Cadillac showing toughness and effectiveness

***Rampingitup*** · -09-27-2011

For those who are still blasting Cadillac, he is STILL showing an average of 4 yards per carry. And he did most of the carries against the Ravens, while nursing a sore hamstring, and STILL maintained his average. He had only the ONE bonehead play last week, and has proven his value to the team.

Williams Fights Through Injury

By Nick Wagoner/Senior Writer
Posted 15 hours ago

Comments:

Until he arrived at the Edward Jones Dome on Sunday, Rams running back Cadillac Williams

was under the distinct impression that his role against the Ravens would be to share the load with returning starter Steven Jackson

.
Jackson was cleared to return to the lineup following Saturday’s walk through and though Williams knew Jackson would be limited, he also thought that it’d be more of a timeshare.
“I wasn’t really anticipating it, especially when I heard Jack was going so I kind of figured with both of us being kind of banged up it was going to be more or less both of us sharing the load,” Williams said.
Before the game, though, coach Steve Spagnuolo let Williams know that Jackson’s role would be limited to short yardage and third down opportunities and Williams would be asked to take on a bigger role.
Himself coming off a hamstring injury, Williams braced for a heavy work load.
“But coach kind of came to me before the game and was like ‘Well, you know Jack is going but we are going to use him more on third down, short yardage’ And we are going to see how you feel to take the bulk of the carries,” Williams said.
Williams did indeed get the bulk of the carries against the Ravens stout run defense. And despite not practicing most of the week, Williams actually fared quite well.
When all was said and done, Williams posted 18 carries for 75 yards and a catch for 4 more yards.
For the season, Williams now leads the Rams in rushing with 50 carries for 202 yards, an average of slightly more than 4 yards per attempts and is third on the team with nine receptions for 57 yards.
“I thought he ran pretty well for the most part,” Spagnuolo said. “He seems to think he came out OK. I don’t know that he was 100 percent; I think he’d tell you that. But in this league you don’t always have 46, 100 percent body-type guys throughout the season. Certainly as we get going further and further it will be tougher and tougher.”
Despite the bigger than expected workload, Williams does believe he came out of the game just fine. While he said he didn’t have his full burst, the experience of playing on an injured hamstring was new to him.
“Yeah, I did, I came out of it well,” Williams said. “I still really didn’t have that explosiveness, it still kind of grabbed. But as far as re injuring it, I feel like it’s getting better. I feel like this week here, it should be not a problem.”
Williams has had some injury issues in his career but none of those were soft tissue things like a hamstring. So dealing with it was something new for Williams.
“What’s weird is it’s actually my first one I have ever tweaked or whatever,” Williams said. “Everybody says to be careful because you can feel good but you’re not really good. That’s one thing I worried about. But I think the training staff did a good job the whole week of treatment and just getting me prepared to play.”