There was no escaping the narrative of cornerback Greedy Williams being a bad tackler during the 2019 NFL Draft.
And perhaps the stigma contributed to Williams sliding out of the first round before the Cleveland Browns traded up three spots in the second round to grab him as the 46th overall pick of the draft.
Regardless of what happened last week, Williams wants everyone to know the views of his tackling skills while in college are misplaced and it showed beyond the statistics.
"What's missing is if you studied the game film, I was mostly a man corner," Williams told NFL Network's Aditi Kinkhabwala. "At LSU I did my job. Tackling wasn't a big thing they wanted me to do. They wanted me to cover.
"I wasn't able to showcase my tackling ability. Now that I'm here, I can work zone, man, anything. So I'm able to prove that I'm a great tackler."
Regardless of how Williams' tackling skills are seen beyond the box scores, there's little doubt that he fits the mold of what general manager John Dorsey covets in cornerbacks.
At 6-foot-2, 185 pounds, Williams has the ideal size, speed and press-man coverage skills Dorsey often sought as the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs. The attributes follow what Dorsey learned to look for under former Green Bay Packers general manager Ron Wolf.
"To me, bigger corners, that's been ingrained in me for 20 years," Dorsey explained in 2014 when the Chiefs had four cornerbacks listed at 6 feet or taller.
As of now, the Browns have nine cornerbacks listed within that range on the offseason roster, and the group includes Phillip Gaines, whom Dorsey selected in the third round of the 2014 draft while in Kansas City. Denzel Ward, who is listed at 5-foot-11, was the fourth overall pick of the 2018 draft.
So, while Williams might not have the production in the stat line most tend to look for, he fits what the Dorsey-led Browns want out of the position group.
And for the rookie cornerback, he's prepared to tone down his enthusiastic Super Bowl prediction and focus on putting in the work to contribute to the Browns' success.
"John Dorsey, he kind of told me less talk, more work," Williams said. "I took that big. I was just telling him, that's how I was feeling that day, just knowing what we got.
"But it all boils down to how hard we work for it, and where our stance and approach [is] going toward that goal. I think we're going to be ready and I think we should be one of the top teams in the NFL this year."
