Bills safety Aaron Williams will wait until the offseason before making a decision on the future of his NFL career, Williams’ father tells John Wawrow of the Associated Press. Williams suffered a neck injury after taking a vicious hit from Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry in Sunday’s game (which can be viewed here). Landry was fined nearly $25K for the hit.
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Retirement hasn’t yet been brought up in discussions with Williams, according to his father, but the defensive back plans to revisit the subject with his entire family later this year. The injury is doubly worrisome given that Williams suffered a severe neck ailment in 2015 that cost him 11 games and forced him to consider retirement. This time around, Bills head coach Rex Ryan admitted that Williams is facing “long-term concerns,” but deemed him week-to-week, according to Chris Brown of BuffaloBills.com.
Williams, 26, is in the midst of his sixth NFL season, all of which have been spent with the Bills. He’s been a starter for the majority of his career in Buffalo, posting seven interceptions and 183 tackles through 59 games. Having agreed to an extension in 2014, Williams is signed through the 2018 campaign, with cap hits north of $6MM in each of the next two seasons.
Williams, unsurprisingly, is unlikely to play on Sunday when the Bills face the Patriots. Buffalo has other options at safety that can fill in while Williams is sidelined, including Robert Blanton, Duke Williams, and Jonathan Meeks.