During the Bills’ 13-6 defeat at the hands of the New York Jets, several backups had a chance to showcase their abilities in hopes of seeing the field during next week’s Wild Card game against the Texans. .
Perhaps the player with the most to gain, was wide receiver and fan favorite, D’haquille “Duke” Williams.
After being called up from the practice squad earlier this season, Williams has been inactive since the Bills week 8 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
“I was just ready to play. I’ve been sitting out a long, long time,” Williams told the media after today’s game. “There’s only so long you can keep a dog on a leash… and once they let me off, they told me they was gonna let me out this week, all I could think about was go get it, attack, play dirty in the run game, play dirty in the pass game, catch everything that come to you and that’s what I did today.”
After hauling in six catches for 108 yards, Williams knows that a good game today could be the difference between seeing the field next week vs. the Texans and being on the inactive list.
“Today was my playoff game,” Williams said. “I tried to show these coaches that I’m available for them if they need me come playoff time. You know, I went to sleep with it on my mind last night, like if you grind hard enough and show these coaches that you want to be playing next weekend, it’s suppose to happen today and it did and I played good. Like I said, I left a few plays on the field that’s still in the back of my head right now, but hopefully I showed these coaches enough that they’ll have me up for Houston.”
During his postgame press conference, Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott said he was impressed by Williams.
“He’s a tough football player,” McDermott said. “He’s popular with the fans… love the juice and the toughness, he brought us some energy.”
While Quarterback Josh Allen played limited reps during today’s game, he added that Williams is a, “big bodied possession guy” and that, “the way he plays the game is infectious.”
It remains to be seen whether Williams has done enough to crack the lineup next week for the Bills playoff game, but in his rookie season in the NFL, after coming over from the Canadian Football League, Williams can at least cherish the fact that he even has the opportunity to do so.
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