Kyle Williams knew being a first alternate for the Pro Bowl left the door open for him to make his first trip to Hawaii in February. Now a little more than a week after the original Pro Bowl roster was released, Williams will be one of the three defensive tackles representing the AFC.
Williams will be replacing Oakland's Richard Seymour on the AFC Pro Bowl roster, and will join Baltimore's Haloti Ngata and New England's Vince Wilfork at the defensive tackle position.
"I'm excited to go and represent our organization, my teammates, our fans and obviously my family," said Williams via conference call Thursday. "You don't go out and play for awards. You go out and play to win. Sometimes you get disappointed or discouraged when you lose and we had a bad year, but I'll take a little bit away from it getting recognized for playing well and getting a chance to represent our team."
Buffalo's nose tackle led the team in sacks with 5.5, had more than double the number of tackles for loss than any other player on the roster (14) and tied for the team lead in fumble recoveries.
"I think everybody on our football team is very excited about Kyle having an opportunity to play in the Pro Bowl," said head coach Chan Gailey. "There's probably not another guy more deserving because of the year he's had, because of what he stands for, and how he plays the game. We're all excited for him."
Williams' league tackle numbers (77) were good for second in the league among defensive linemen with Cleveland's Ahtyba Rubin (82) the only one ahead of him in that category. Buffalo's coaching staff officially had Williams with 84 tackles this season.
"He's made plays every game," said Bills rookie nose tackle Torell Troup. "You can always notice him on film. I had fun watching him play, just watching some of the things that he did."
Williams' best game of the season may have come in Buffalo's overtime loss to Pittsburgh where he had 10 tackles and a pair of sacks. But Williams takes pride in the performance he had in the Bills first win of the season in Week 10 against the Lions.
"I think as far as production goes I would think one of the better ones was Detroit," he said. "The numbers might not have looked as good, but I liked what I was able to do in helping us get our first win. It's one of the games I was most proud of, even more so than the Steelers game."
Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz, who has a Pro Bowl defensive tackle on his own roster in Ndamukong Suh, was impressed with Williams.
"When it comes to that 3-4 nose a lot of those guys are 350 pounds and are space eaters, but he gives great effort, he's productive, he's always around the football," said Schwartz. "He's a guy that can morph and go from 3-4 to 4-3. They've got a good one there."
Williams versatility is likely one of the reasons Bills coach Chan Gailey is planning to implement a multiple front system for the defense in 2011.
"If you look at all the defenses in the league there are a really only two teams that play a true 3-4 all the time, and that's Kansas City and Cleveland," said Williams. "All the other 3-4 teams are very multiple and they're all over the place and you don't know where they're coming from. And we played a lot of those teams this year and coach looking at that saw those defenses can line up in anything. That's where we want to get to."
For now the only place Williams needs to get to is Honolulu by February.
"I've never been to Hawaii," Williams. "This is my first trip. There's a first time for everything I guess."
