D'haquille Williams Playing In The CFL

[aufan57 922]

D'haquille Williams will be playing for the Edmonton Eskimos, of the Canadian Football League, in 2017. Hopefully he has matured and can become a trustworthy teammate. Wishing him the best in his rookie season.

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It wasn’t your normal run-of-the-mill, stock sort of quote you’d expect from a player attending a National Football League combine.

“I’m a first round pick no matter what but off the field I’m a seventh-round pick. My character is a seventh round pick,” said D’haquille ‘Duke’ Williams.

Turned out his character was ‘Don’t-draft-me-at-all’.

Duke Williams was not selected in last year’s NFL draft. He went from being projected as perhaps the No. 1 receiver going into his senior college football season to being dismissed by Auburn at mid-season as a result of a series of incidents, including punching four people outside a bar.

Teammate Xavier Dampeer required jaw surgery and was out for the rest of the season.

Williams was a much-publicized and celebrated distraction to the team, was often late to practice and had been previously suspended two other times, one of which resulted in him missing the 2015 Outback Bowl.

“I made a lot of mistakes. I was really immature,” he said. “I hurt a lot of people including my teammates and coaches who gave me chance after chance. When I lost football I felt I lost a lot of things.”

That’s a lot of baggage to bring across the border.

“I’m just taking it one day at a time as an Edmonton Eskimo and trying to get as far away from it as I can,” he said.

Williams appears to have made the Eskimos as the designated receiver to make up for the loss of Darrel Walker to the NFL.

The Eskimos, who don’t open the season until Saturday in Vancouver against the B.C. Lions, refuse to reveal the exact status of any of the new players who didn’t get cut or put on the practice roster, in terms of whether they’ll be starters, back-ups or on the injured list. But new general manager Brock Sunderland made it clear Williams will be in the lineup.

“Duke played himself onto the roster. Any time you prove you are a good football player, we’re going to find room for you. He certainly proved that and not just in the two preseason games but throughout training camp and in the mini camp,” he said.

Sunderland says Williams is going to play.

“He’s going to be on the field, whether it’s as a starter or the first play or as a rotational guy. He’s going to be active and playing a lot of football for us.”

In two pre-season games, Williams had six receptions for 182 yards, including a 90-yard touchdown pass from Zach Kline in the home game against the Calgary Stampeders.

Of all the new players that fans managed to get a glimpse of in the preseason, the two that clearly caught their imagination were Kline, the quarterback who had been cut at mini camp in Las Vegas but was brought in a week into main camp, and Williams.

One of the big questions going into the season is how Edmonton might go about making up for the loss of receiver Walker, who caught 109 passes for 1,589 yards and left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Is it possible Williams can make up for a significant slice of that while at the same time becoming a good teammate and a person Eskimos fans want to have representing them in green and gold?

Williams is the youngest of eight kids who, after not playing football in high school in Louisiana (he chose basketball) ended up playing two years in community college before heading to Auburn, where he totally messed everything up after he was being projected as a top pick.

The Eskimos invited him to Las Vegas for mini-camp and back for the main camp, and his ability has been obvious.

“On the field, the coaches gave me chances to make plays. The community so far is good. And my teammates treat me like a brother. I’m new, but they all took me in.”

Most of them, he believes, know his history of being something less than a great teammate.

“I’m very grateful for this opportunity. With anybody else, I couldn’t step into their home, but the Eskimos gave me the opportunity.

“With me being around players like they have here, all I can do is better myself as a person off the field. I already know what I can do on the field. But the questions about me have always been off the field.

“I’m just going to follow these leaders and take it all in and learn how to be a great person from them and find out how to have more character off the field.”

Williams is going to be a study.

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[AUBwins 10,074]

Good for him.  I really wish we could have seen the season he had the potential to have.  I am thinking some of the studs we currently have can give us special seasons as well.

[alexava 6,973]

I don't think I ever heard a player say what he said in that last paragraph before. He is a slow learner, I guess. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

11 hours ago, alexava said:

I don't think I ever heard a player say what he said in that last paragraph before. He is a slow learner, I guess. 

Whether it's emotional trauma, a chemical imbalance or some combination of the two, the guy is battling some demons. I hope he is getting some good help away from football up there. 

[alexava 6,973]

48 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Whether it's emotional trauma, a chemical imbalance or some combination of the two, the guy is battling some demons. I hope he is getting some good help away from football up there. 

I mean, is it that hard not to be an a**hole? 

[McLoofus 35,182]

16 minutes ago, alexava said:

I mean, is it that hard not to be an a**hole? 

For a lot of people, yes. 

Like I said, some folks have chemical imbalances in their brains that affect their behavior. Manic depressives and bipolar folks fall under that category. Other people have experiences as children and even as adults that have severe emotional and behavioral consequences. Ask a combat veteran suffering from PTSD if it's that hard to just think and act differently. No, Williams doesn't have PTSD stemming from combat, but there are many explanations for his repeated self-sabotage that make more sense to me than that he just chooses to be an a**hole. 

[alexava 6,973]

46 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

For a lot of people, yes. 

Like I said, some folks have chemical imbalances in their brains that affect their behavior. Manic depressives and bipolar folks fall under that category. Other people have experiences as children and even as adults that have severe emotional and behavioral consequences. Ask a combat veteran suffering from PTSD if it's that hard to just think and act differently. No, Williams doesn't have PTSD stemming from combat, but there are many explanations for his repeated self-sabotage that make more sense to me than that he just chooses to be an a**hole. 

Yes I remember when Mike Tyson started getting his ass kicked boxing. The reason was he was medicated to control his social behavior and it was explained that there is no way to remain aggressive enough to complete at his level and you can't flip the switch for a match. Even with that understanding it seems you could just  quit being an a**hole. 

[augolf1716 21,102]

4 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Whether it's emotional trauma, a chemical imbalance or some combination of the two, the guy is battling some demons. I hope he is getting some good help away from football up there. 

He is bipolar..he has to stay on his med's or it can get ugly

[jared52 4,354]

He's on ESPN2 right now. Can't pull for his team though since my neighbor is on the BC Lions. 

[jared52 4,354]

Just made a nice sideline grab. What might have been...

[alexava 6,973]

Duke td!  Don't know cfl rules but in USA it would be offensive pi. He pushed off. 

[alexava 6,973]

This dude is going to make a cfl fan out of me. Would love to see him show out and get an NFL shot.