An In-Depth Look at Carolina Panthers' Most Intriguing Selection, Daryl Williams

The Carolina Panthers’ best move in the 2015 NFL draft was trading up 22 slots in the fourth round to take Oklahoma Sooners right tackle Daryl Williams.  While I’m not generally a fan of trading up in the draft, the Panthers found a potential starting right tackle on Day 3.  He should get into a competition with Mike Remmers and Nate Chandler right away and has every chance to win the starting job.

It’s hard to get a real idea of how good an offensive lineman is if you’re only a casual watcher of the college game.  Offensive linemen do not make it onto SportsCenter often.  They do not lead the nation in popular statistics or get much hype for awards.  Let’s try to fix that by taking a closer look at Williams’ skill set, showing why the Panthers made the right decision to go up and grab him at the beginning of Day 3 of the draft.

First of all, let’s be clear—Williams is not being handed the spot.  According to general manager Dave Gettleman, Remmers will be the starter at right tackle at the opening of training camp, per Bill Voth of Black and Blue Review.  This is not unexpected; Remmers ended last season on a hot streak, and rookies usually have to show that they deserve a spot.

On the eye test alone, however, Williams dominates.  When the Panthers walk out of the tunnel, you have Remmers coming out at 6’5” and 300 pounds as well as Chandler, a little smaller, at 6’4” and 295 pounds—and then you have Williams.  Williams outweighs each of his rivals by a good 20 pounds, and his 35-inch arms put him in the upper quarter of historic offensive tackle prospects.  If you had never seen any of them play a game of football and had to judge by their size and stature, you’d take the biggest guy with the longest arms and stick him in there.

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Fortunately, we don’t have to look at just his size.  Williams started 37 games for Oklahoma, with all but one coming at the right tackle position.  He’s improved in the eyes of evaluators every season, making the All-Big 12 honorable mention list in 2012, the second team in 2013 and the first team last season.

Oklahoma also utilized a run-first offense, led by Williams and his cohorts.  Oklahoma averaged 6.1 yards per rushing attempt last season, led by freshman Samaje Perine.  That was good for 10th in the nation on a per-rush basis.  Sports-Reference.com adjusts those numbers for strength of opposition and actually ranks the Sooners fifth, as the Big 12 was a tougher conference to run against than, say, the Mountain West.  The Sooners can thank Williams and his offensive linemates for that success.

Williams isn’t just a run-blocker, though.  College Football Focus charted his 399 pass-blocking snaps last season and found that he allowed zero sacks, one quarterback hit and just nine hurries.  That’s a pass-blocking efficiency rating of 98.1, good for ninth in the class.

You can’t directly compare stats between college and the pros like this, but for comparison, Remmers had a PBE rating of 97.9 last season, Chandler was at 94.0, the departed Byron Bell was at 92.7 and new free-agent acquisition Michael Oher was at 92.8.  Obviously, blocking NFL pass-rushers is significantly more difficult than handling the best of the Big 12, but it’s nice to see that Williams kept his quarterback clean.

Oklahoma also featured a mobile quarterback in each of the last two seasons, with Blake Bell and Trevor Knight.  While neither is Cam Newton in the pocket, Knight’s an adept scrambler, and the Sooners used Bell as a rushing threat in his first two seasons.  Williams, then, has experience adjusting to a quarterback who is on the move, which should come in handy while trying to keep Newton upright.

Williams is No. 79 in the tape below, taken from the West Virginia game this season.  He’s playing right tackle.

You can see some of the powerful drive-blocking abilities that make Williams an intriguing prospect here.  At the 17-second mark, Williams gets out of his stance quickly and fires to the second level, taking linebacker Brandon Golson out of the play.  He demolishes Golson again at 0:40 to get the team out of the shadow of its own end zone.  At 2:04, he slides lineman Noble Nwachukwu well out of the play to set up the first down.

On rush play after rush play, you see Williams moving defenders almost at will, especially when he gets out to the second level.  The best example comes 4:45 into the video, when Williams takes Golson and walks him five to seven yards away from the running lane without much effort.

You can see his pass-protection skills at 3:49, when he absorbs the rush and does a decent job of getting out into space and keeping the pocket clean.  However, you can see some of his issues with speed occasionally, such as at 8:50, when Nwachukwu blows past him on his way to the quarterback—if it weren't a quick screen, that effort probably would have blown up the play.

You can see in the video how physical Williams is at the initial point of attack and how he launches off the snap.  He takes the defensive linemen and sends them crashing toward the center of the field, burying them well away from the play.  I have little doubt about his ability to transition into a run-blocker at the NFL level.

His pass protection does leave something to be desired.  Yes, he graded out well, but he was able to compensate for his issues against college-level talent.  His footwork when getting out wide, for example, isn’t great.

A quick initial move leaves him out of position a few times in that footage.  He’s often able to catch up against West Virginia’s front, but that won’t always be the case against NFL-type rushers.  His athleticism is poor for the offensive tackle position, which you can see from his 20-yard shuttle, broad jump and vertical jump at the combine.  He wasn’t always the sharpest at the Senior Bowl against the top pass-rushers, either.

That's probably something the 2015 Panthers have to eat if Williams ends up starting.  They don’t have the greatest depth at the position.  Remmers is probably a better pass-blocker than Williams is right now, but Williams has the edge in the running game.  That might make the decision on whom to start a philosophical one more than anything else—are the Panthers going to be a run-first team, or are they more concerned about pass protection?

Ah, but for the 2016 Panthers and beyond, what we might have in Williams is an exciting guard prospect.  Those footwork and athleticism concerns aren’t nearly as big a deal if he’s an interior lineman.  If he has trouble in space in the NFL, the solution might be to take him away from space.  He has no experience playing guard at college, but his measurables and game savvy do project to the position.

In 2015, he’s best suited at tackle due to the relative strength of the starters at tackle and guard.  The Panthers could draft a tackle high next year, though, and not have to worry about where Williams fits.  He has the potential to play multiple positions along the line, which is always a plus.  I could see Williams succeeding at right tackle and either guard slot—he doesn’t have the footwork to play left tackle in the NFL, and I don't like projecting someone to center who’s never snapped, but the other three positions are in play.

Shaq Thompson and Devin Funchess are likely going to be better players than Williams is.  That’s why the Panthers drafted them on Days 1 and 2, while Williams had to wait until Day 3 to get picked.  However, there’s a real chance that Williams ends up being the longest-term contributor for Carolina.

Last season, Gettleman found third-day contributors in Tre Boston and Bene Benwikere.  The year before that, he found a third-day contributor in A.J. Klein.  In the 2015 draft, Gettleman has finally found a third-day contributor for the offensive side of the ball in Daryl Williams.  That’s why he’s my most intriguing draft pick this year.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Carolina Panthers during the NFL Draft.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.