On the second day of players-only held practices this week, the topic of second year left tackle Trent Williams came up quite a bit. The fourth overall selection in the 2010 NFL Draft had an up and down rookie season, and as such, would be expected to show up for practices to work with his teammates.
However, that hasn't been the case thus far this offseason. Williams has been absent for the second day in a row this week, and has yet to participate in any of the offseason workouts that have been organized by the players.
Members of the team were asked about Williams' absence, with the reactions being mixed.
"Everyone has their own preparation, and everyone has their own thing going on," Chris Cooley said. "We're not going to be disappointed in anyone not showing up. All I would say is that I'm benefitting from this. I feel like this is making me a better football player."
Quarterback John Beck was also asked about Williams' lack or participation, but chose not to attack his teammate, focusing on the players that did participate in these rounds of workouts.
“It’d be nice to have as many guys as we could out here." Beck said. "But I’m happy with the guys that have come out because I feel like we’ve got a lot accomplished.”
But fellow lineman Kory Lichtensteiger was singing a much different tune. This according to John Keim of the Washington Examiner:
Guard Kory Lichtensteiger, when asked if he’d like more of the starting line to be there, said, “Yeah, definitely. We’re here so we think it’s valuable. I don’t know why everyone else doesn’t. I know some people have to book a plane flight, but we have rookies here that are booking plane flights and first-year guys that don’t have a lot of money in the bank booking plane flights. So I don’t think there’s a whole lot of good excuses not to be here, honestly.”