MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Milton Williams stood inside the visitor\u2019s locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium, one stall down from fellow defensive tackle Christian Barmore, and thought about the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams played sparingly in the Patriots’ 20-12 preseason win over the Vikings<\/a>, and Barmore didn\u2019t play at all. But the big-ticket free agent signed this offseason<\/a> has seen enough this summer to have a sense for what kind of impact they can make as a pair when the regular season begins.<\/p>\n \u201cI already told him,\u201d Williams said, \u201cit’s gonna be how it was last year with me and [Eagles defensive tackle] Jalen Carter. They\u2019re going to have to pick where\u00a0they’re going to slide to.\u00a0Somebody’s gonna be 1-on-1, you know?<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been on each other to win.\u00a0Whoever you’re going against, it don’t matter. You got to figure out a way to win, especially in game times. It\u2019s\u00a0just the bottom line. Winning 1-on-1s and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Day 2 of joint practices<\/a> against the Vikings wasn\u2019t as productive as Day 1 for the Patriots defense<\/a>. There were uncharacteristic breakdowns in coverage, and they had trouble generating pressure consistently.\u00a0<\/p>\n But over the course of three days in Minnesota, Barmore and Williams stood out as difficult to block. If they can approach something close to what Williams and Carter gave the Super Bowl-winning Eagles defense a season ago — lofty expectations given the heights they reached in Philadelphia — that would go a long way in helping Mike Vrabel\u2019s attacking-style defense find sustainable success.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we do defensively is gonna ride through us all season long,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe know that.\u00a0We\u00a0come in every day, trying to set the tone. Hopefully we can do that and carry it throughout the season.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams had one of the highlight plays for the Patriots in their win over Minnesota, generating pressure (along with outside linebacker K\u2019Lavon Chaisson)\u00a0on Vikings backup quarterback Sam Howell. The resulting poor throw fluttered and was\u00a0intercepted by corner Alex Austin.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For Williams, however, he has his sights set on standout plays in bigger moments.<\/p>\n \u201cPreseason,\u201d he said, shrugging. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna look at it. Flush it. It really don\u2019t count for nothing. As long as we\u2019re out there executing the call, that\u2019s all that matters.<\/p>\n \u201cDo something good, you\u2019re supposed to. If you don\u2019t do nothing\u2026 I\u2019m ready to play real football that matters and counts for something.\u201d<\/p>\n When that moment arrives, Williams will form a tandem with Barmore that will carry big-time outside expectations. But perhaps none will be loftier than the expectations they have for themselves.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Milton Williams stood inside the visitor\u2019s locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium, one stall down from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7888,7,7891,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208,5175],"class_list":{"0":"post-296954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-christian-barmore","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-milton-williams","11":"tag-new-england","12":"tag-new-england-patriots","13":"tag-newengland","14":"tag-newenglandpatriots","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-patriots","17":"tag-phil-perry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115047534694364212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}