Professor

Ultimate Jaguars Newsroom: 'Mo' takes less to stay with Jaguars

excerpt:

Slide a man from prominence to obscurity. Then ask him to take a $1.5 million pay cut.

Chances are, he's not leaving the room smiling.

Just ask Maurice Williams, who lost his job as the Jaguars' starting right tackle last March before restructuring his salary less than a month ago from $3.5 million to $2 million for the upcoming season. Yet for some reason Wednesday, in the bowels of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, Williams was grinning.

"As long as I'm playing football, the business side of this is out of my head," he said.

No longer upset about losing the starting job or a chunk of his salary, Williams said he looks forward to the season and his future prospects. As part of his recent restructuring, Williams becomes a free agent at the end of the season, but that's not what's putting a smile across his face.

"There are a lot tougher situations I could be in," Williams said. "I still like the Jaguars and think this is a really good team. We have a chance to make it far, and the team is being fair about everything."

For that, Williams said he has no reason to be bitter about anything. But admittedly, he was, at first.

Williams received a call from Jack Del Rio in March, with the coach informing him of the Jaguars' acquisition of free-agent tackle Tony Pashos. The team explained the role that it envisioned for Williams, telling him that he had a few decisions to make.

"It was something I battled probably all the way up to the end of OTAs [organized team activities]," he said. "I was just trying to figure out if this was the place for me.

"I was shocked, disappointed, because it was something that maybe you could've seen coming, but I didn't fully see it. It came."

Now Williams is trying to make the best of the situation, but that could be difficult, given his history with the franchise. After all, Williams has lined up with the starters for six consecutive seasons since being picked in the second round of the 2001 NFL Draft out of Michigan. He has started 85 games, including 15 last season.

The Jaguars' acquisition of Pashos is expected to firm up the right side of the pocket for quarterback Byron Leftwich, according to Del Rio. The coach said that Williams has handled his situation like a professional. In fact, Williams and Pashos have become good friends.

"He obviously restructured things to give us a chance to come into camp and not make it a money situation," Del Rio said. "He's really given all the indicators that would suggest he wants to be here and help us win games.

"We work very hard to bring in the right types of guys that are gonna put [the] team first. You're seeing more and more selfless decisions and people putting [the team] above themselves. I think that bodes well for us and our future as a team. We all as individuals will benefit the most if we can all collectively pull together and do what's best for the team."

Offensive line coach Andy Heck agreed. Having experienced similar situations as a player and a coach, Heck said people use various methods to cope with losing their job as a starter. But not Williams. He appears to be taking the correct approach, according to Heck.

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