angles. Does a nice job of maintaining leverage in deep-middle coverage. Regularly gets early jumps on the ball and seems to be in on more plays than most.
Cover Skills 2: This size and adequate-to-good hip fluidity. Can flip his hips with relative ease. Shows adequate burst out of pedal. Can be an intimidating presence over the middle/top. Knows when to attack the body and can separate ball from WR's hands/body.
Ball Skills 2: Emerged as more of a ball-hawk in 2011 with four INTs. Doesn't show great body control adjusting to the ball and has limited leaping ability (on tape). But consistently makes routine INTs. Shows adequate-to-good ball skills. Can pluck on the run (as seen on 4th QTR INT in 2011-12 Outback Bowl).

Draft this guy Baalke

This kid looks like the real deal. If we can not resign Goldson perhaps we draft this kid.

No thanks. I like him as a player, but he's more of a strong safety type than anything else, a role Whitner is filling ably at the moment. I'll take his teammate Bacarri Rambo who is the more accomplished coverage safety and ballhawk.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
No thanks. I like him as a player, but he's more of a strong safety type than anything else, a role Whitner is filling ably at the moment. I'll take his teammate Bacarri Rambo who is the more accomplished coverage safety and ballhawk.

This. If Williams ever plays FS he would be the Ryan Clark to the an SS like Troy Polamalu(ex this year would be Kenny Vaccaro who is capable of playing both positions).

All comes down to scheme, as Polamalu plays SS but makes more ballhawk moves then FS Ryan Clark, who simply lays the wood on people. But in any other scheme Polamalu would play FS and Clark would be SS.

Williams COULD play FS but will he effective? My gut says no because as they even say he only has "Adequate to good" hip movement. Remember the last high round safety we drafted with adequate to good hip movement? His name is Taylor Mays and we traded him for a 2 years removed conditional 7th after spending a high 2nd on him. Experimenting with players at such high picks is not a smart move, especially in our scheme were our safeties play key roles in the entire scheme.

Originally posted by sfout:
This. If Williams ever plays FS he would be the Ryan Clark to the an SS like Troy Polamalu(ex this year would be Kenny Vaccaro who is capable of playing both positions).

All comes down to scheme, as Polamalu plays SS but makes more ballhawk moves then FS Ryan Clark, who simply lays the wood on people. But in any other scheme Polamalu would play FS and Clark would be SS.

Williams COULD play FS but will he effective? My gut says no because as they even say he only has "Adequate to good" hip movement. Remember the last high round safety we drafted with adequate to good hip movement? His name is Taylor Mays and we traded him for a 2 years removed conditional 7th after spending a high 2nd on him. Experimenting with players at such high picks is not a smart move, especially in our scheme were our safeties play key roles in the entire scheme.

I do think that Williams could be a good fit for a team that needs a good strong safety but he's primarily a run-stopping/WHAM kind of guy that likes to hit, he'd be serviceable in coverage in the pro's but not to any great degree. He actually reminds me a lot of former Giants safety SHAUN Williams, who nobody was sure where to really play at and ultimatley he ended up best as a strong safety.

Ideally I'd like to see the 49ers draft a safety that would allow them to move Goldson to strong safety, someone who could cover a lot of ground and allow Goldson to do what he does. Such a combination would make this defense even more effective. Additionally a guy like Rambo also fits this defense because he loves to hit, he comes from all the way across the field just knock the stuffing out of somebody. In college he plays like a rangier version of Goldson.

Been on his bandwagon for a while now. But I think some are looking too much into what position he plays, Goldson and Whitner line up at both position at times and so could Williams. Williams has good range and ball skills to do both SS and FS, I remember some said the same thing about Goldson in his second year. But I think we need to go NT and hopefully we can land Kawann Short. If Williams falls to the second by then no doubt its a no brainer.

Originally posted by Kolohe:
Been on his bandwagon for a while now. But I think some are looking too much into what position he plays, Goldson and Whitner line up at both position at times and so could Williams. Williams has good range and ball skills to do both SS and FS, I remember some said the same thing about Goldson in his second year. But I think we need to go NT and hopefully we can land Kawann Short. If Williams falls to the second by then no doubt its a no brainer.

Its not an issue of where a guy is able to line up, its a question of their particular ability. Just because a guy CAN play a certain position doesn't make it ideal. Rambo played free safety because he excelled at deep coverage and now has the Georgia record for all-time interceptions. If I were looking at safety, I'd really only consider guys who can play the centerfielder role,guys like Rambo, Elam and Vaccaro.

I will take either one of the Georgia safeties, but I really hope we resign Goldson.

Been talking about this kid for a while, I want him!!