USC's Williams wows the scouts
 

TAMPA, Fla. (April 8, 2004) -- I attended Mike Williams' workout and sat with four other scouts at the finish line on his 40-yard dash. The clocks will be varied on his 40 time as they ranged from 4.57 to 4.60. As a result, most people feel he ran a time in the high 4.5s.

Williams' short shuttle time was 4.30, he had a 37-inch vertical and a 10-foot-1 long jump. He was measured at 6-4 1/2 and 228 pounds, which is nine pounds lighter than he was 10 days ago. He's gotten lean and has been on a strict diet since he left Southern Cal.

In the workout, he had a below-average quarterback throwing him passes. Williams actually dropped three of the first five passes thrown to him, but once he started catching passes, he was great. He caught them behind his back, caught bad passes, caught a great fade route over the wrong shoulder and caught bad out patterns.

Williams has definitely established himself as one of the top three receivers in the draft. Now it's just a matter of which guy teams want. If they want a big slant-route guy, he's the one they'll take. I can honestly report that a lot of scouts walked out of this workout excited.