Athletic greatness comes in all shapes and all sizes.

It doesn't come naturally, but is achieved from hard work, diligence, and adversity.

Along the journey, there's opportunity and there's always struggle.

There is triumph and there is defeat.

And there is always a story behind the glory.

Monroe, Louisiana native Pat Williams has spent a lifetime around football, from his days at Wasserman High School to a story to NFL career.

Williams is quite simply, a football lifer.

He had tremendous talent.

Had an unbelievable career in the National Football League 14 years and made all pro appear several times.

And over all those years in the trenches, he left behind plenty of proof the ball.

Pat, I'm going to start this conversation with a complaint from the cows of America because this is unbelievable to me.

Yeah, you accomplished 37 game balls, which they don't give away if you don't dominate in your 14 year NFL career.

You personally were responsible for destroying seven cows.

Yes, sir.

You know, with all those cowhide game balls?

Yes, sir.

But 37 game balls?

I don't know that anybody has ever done that.

I mean, when you look back in, in, in retrospect to your career at Buffalo and your career at Minnesota, 37 game balls.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

No, sir.

Lobby.

Because I have a lot of guys come to the house and then they see.

Don't don't don't understand.

Realize that I had them in the game ball.

They said the mini game.

I said yeah I said, I said I said I basically dominate it.

I mean, dominate with a capital D yeah.

Well I fast forwarded to Minnesota, but let's go back in your career.

You started in junior college.

You went and dominated at at Texas A&M, then became a member of the Buffalo Bills.

But there was a lot of work to do before you made that roster.

In retrospect, going back and redirecting your thoughts in those days.

How much doubt was there?

What did you feel like you had to do not only to make the team, but to get playing time?

You want to leave back then?

Like it wasn't a free agent.

Rookies.

Like I made the Minnesota like it was just.

They drafted a DM, Marcellus Wiley.

They dropped him and then drafted guys.

So there were two rookies, really.

And all the rest of guys with veterans from other teams.

I was looking around and say, oh, I make this team.

I was seven string.

He was going out.

Like I said, I don't know.

And then I just can't practice and said, damn, Bruce Smith, talk to me like he's watching me a lot.

I won't.

He said, I'm not saying that you're a rookie, but he said, you got to play your mind and just think about your family.

Don't care about nobody else out here because we ain't friends.

So you got your mindset, folks.

So one of Bruce Smith told me that I just thought, I mean, this is Bruce Smith, one of the best of all time.

Yes, sir.

Best of all time.

I was just looking at him.

I'm playing with Bruce Smith right now.

Did you want to get his autograph?

No, no, no, but I got it, though.

Yeah, but what he was.

What I'm hearing you say is that he was telling you this is now a business.

Yes.

Yes, sir.

And the guy next to you this day may not be there tomorrow.

Or you may not be next to him tomorrow.

That's how it will be.

Because what I'm saying back then they had about five different cuts.

Like, like ain't like they got the first second cut and the team together, we had five by five cuts.

And I kept telling my wife after the first cut, I said, he made it baby.

Who made it?

Second cup still here.

Baby made it.

So out there.

I kept calling her until he made the maiden name.

And then last club made the team.

But long before the game balls, the Pro Bowls and the Williams wall.

There was a young player from Monroe building his legacy.

To understand that legacy, you have to go back to the early 1990s, when an under the radar prospect dominated the line of scrimmage for the Wasserman Wildcats, then to College Station, where the roars of the 12th man shake the stadium.

We take great pride in defense here at Texas A&M.

They were nationally known as a wrecking crew.

Pat came in and helped us further that image.

Then to the NFL and the frozen Sundays of the Buffalo Bills, where snow covered fields and die hard fans demanded toughness, that Williams saw that the whole way.

They all knew about Pat.

He was really a fun guy to watch.

Undrafted free agent?

Yes, sir.

1997.

How did your career emerge and step forward in the NFL from what you did at Texas A&M?

You know, like like I always because I was asking opportunity I say I ain't got to get drafted.

I say this God give me opportunity for the play.

You know I'm saying I take advantage of it.

So I with the buffalo I took advantage of it.

And I'm playing behind te and watching like field hands and Bruce Smith all like all the old school betting.

So I'll watch them guys a lot extra, a lot of questions and get mad at me.

Come on, man, I don't ask questions every day.

I'll tell him I'm asking your question every day about everything.

He just get mad at me all the time.

But I didn't want to learn.

So what I'm hearing you say there, there is kind of a assumed place for rookies, and there's an assumed place for a guy who's been there three years, and there's an assumed place for a guy who's going to be a Hall of Famer.

That's right.

How is it to fight through that and to to remove those ceilings, so to speak, that you didn't want to act like a rookie?

You know what I'm saying?

I'm sorry.

I basically and so I love for ball.

So I just want to learn the game right.

And stuff.

I tell you about I see the game different people understand.

I say you have to study the game and see the game difference.

But for no, I'm talking about but some people because I see the game real slow.

I tell my son, I said I see stuff happening.

So it happened.

So that's why I was making a lot of plays and stuff.

He said, dad, how you off the ball, you big mouse?

Big Jared off the ball Kevin I said, I said I see stuff.

You don't feel everything happen, man.

