2017 NFL Draft: Alabama’s Tim Williams Is This Year’s Rising Star Pass-Rusher

Half of the NFL has virtually no shot at making it into the postseason heading into the final two weeks of the year. Now, well into the winter, many are shifting their attention from living and dying with their teams on weekends to focusing on what their squads may or may not do in the offseason.

Looking at the 2017 NFL draft, the strongest position the class has to offer is the depth of the edge-defenders who are eligible to declare, including the likes of Texas A&M’s Myles Garrett, Stanford’s Solomon Thomas, UCLA’s Takkarist McKinley, Alabama’s Jonathan Allen, Auburn’s Carl Lawson and Tennessee’s Derek Barnett.

With that being said, quietly, the best pure pass-rusher just might be Allen’s Crimson Tide teammate Tim Williams.

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In the last three draft classes combined, only two senior pass-rushers have come off the board as top-20 picks in former Clemson Tiger Vic Beasley and former Buffalo Bull Khalil Mack. Beasley, who returned for a final year after being labeled undersized, and Mack, who had to play through his senior season to prove his talent was legitimate as a mid-major prospect, both currently rank among the NFL’s top-five sack artists for the 2016 season, combining for 25.5 sacks, more than six franchises have posted for the entire year.

Williams, who is a part of an Alabama defense poised to make back-to-back title runs, is currently listed at 6’3″ and 252 pounds on NFL Draft Scout, both taller and heavier than Beasley and Mack were measured in as during their combines.

So while there may also be concerns about Williams being “just a pass-rusher,” recent history would suggest an edge-defender who plays at a high level for multiple seasons, despite hovering around the NFL’s minimums at the position, has a high chance of being successful in today’s day and age.

After two years of solid production in Alabama’s 3-4 defense, which isn’t partial to pure pass-rushers, Williams has 19.5 career sacks and 29.5 career tackles for a loss heading into his final games as a senior prospect.

Williams, after being buried in Alabama’s deep defensive rotation for his first two years, has emerged as one of the more developed pass-rushers in college football, despite playing a situational role with the Crimson Tide.

He’s more than surpassed the bar set for him as a 4-star recruit coming out of Louisiana Scout.com set for him, despite his limited, but effective, reps. According to Pro Football Focus’ college football data, Williams was the 13th-best pass-rusher in college football from a raw grades standpoint.

The website has him listed with just 340 snaps on the year, the fewest in the top-25, and 1 one of the 12 players who rank above him had fewer than 180 snaps more than his he did in 2016. Basically, in less than two-thirds of the reps that other elite pass-rushers were able to do nationally, Williams still separated himself from the pack.

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He was also Pro Football Focus’ 11th-best edge-defender overall for the regular season, and only two of the edge-defenders ranked above him had fewer than 290 snaps more than his 340 in 2016. His lack of three-down play can raise some questions, which are all answerable, but his two-year rise in college football really breaks down to two words: situational and effective.

When you look at the depth of Alabama’s defensive …

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