“Obviously, I want to play. I want to numb it up, I want to go out there and just battle with my teammates,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I got to be smart. I got to listen to the advice. For one time in my career, I can’t let my heart make the decision. I got to actually think this thing out.”

Williams has said the knee injury will eventually require surgery, but he’s hoping to delay that as long as possible — or at least until the end of the season.

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“Having surgery scares the [stuff] out of me,” he said. “I don’t want to do it.”

To that end, he’s trying every nonsurgical approach possible, hoping this week that time and extra rest provide some sort of healing magic. He knows what he’s been doing — sitting out practices but suiting up and playing on gamedays — hasn’t been effective.

“I’ve played through this thing for a month. I’ve been dealing with it, and it hasn’t gotten any better,” he said. “It’s progressively gotten worse. I’m essentially back to where I started at — a month later. If it continues to go down that road, I’m probably not going to be available for my team for a long time.”

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Williams says he expects to meet again with doctors Monday, and they’ll continue to discuss treatment options. If the pain is still there and he’s still not ready to commit to surgery, he might face a difficult decision the next few weekends: play through pain or hope a bit more rest will prepare him for the season’s home stretch. He called it “a week-to-week thing.”

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“At the end of the day, I just want to be there for my team,” he said. “Sometimes you got to take the competitive nature out of it, you got to listen to your body and try to do the right thing.”