I say it's easy.

What I'm hearing you say is a football IQ is very important.

Yes, sir.

Waiting for it worked out well for you in Buffalo.

And obviously that was a foundation for moving on to Minnesota.

Yes, sir.

But let's go back and talk about Buffalo a little bit.

It's a unique franchise in the NFL, a smaller market, but but the wind and the and the weather and the snow and the ice.

And there's a toughness.

Yes, sir.

About Buffalo at least a perceived toughness that kind of makes it a unique place in the NFL along with green Bay.

Yes, sir.

Because it's not everybody was saying I say you don't get used to the cold.

You have to adjust to the cold.

You know, Tyler, because you never get used to it because people understand, like we put the grease in our arms and all that, trying to be like each other, going out there that cold.

Trust me, it'd be cold out there.

You know, you got adjust to it, but you got to play with his mindset that you.

I blocked it out.

But other than that, man it's it's cold out there.

So when you took your family to Buffalo in the first time they saw snow.

Tell me about that.

So we sold it.

Just snow one day.

Real bad.

And that day.

And my girls kept saying that is going to play.

I ain't going to stop playing outside.

They kept on.

Come on, dad.

Snow.

So I killed him outside and I just throw them inside the snow.

And they got long snow.

All eight miles.

They have to cry.

I'll tell you, I don't care.

So I said, y'all stop asking me, then.

Well, you can't blame them coming from Louisiana.

Yeah.

You may find that I grabbed both of them off.

One in the org and other, y'all.

They get some snow on their mouth.

Dad, come tell mom I said I don't care.

Then to the thunder of the Minnesota Vikings faithful.

Where the skull chant echoes.

And he showed up and did some great things for us.

I think our first three years, we set a NFL record for holding opponents under 63 yards on the ground.

And in Minnesota, he did just that.

Emerging as one of the most dominant players in the NFL.

He's tackled by William in.

I saw the ability in Pat that he could really move around, and I think he did that in college.

He did that in Buffalo, and I think that's how he earned the right to get to Minnesota.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there were a couple of times in your career where you had to refocus.

Yes, sir, that you changed the way nose tackles play the game, because when you got into the league, nose tackles were huge.

They took up a lot of space, but they couldn't go from side to side very well.

I've seen the tapes on you and remembering you and you'd make a tackle on one sideline.

You make a tackle on the other sideline, you'd make a tackle or bat a ball down seven yards behind the line of scrimmage.

How natural did that come to you?

Or was that a perceived thing that you said?

No, I can make a mark by doing it this way.

Yeah.

As I was like, I always want to be different and I never want to be like this guy, this guy.

I just want to be like Pat Williams, make my own name for for everybody.

Just focus on me.

So I just can't leave.

You want to be different?

You know, I'm saying make my own name.

Do you remember the 20 yard touchdown return you had against Miami?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.

I saw that play.

I see your favor on that again.

I'm going to pick this ball off because like, he kept throwing the ball low.

He kept going right by my head.

I said you're going to play again I don't pick it off.

So I saw the play coming.

I said, oh, if you pass the ball, I was going to pick this ball off.

And then in the same play came, ball came right to him.

I just grabbed it.

Turn around and hit the sideline.

Coming.

Yeah that's how I come.

I tell my son like some ball.

Easy.

After they run that he plays over and over.

A ball pops out of his hands.

I don't believe it.

An interception by Pat William a three time Pro Bowler, Williams earned 466 tackles, 20.5 sacks, had nine fumble recoveries, eight forced fumbles and one interception in a 14 year NFL career.

Williams.

He has been voted by media outlets as one of the top 100 players in Bills and Vikings history, and in 2026, he joined the elite group of athletes who represent the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

I think the thing that Pat Williams Hall of Famers was his work ethic and his dedication to the game.

But the greatest chapter of Williams story is still being written.

Well, the things I'm very proud of Pat Forrest, he got out not long after he got out.

He founded the Pat Williams Foundation to give back.

Pat has always valued teaching the game of football through youth camps or assisting staffs at the collegiate and high school levels.

It's great to have him out there because he's another set of eyes with NFL experience.

His journey has come full circle back to where it started in Monroe, still sharing his love of the game and still shaping the future.

And I know you over the years have worked very hard in cultivating youngsters, trying to teach them what's right, what's wrong, not only how to play the game, but the mental part of it.

The spiritual part of it is what I'm saying.

Like, I close my son all up.

He got to the ninth grade, you know what I'm saying?

Got to close to my son in high school, coach with all the kids and stuff.

So it's always feel good being around kids, you know, passing stuff down to them.

Well, you made three Pro Bowls in your career, going back to those 37 game balls in the decade and a half that you played, when you go back and look at the teams that were just speckled with future Hall of Famers.

I mean, the running backs were incredible and in big numbers.

The quarterbacks were incredible and and some of the all time greatest players.

So you were playing to me in an era with ERA, which had a lot more of the greats and future greats than maybe we see today.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Like I tell my son, like, every time I talk to like, like like people, I say, well, football was great.

Then it was harder than because I played against Eric Jean, Marshall Faulk, all of them guys.

Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, all the great quarterbacks, everybody.

Like it was just different then like like the game now it's off way south where you saw.