Ex-Bills S Aaron Williams retires due to injuries
Safety Aaron Williams announced his retirement Wednesday in a heartfelt letter to Buffalo Bills fans after missing the entire 2017 season due to head and neck injuries.
Williams, 27, had not played in the NFL since suffering head and neck injuries on an illegal crackback block by Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry during an Oct. 23, 2016 game.
Williams explained his decision in an essay for The Players Tribune.
In his letter, Williams reiterated that he felt Landry's hit was unnecessary but that he has "no ill will" toward Landry, who later apologized and was fined $24,309 by the NFL for the hit.
"It was Week 7 of 2016. We were in Miami playing the Dolphins," Williams wrote. "I had just been blindsided by Jarvis Landry -- I didn't even see the hit coming. I turned my head just in time for Landry to catch me square in the chin, and when he did ... man, it sent me flying. Everything went into slow motion. It felt like I was in the air for ages.
"When I finally did hit the ground, I could taste the blood inside my mouth and I was screaming at the top of my lungs because I felt a burning sensation in my neck."
Williams opens the essay with an apology to Bills fans for a rocky start to his time in Buffalo and closes with thanking them for making the city "the place where I grew up -- where I became a man."
The Bills released Williams last March. He later made free agent visits to the Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars and Kansas City Chiefs.
"So when I woke up on January 1, 2018, and I hadn't signed with a team, and I knew it was over, I just started to kind of wonder: What else could I love like that?" Williams wrote. "What else in this world is gonna give me that fix -- that adrenaline, that anger, that feeling of dominating somebody to the point where they don't want any piece of you. What else is there? Honestly, I haven't found the answer yet. It's all just still so new. All I know is, I'm never going to play another down in the NFL. And that hurts, for a lot of reasons. But when I think about those first two years in Buffalo -- those wasted years when I was just a young punk who didn't get it -- man ... it hurts a lot more."
Williams previously suffered a neck injury early in the 2015 season that eventually ended his season and required surgery. He returned for 2016 training camp but suffered a concussion in practice.
Williams was a second-round pick of the Bills in 2011 and played in 59 games over six seasons with the team, making 52 starts. He finished with 257 tackles and seven interceptions.
--Field Level Media
