How DeAngelo Williams turned pettiness into an art form

DeAngelo Williams‘ sense of humor – often dark, witty and even sarcastic – isn’t exactly a secret at this point. He’s always had the reputation of being a fun, jocular guy, but his jokes aren’t always exactly light-hearted. Williams has never been afraid to speak his mind, which can be clearly gathered by scrolling through his Twitter feed. Williams takes pride in himself and has embraced his pettiness with satisfaction, making him the ultimate Steelers troll.

Steelers linebacker Vince Williams sure has a respect for it…

While DeAngelo (no relation to Vince) has a rich history of pettiness, his most recent situation followed an interview with Adam Schefter. Williams is currently a free agent and is eager to play football in 2017, but he has a list of four teams he would refuse to play for: the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers, and Dallas Cowboys.

Most fans of those teams didn’t really care that Williams didn’t want to play for them. Why should they?

But Cowboys fans are a breed of their own; they almost instantly started to attack Williams on Twitter for “dissing” their team. Williams reacted as expected and had a lot of fun with these crazed fanatics.

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The triviality continued when it was announced that the Panthers fired their general manager, Dave Gettleman. It was fairly well known that there was some tension between the organization and Williams who had been cut from the team in 2014 after dedicating nearly his whole career to Carolina (nine seasons and 22 franchise records).

With the announcement of Gettleman’s firing, Williams aired out some of his dirty laundry. Clearly, his issues with the Panthers organization was at least strongly due to a specific individual… you get the picture.

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Williams’ trifling isn’t just limited to fans and GM’s though. He isn’t afraid to take shots at players too.

Nobody denies that Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Williams didn’t dispute the claims completely, however, he didn’t hide his feelings about Manning’s performance in the latter half of his career.

It was pretty obvious Manning was in decline during his final season with the Denver Broncos. Williams let his feelings on the matter be known.

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He isn’t wrong, but it’s not common practice for players to call each other out like Williams did with Manning. Not everybody was happy with Williams’ tweets, including Coach Mike Tomlin.

Tomlin very rarely tweets, and when he does, it’s worth paying attention to.

The New England Patriots have become commonly seen as ‘the enemy’ to fans of Steelers Nation, considering the team to be like kryptonite; the one team that exposes the Steelers’ weaknesses and can’t seem to beat. It turns out that Williams has his own personal beef with the organization.

Williams is telling the truth here. In the 2006 NFL draft, the Patriots selected Laurence Maroney with the 21st pick of the draft. Six selections later, the Panthers selected Williams. Williams had the last laugh though because he not only had a longer career than Maroney, but has a career in the NFL that has lasted longer than every other running back in the 1st round,  including Reggie Bush and Joseph Addai.

Maroney played four years in New England, a season with the Broncos and then dropped into obscurity – unsigned by another team. Surely the Patriots wish they’d selected Williams? Perhaps not when they realize that Williams’ disdain isn’t limited to being overlooked in the draft but has real issues with what many have come to consider as cheating the game.

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Considering their vast history of scandals and controversies, the Patriots don’t have much of a defense. You won’t hear any Steelers fan asking Williams to apologize for his statements towards the Patriots.

Moving from reality to fantasy, it should be noted that most NFL players hate fantasy football. This includes Williams, which is understandable too.

It must get annoying when people, who claim to be fans, bombard players for causing them to “lose” their fantasy game while the player is out on the field trying to win real games.

Williams had no love for fantasy owners trolling him.

In conclusion, it’s hard not to love Williams. He’s a great player, teammate, and last but not least he has been an outstanding advocate for breast cancer awareness.

How he handles pettiness by lobbing it right back is just delightful. Williams loves to tell it how it is and doesn’t care about others’ opinions or bucking the trends.

Please, never change DeAngelo.


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