Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams wasn’t expect to do much in the 2015, but injuries plagued the team and Williams showed up in a big way with over 900 yards rushing his highest total since 2009. For a lot of running backs with a similar amount of years in the league, a change of scenery often signals the beginning of the end of their playing career but for Williams the feeling of not being wanted back in Carolina served as a motivating catalyst to his renascence in Pittsburgh.
Williams tweeted the actual termination letter he received from the league office stating why the Panthers had moved on from Williams who was 31 at the game and with nine years with the Panthers, the last five of which we’re pretty marginal in performance. It’s interesting to see the various boiler plate reasons a team can select to cut a player, with Williams being cut because his “skill or performance has been unsatisfactory”.
I am driven from within, but walking by this every morning absolutely adds fuel to the fire! #MotivationMonday pic.twitter.com/SQu8SiaN4Y
— DeAngelo Williams (@DeAngeloRB) February 15, 2016
For Williams it was a reminder that he still had a lot left in the tank following a bad ankle injury that ended his 2014 season and his time with the Panthers organization.For a player who was drafted by the Panthers out of college, it was apparently a sore spot.
Not only did Williams manage 907 yards rushing, he nearly outran the Panthers’ leading rusher Jonathan Stewart as a backup with the Steelers. Stewart finished with 989 yards on the year, while no other running back ran for more than 256 yards on the season for Carolina.
It’s good to see Williams using the letter as motivation as you just don’t find many backs at his age find much success in new settings. We’ll see if Williams can sustain the moment in 2016 or if he’ll find himself looking at a similar letter from the Steelers as this is the “Not For Long” league.
[h/t Bleacher Report]
