While much is being made of the fact that if Tramon Williams plays in place of an injured Will Blackmon the Packers corner would be targeted by Matt Hasselbeck, the more frightful aspect of the development is the ability of the Seahawks, with the news that Deion Branch will be back on Saturday, to put 4 or 5 quality wideouts on the field, forcing the Packers to use a liberal amount of Frank Walker in their dime defense - and that is something no one on the Packers or Packer Fandom wants to see.
Tramon Williams has actually been the surprise of the year, if you ask me. Sure the offense has gotten a lot of credit for its surprising play. But the thinking in training camp was - with Brett Favre pulling the trigger, you knew the quarterback position would at least be played competently and that with Driver and a second year Jennings you would have good, if not great, receivers for Favre to throw to. Now, of course, we know just how wrong that thinking was. But still, it wasn’t like you were going to be surprised by how good Favre and Driver could be.
But nowhere did anyone expect anything from Williams, a short, scrappy corner, who made a couple nice plays in camp, a few more in the preseason, and found himself a place on the final 53, another reward from Thompson’s philosophy of keeping the best football players, regardless of position. Over the course of the season, Williams has done everything asked of him and more, all while progressively getting better each week, which is what you want to see from your young players. The same can’t be said of Walker, who came into camp as Thompson’s only free agent signing with thoughts of being the Packers nickelback. How off those projections were, as Jarrett Bush, Will Blackmon and Williams all passed him on the depth chart at one point or another as the season wore on. Now, he’ll be pressed into duty against one the better receiver corps the Packers have seen this year, and against one of the best playcaller/quarterback tandems in the game.
As always, the key will be the Packers finding a way to get Hasselbeck out of rhythm early. If given the time, he and the likes of Bobby Engram and Nate Burleson will make Walker’s life miserable.
