www.allproreels.com — from Washington Football Team at New York Giants from MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, January 9th, 2022 (All-Pro Reels Photography/Joe Glorioso)
Last season, New York Giants defensive tackle Leonard Williams battled through a serious neck injury, appearing in just 12 games and playing through the pain during the Giants’ playoff run rather than sitting out.
“I think during the season it was just hard for [my neck] to recover just because every time I made a tackle, I would feel it,” Williams admitted at Giants’ mandatory minicamp in June. “It wasn’t really going to go away till the season ended.”
Well, the good news for both Williams and Giants fans is that the pain in Williams’ neck appears to have dissipated over the offseason.
“I didn’t need surgery,” Williams explained. “I rested it, strengthened it, did a lot of shrugs and neck exercises to try to strengthen around it. Most of all, in the beginning, it just needed rest. The constant banging on it was not letting it go away.”
In order to combat the pain from that constant banging, Williams began wearing a neck roll last season.
“Near the end of the season, I started wearing a small type of roll, but it was hard for me to get used to,” Williams admitted. “I had to change it up a little bit in practice. Sometimes I would get in my stance, try to look up, it was restricting my vision.”
Williams experimented with a few different types of neck rolls and “finally found that sweet spot of something that would protect [him] when [he] makes a hit and something [he] could also see in [his] stance.” As a result, it’s something that the’s planning to use again during the 2023 season.
While he seems to have turned a corner when it comes to managing the neck injury, last year was a difficult one for Williams.
“Last year was also my first year ever missing a game,” Williams explained. “I think that was hard on me. It was hard to,…
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