CLEMSON, S.C. -- Most days last spring, Mike Williams would get that familiar itch, that innate need to dance across yard markers and twist his 6-foot-3 frame in impossible directions and stretch his arms high into the air until he felt the thwack of the football against his hands the way he had 79 times during his Clemson career. So he’d shoot off a text to his quarterback, Deshaun Watson, with a simple request: Want to go play catch?
The exercise is rote now, and Williams never needs to beg for balls to be thrown his way.