The journeyman looks to make an impact in his first season with the Bills
The Buffalo Bills rely on a heavy rotation along the defensive line. I feel like a broken record (typewriter?) each time I write that sentence, but it’s true. Whether you’re DT1 or DT4, you’re going to play each week, and you’re likely to play significant snaps even if you’re at the proverbial bottom of the depth chart.
This means that the team will make depth a priority up front, as they want to have a stable of talented players ready to make life miserable for opposing quarterbacks. While it doesn’t always work out that the Bills will have four high-quality players in their defensive line rotation, it does mean that the team is a bit more selective as it relates to which players round out the positional group.
In today’s installment of our “91 players in 91 days” series, we discuss a veteran defensive tackle looking to stick with the club in his first year with the Bills.
DeShawn Williams
- Number: 93
- Position: DT
- Height/Weight: 6’1”, 295 pounds
- Age: 31 (32 on 12/29/2024)
- Experience/Draft: 5; signed with the Cincinnati Bengals following the 2015 NFL Draft
- College: Clemson
- Acquired: Signed with Buffalo on 3/28/2024
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Williams signed a one-year deal at the veteran’s minimum, meaning it’s worth a total of $1.155 million for the season. Of that total, just $15,000 is guaranteed. The latter figure is what Buffalo will carry in the form of a dead-cap charge if Williams is released. Thanks to the veteran’s minimum exemption, Williams will carry a cap hit of only $1.015 million if he makes the roster.
2023 Recap: After a fairly successful three-year run with the Denver Broncos, Williams signed a one-year deal with the Carolina Panthers last season. He started 10 games for the moribund club, appearing in 16 of the team’s 17 contests. Williams had 33 tackles, one sack, two tackles for loss, seven quarterback hits, and one pass breakup on the season. He played 444 defensive snaps, which amounted to 44% of Carolina’s team total.
Positional outlook: Williams is one of eight defensive tackles on the current roster. Ed Oliver, Austin Johnson, DaQuan Jones, DeWayne Carter, Eli Ankou, Gable Steveson, and Branson Deen are the others.
2024 Offseason: Williams is healthy and participated in OTAs and minicamp. He’s all set for training camp.
2024 Season outlook: I argue that most of us assumed Williams would be the fourth defensive tackle upon his signing in March. However, given the small guarantees on his contract and the drafting of Duke product DeWayne Carter, that title might have been given prematurely.
Williams has less guaranteed money on his contract than Oliver, Jones, Johnson, and Carter, and while that might not be the only determining factor on whether he is released at the end of training camp, if it’s close and the team needs to keep just four defensive tackles, it leads me to believe that Williams will be on the outside looking in come cut-down day.
Williams has had a long, winding NFL path, including a four-year stint where he moved from Cincinnati to Denver to the Miami Dolphins, then back to the Indianapolis Colts, then back to Denver again, and the to the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League before landing with the Broncos once more. He appeared in four games in 2016 before waiting four whole years to appear in his next game. However, since returning from the CFL, Williams has started 44 of the 62 games in which he’s played over the last four years.
Williams is either going to make the roster outright or the team is going to want him on the practice squad. He’s more of an attacking one-gap player, so he’ll be in direct competition with Carter for playing time as Ed Oliver’s backup. Williams will be a good player to watch closely this summer.