Seattle's Mike Williams Is The Surprise Delivery For 2010

Well, that's one postseason award where we won't have to worry about paying extra for expedited shipping.

Where Comeback Player of the Year is concerned, you can get the engraving started this afternoon, take your time with the packaging and have the darn thing sent by pack mule if it saves the league a vital few bucks ahead of the lockout. Plenty of time to snail mail the award to Seattle where Mike Williams is finally delivering on his promise and ready to take delivery of some NFL hardware.

With 21 catches in his last two games, in each playing the key role while Seattle bolted to a division lead, Williams put an exclamation point on his improbable resurrection.  

Sure, it's not even halfway through the NFL season and a lot of things can happen. Williams could get hurt, although it doesn't seem likely what with defensive backs bouncing off of him like bugs off a windshield. 

Brett Favre could retire mid-season due to an avalanche of sexting scandals and then return the next week with both a letter of absolution from the local diocese and the return of his 2009 form. There are plenty of last year's injured picking up where they left off in 2008.

But short of Jeff George getting picked up, leading a team into the playoffs and receiving universal locker room plaudits for comportment and leadership skills, this thing is a wrap.

The thing about comebacks is it's not so much what you actually get back to as where you came back from and how you came to be there in the first place. Typically, Comeback Player of the Year candidates come off an injured list, a suspended list or just an off season.

A guy loses a season because of an ACL tear, rehabs for a year and comes back close to where he was before. A quality quarterback stinks it up, usually due to a substandard offensive line and magically revives after the club picks up a Pro Bowl free agent tackle.

The honor is duly disposed, but the usual response from a CPOTY winner is that they didn't think they were ever really away, merely the victim of circumstance.

Mike Williams was far, far away, in a galaxy where most questions started with "Whatever happened to..?" He had fallen so far off the NFL radar that he could have been bunking with JaMarcus Russell.

He was a humorous afterthought, an athletic punchline and a black eye for a USC football program that has sustained more than their share in the last few years. He was a can't-miss player who somehow managed to miss passes, assignments, meetings, but seldom a meal. 

No one saw a flame-out of this proportion in the offing. At USC, Big Mike Williams was Larry Fitzgerald before, well, Larry Fitzgerald. His acronym-slash-nickname, "BMW," actually devalued him during those days where he was the resurgent Trojan's ultimate offensive weapon.

If you single-covered him, he caught hitches and slants and took the hapless corner for a pony ride. If you rolled over a safety in zone, he caught it in between them and punished both defenders.

If you straight doubled, you opened up the field for the rest of the USC offense, and the damn guy still managed a few one-handed snags and a couple of scores. Pete Carroll may have been the architect of Troy's rebuilding, but Mike was as big a cornerstone as any the Pharaohs had used.

Then came Maurice Clarett, an ill-fated early draft decision, and a court reversal of field that left Williams uncharacteristically flat-footed. A typically vindictive NCAA forced Williams through a few dozen eligibility hoops before pulling the rug out from under him hours before USC's 2004 season opener.

Williams lost a year of activity, some of his skills and most of his zest for the game. Whatever was left was quickly siphoned off by the Detroit Lions, a team so legendary for plumbing the emotional depths of their players that even Barry Sanders exited in his absolute prime, forgoing the career rushing title rather than show up for work.

They assigned Williams a playing weight that he hadn't seen since a junior in high school, fined him when he couldn't make the weight and seemed somehow stunned that their ham-handed tactics didn't have a salutary emotional effect on the young receiver. 

So Williams packed it in mentally and packed it on physically. He became diffident to the coaches, indifferent to the game and dismissive of his own absurd talent. Flush with his initial bonus cash, he drifted through second and third chances, unable to motivate himself even for former coaches Lane Kiffin and Norm Chow.

He was so far gone that even Carroll, a man who could put a positive spin on the national debt, thought it was laughable when Williams showed up at USC last year and announced he was giving it another try.

Well, he gave it another try and people grinned indulgently. His loyal old coach gave him another chance, and people laughed out loud. They're not laughing now, except maybe the occasional snicker when he effortlessly snags a ball while wearing a defender as a sash.

There might be a rueful chuckle or two in Oakland where the Raiders find themselves a quality receiver away from actual respectability and wonder why Mike's daughter couldn't have wished to see him play back in 2007. Seattle fans are like a man waking clenched-fisted from a treasure hunting dream and finding out there really is a shining jewel in the palm of his hand.

Will the productivity last? USC fans have seen this movie before, when a drop-prone freshman was force-fed the ball through his first season, slowly gathered confidence and by mid-season became the most dominant receiver in college football.

Seahawk fans are just beginning to enjoy the show.