Hall of Fame profile: Aeneas Williams … + Thomas on Wms

Williams trade highlighted defensive overhaul in 2001
• By Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football/professional/williams-trade-highlighted-defensive-overhaul-in/article_de30fd0d-b77b-59bd-a8fb-c124872d42d0.html

In the spring of 2001, the number “471” on the greaseboard in the Rams’ draft room said it all. That’s how many points the Rams had allowed the previous season. Not only was it an NFL high for the 2000 campaign, at the time it was the seventh-highest total in league history.

Just one year after the Super Bowl XXXIV title, the Rams’ defense hit a wall in 2000 and collapsed. Several veterans on that side of the ball were aging. Disgruntled over his contract status, defensive end Kevin Carter was traded to Tennessee in March 2001. Defensive tackle D’Marco Farr’s knees were all but shot.

So under the direction of coach Mike Martz, general manager Charley Armey and president of football operations Jay Zygmunt, the Rams underwent a massive defensive overhaul. It began with the hiring of defensive coordinator Lovie Smith, continued with several free-agent additions and reached a crescendo on draft weekend when the team’s first five draft picks – including three first-rounders – were defensive players.

But the cherry on top came on the morning of the first day of the draft, when the Rams executed a sign-and-trade deal with the Arizona Cardinals for Hall of Fame cornerback Aeneas Williams.

“The Cardinals contacted us,” former Rams general manager Charley Armey recalled. “They called us about trading for him. We were of course immediately very interested because we felt in looking at the tapes that he still had some quality years in him.”

Plus, Armey and his Cardinals counterpart at the time – Bob Ferguson – had worked together before, which made the dialogue easier. So Armey got the ball rolling, but it was Zygmunt who closed the deal.

“At one time the Cardinals weren’t real anxious,” Zygmunt told the Post-Dispatch via telephone Thursday. “I’m not sure what the motivation was to trade him because he was tagged.”

Williams wasn’t under contract at the time, and had been given the franchise tag designation by the Cardinals.

“But how could we not (explore a trade)?” Zygmunt said. “He was such a special guy and everybody sort of knew that. We knew he was a Hall of Fame-type player back then. You plug him into a defense that was struggling, and he’s the highest-character guy you could possibly get.”

So for the Rams there wasn’t much to think about. But getting a deal done was complicated on a couple of levels. No. 1, the Rams had a lot going on in the days leading up to the draft, including trading tight end Roland Williams to Oakland and quarterback Trent Green to Kansas City.

The Green trade, which brought the No. 12 overall pick to St. Louis from the Chiefs, took some time and wasn’t finished until the night before the draft.

“The thing was back and forth with (Chiefs executive) Carl Peterson when we were trying to get the Trent Green deal done,” Zygmunt recalled.

Compounding matters with the Williams trade is that, as a franchise player, Williams wasn’t technically under contract. So not only did the Rams have to agree on trade terms with the Cardinals; they had to agree on contract terms with Eugene Parker, Williams’ agent.

There was a catch to negotiating a contract when it came to the Cardinals.

“They wouldn’t let us talk to the player and negotiate a contract until we had agreed on trade terms,” Zygmunt said.

The Rams and Cardinals finally agreed to terms the night before the draft. (Those were the days when the draft wasn’t on prime-time television. It was a two-day affair that began during the day on a Saturday.)

In exchange for Williams, the Rams agreed to send a second-round pick (No. 54 overall) and a fourth-round pick (No. 123 overall) in that year’s draft.

That left Zygmunt less than 18 hours to get a deal done with Parker, because the second-round pick would go off the board at about 2 p.m. the next day. No contract meant no deal, and things didn’t look promising the night before.

“I’ve compromised significantly in almost every area,” Parker said at the time. “But I don’t see it getting done.”

But the Rams made some concessions, including overall contract value and signing bonus, and by the morning of the draft Williams was a Ram: three years, $14.7 million with a $3.6 million signing bonus – a bargain by today’s standards.

“I think Aeneas signed it in Arizona,” Zygmunt said. “I believe he had to go to the Arizona facility and sign the contract there.”

“That was a very good trade for the Rams,” said Armey, now retired and living in the Phoenix area. “It was typical knowing the history of Arizona at the time. They would almost always trade a player of his caliber when they felt like the time had come when it was gonna cost them too much for what they felt they should get as a return.

“So that left the door open for us to make a great trade. You’d make that trade every day of the week.”

The Cardinals used their two picks to draft a pair of University of Memphis players: defensive back Michael Stone in the second round and defensive tackle Marcus Bell in the fourth. Both were out of the league by 2006, or just two years after Williams retired.

Combined, Stone and Bell finished with 24 regular-season starts in their NFL careers. Williams had double that amount, 48, in his four seasons with the Rams.

Despite having seven new starters on defense, the 2001 Rams yielded only 273 points in the 2001 regular season – nearly 200 fewer than the previous year. With Williams leading a young defensive unit, the Rams reached their second Super Bowl in three seasons.

“When you have a guy like Aeneas, you could see it every day,” Smith said. “How he handled himself off the field. How he prepares in the classroom. His warmup routine. All of those things help a young player so much.”

So Williams was a great role model to the youngsters.

“But it’s one thing to sit here and talk about a player who is a great leader and how he taught other guys to practice and play,” Smith said. “But still it comes down to performance and how you play. And this guy played the game as well as anyone.”

Williams enters the Hall of Fame tonight in Canton, Ohio.