Strengths: 

  • Great Pad Level

Milton Williams does a phenomenal job playing with great pad level every single snap and it allows him to have leverage advantage most plays, preventing him from being easily uprooted.

  • Great Hand Placement

One of the best aspects of Milton Williams’ game is his ability to use his hands incredibly effectively. He’ll use a ghost technique which is super advanced for defensive lineman and is more commonly seen with offensive lineman. Other than that his hand placement is perfect and his hands are active and are timed extremely well.

  • Moves Very Well

Milton Williams can win incredibly quick right off of the snap because of just how good of an athlete he is. His combine numbers saw his mobility scores all above the 90th percentile which is a testament to how well he moves.

Weaknesses: 

  • Smaller Guy

At just 280 lbs Milton Williams doesn’t have a clear position fit. He has just 31 inch arms so I’d be hesitant to put him at 3-4 DE a little bit but he also doesn’t have the weight required to be a 4-3 DT so for now he’s in no mans land position wise.

  • Pushed Around in the Run Game

Teams are able to run right at Milton Williams because of his below average functional strength. He gets pushed around at the point of attack and I see him pancaked often.

  • Quickness Doesn’t Show Often

The reason why Milton Williams is so appealing to some is because of the athletic testing showing his quickness but quite honestly I don’t see that often enough. He has some snaps where he wins immediately but too many others he looks sluggish and isn’t moving nearly as fast as his pro day numbers indicate which is concerning.

  • Pass Rush Moves Need Work

When rushing the passer Milton Williams never really has a clear plan and he doesn’t have a great set of pass rushing moves to turn to either. He needs to become a lot more nuanced of a pass rusher. 

Player Comp: Solomon Thomas is a guy who failed in the NFL and I think he’s the perfect comparison for Milton Williams. Both guys are super athletic who move around extremely well but their motors run hot and cold and when they aren’t beating guys immediately they look sluggish and don’t show their amazing athleticism. They get pushed around at the point of attack and are frequent victims of pancakes in the run game. Thomas never quite developed his pass rushing arsenal so despite his quickness, good pad level, and great hand placement just like Williams he never turned out well.

Final Thoughts: Some people think that Milton Williams is definitely a Day 2 pick and I can’t stress enough how much I think that’s way too high for him. He didn’t have the functional strength to be good in the run game playing in the Division I-A level much less the NFL. His mental processing still needs quite a bit of work and the athleticism that everyone is salivating over doesn’t appear on tape. There are short flashes and then long spurts where he does nothing with it and instead just looks sluggish. He also has no clear position. We saw a very similar story with Solomon Thomas who was 10x more highly touted than Williams and he didn’t pan out for similar reasons. This isn’t a guy I’d take until the 5th round of the draft. He’s kind of in between 3-4 DE and 4-3 DT so neither option is much better than the other. I’d say the Browns are a good fit for him because they’ve developed some DLineman as of late and they could use a rotational interior pass rusher with high upside.