Mike Williams won't be due in court until March 27. (USATSI)
Buccaneers receiver Mike Williams was scheduled to be arraigned Monday for charges of trespass and criminal mischief. But instead, he turned in a written plea of not guilty and after receiving an arraignment waiver, he next will be due in court March 27 for a pre-trial phase.
But he might not make it there at all, because Williams' attorney, Stephen Romine, told the Tampa Tribune that he expects the matter to be resolved before that date.
Williams was charged after a Dec. 13 incident in which he allegedly caused about $200 worth of damage to the front door of an acquaintance. According to the police, Williams wasn't "authorized, licensed or invited, [but] willfully enter[ed] or remain[ed] in the property of Gabrielle Edwards."
Williams had kept himself clean for the past three seasons. During his rookie season in 2010, he was arrested and charged with DUI. Off-field issues in college also contributed to his fall to the fourth round of that year's draft.
It sounds like new Tampa Bay coach Lovie Smith won't let these kinds of issues linger.
"We're disappointed in some of the off-the-field issues that have come up," Smith said at the NFL combine last week. "We just won't put up with it, it's as simple as that. But coming in you have to set your program up on how you're going to do things and that takes a while to get that done."
Said new general manager Jason Licht: “He has to prove he shouldn't make headlines off the field. So start with that."
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Giants expecting young WRs to step up next season
With Hakeem Nicks' chances of returning to the Giants next season "close to zero," in-house youngsters such as Rueben Randle and Jerrel Jernigan are expected to pick up the slack. One person with such expectations is Giants general manager Jerry Reese.Via NFL.com's Chris Wesseling, Reese said Saturday that he is confident Randle will make a "significant jump" in 2014, and that Jernigan "finally looked like the player" who the team selected in the third round of the 2011 draft.Randle, a second-round pick in 2012, caught 41 passes this season. He had a six-week span in the middle of the year in which he scored five of his six touchdowns. Jernigan came on late in the season as he caught 19 passes for 237 yards and three total touchdowns in the final three games.
Victor Cruz is the rock in this receiving corps. Randle and Jernigan can be solid complementary players if they can carry what they displayed in short bursts this season through a 16-game slate. And considering the year that Nicks just had, they can't be any worse, and they'll come much cheaper. Eli Manning has plenty of concerns after such a horrid campaign, but losing the injury-plagued Nicks shouldn't be one of them.
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