Here's all I could find out about Lamanzer Williams.
He runs about 6'4" and 280 lbs. He was a 6th round draft choice (179th overall) by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1998. He played sparingly during the regular season recording merely 1 tackle. However he did see playing time in both of the Jaguars' playoff games that year.
He flies under the radar screen a little from 1998 through 2000 but we do know that the Jags signed Williams to a contract in 1999, and then in 2000 was signed to the Seattle Seahawks right at the beginning of Free Agency on February 24th, 2000. From there all we know is that he has been signed to the Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, Berlin Thunder, Edmonton Eskimos, and most recently in 2002 he was signed to the St Louis Rams. Williams had a 21 yard fumble return for TD in preseason for the Vikes, but the Vikings released Williams in 2001 to make room for LB Rahim Abdullah.
He was a Minnesota Golden Gopher, and was voted 1st Team All-American in 1997 as well as 1st Team All-Big-Ten. He did hold the Golden Gopher record for 23.5 career sacks before Karon Riley broke it in 1999-2000. He only had one great year, 1997, when he recorded (get this) 18.5 sacks which was tied for best in the nation.
He had high hopes going to the Jacksonville Jaguars, with Jeff Lageman having only a one year contract, leaving Joel Smeenge and Tony Brackens as the only DEs of value that figure to be in the Jags plans for the future. He personally thought he and Brackens would be a great duo at DE. The Jags liked him enough that they kept calling him throughout the draft saying "Don't worry about the round. The thing you should worry about it is going to a place where you're going to play. You're the only defensive end we're drafting" Williams and some other analysts thought he might be drafted higher than he was, but the Golden Gophers' perennial mediocrity, only having one good season, and an absolutely terrible 40 time (5.0 seconds) combined to make him drop significantly.
Good news: The guy is good enough that he caught the attention of 6 NFL teams who decided to give him a shot at various points, including us. And he drew enough attention in limited time that the Berlin Thunder made him the first overall selection in the NFL Europe free agent draft a few years ago. His 18.5 sacks in 1997 is herculean. You can't argue too much with his 4 sacks at critical moments in last week's games, or his 10 tackle, 2 sack and 1 forced fumble performance this week. He's leading the league with 7 sacks now in I think 6 or 7 games.
Bad News: Talk about slow. The guy ran a 5.0 coming out of college back when he was like 265 lbs. He's more like 280 lbs now. The guy's been passed around the league like a vietnamese prostitute. He's 28 or 29 years old now and its hard to imagine that somehow the light just clicked on all the sudden or he got this dramatic increase in athletic ability. Good to note that he's doing his damage against likely NFL throwaways.
Conclusion: He either recently sold his soul to the devil, or he's on steroids. He merits some close watching when it comes to training camp and especially preseason games where he could receive a good look-see, but as of yet I don't expect him to beat D-Bo, Burnett, or Jay Williams...all dudes who have played in the NFL and can be really relied upon in the nickel rush to be a force to be reckoned with. Ogunleye is the type of dude that I don't see making big contributions in limited time, but I do see doing damage as a starter...and likewise I can't imagine Williams, and all his 5.0 time in the 40, being a real force in limited time but we gotta see him in preseason first. DE is not a position where the light just clicks on all the sudden in the twilight of a guy's career, at least not to my knowledge but I haven't really taken a good long look at it so admittedly I could be very very wrong.
