Packers Q&A with Tramon Williams

Packer: Tramon Williams

Number: 38

Position: Cornerback

College: Louisiana Tech

Draft: 2006, undrafted

Season: 13th

Age: 36

Height/weight: 5-foot-11, 191 pounds

Q: You’ve been nominated for the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award. What does that mean to you?

A: It’s cool. It’s two years in a row I’ve been nominated for the award. It’s a cool thing. Last year, Brees won it; I was a finalist. There were some great guys on that list. I looked at the list and I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I’m going to win it.’ (laughs) Just to be in it for sportsmanship is definitely a good thing, especially when it’s coming from your peers. It’s definitely something that I’m proud of just being mentioned for it. Win or lose, it doesn’t matter. Just being mentioned is good enough.

Q: We’ve talked a lot about your age but haven’t talked much about how well you’ve played. How would you assess your performance?

A: I feel like I’m playing solid. I don’t like to put too much into it. I just like to get my job done. I feel like as long I’m playing winning football and doing what I need to do, that’s good enough for me. Whether the stats show it or not or things of that nature, it doesn’t really matter. Obviously, everybody wants to get their stats and to be recognized — which is a great thing and I’m no different — but I’m in the business of winning right now in my career. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to do what I can for the team, how they need me to do it.

I have been playing well this year. It’s understanding where I’m at and understanding the defense. The slot is one of the hardest spots to play but my understanding of the defense helps me out a lot: knowing where my help is coming from, knowing when I don’t have help and that I may have to play a little more aggressive on routes. And then film study comes into play, too. When you put all those things together — your technique, your film study, your leverage, your assignment and understanding your opponent — I think you can make it a little bit easier on yourself.

Q: Beyond film study, what’s allowed you to succeed?

A: It’s a little bit of everything. I go back to so many different people who’ve helped me out over the years and are helping me out right now. I had a personal chef all offseason. It’s all clean food — fish and different things — and you can tell the difference on your body. So many different people, starting with my trainer, who I’ve been with since Day 1 — 14 years — and knows my body better than anybody and knows how to train people and knows how to get my body ready for a full season.

Teammates, too, to help me figure out different things to do with my body, to figure out different ways to take the pounding off my joints when I don’t have to. It’s a lot of different nuances that you learn throughout the years. I still feel great. It’s amazing. I still can run.

A couple years ago, I ran into Barry Sanders’ brother (Byron Sanders). He came out to Houston and worked out with us. He does speed training. He’s training guys in their 30s and they’re getting faster in their 30s than they were in their 20s. One of the workouts that he took me through — I’ll tell you this, I don’t cramp up a lot and my body’s normally good with whatever I put it through, but when I left that workout, I was cramping. I felt exactly what he was saying.

So, I’ve added those things to my routine. I’m also a track coach for my kids. The track workouts that we do are college workouts. They’re no different. I get out there with them, so I’m running the 100s and the 200s. All of those things keep me young mentally. It’s not just the physical aspect but the mental aspect of doing the things that the young guys are doing.

Q: How much fun has this season been?

A: It’s fun because these guys make it fun. It’s my teammates, the vibe to this team. The young guys, they keep me where they are. You’ve got 23-, 24-, 25-year-olds and I’m able to blend right in with those guys. I’m 36 years old but I’m able to blend right in. Yeah, I live a different lifestyle. I’m married with two kids. You’ve got these young guys who some of them may have girlfriends, some of them may not but, at the end of the day, we’re brothers.

It’s a totally different vibe and chemistry to this team right now. We’re not one of those teams that, as soon as the day’s over, we’re running home because we don’t want to be in the building. We’ll go eat with a bunch of guys later today or tomorrow, go watch games together. It’s different than it has been for years, I’ll tell you that.

Q: Do you dare dream about what’s possible this season or are you in too much of a day-to-day mode?

A: I think the big picture’s always the goal so it’s already understood, but we keep it day to day. We have to keep it day to day. We’re 8-2 right now. We understand that, but we understand that things can happen. We want to stay focused so we don’t let little things creep in. We’ve got a tough 49ers team coming up.

Until we’re in, we’re not in. That’s the approach we’re taking. We’re going to try to win all of these games. It’s possible that we can but it’s going to be tough. We’ve got some tough teams ahead of us and division opponents are always tough. Minnesota’s right on our heels. We’ve got to continue doing what we’re doing. We can only do that by taking it one week at a time. If we look any further, you can get games like the Charger game. Those things happen. I don’t know why they happen but they happen, and we don’t want to be looking past somebody for it to be the reason that it happened again.