Williams does a lot of things on the practice field to stress his defense. He calls it organized chaos.

“We constantly are throwing things out at them that we don’t even talk about in the meetings because we want to see them battle through stress,” Williams said. “Everybody can calm themselves through relaxed states of mind and relaxed walk-throughs and stuff. You have time to second-guess things, you have time to get back on the same page.

“But you can’t fake who you are under stress, and that’s what the games are. In the National Football League on Sundays and Monday nights and Thursday nights, you’re under stress.”

He simulates that stress in the practice environment to keep players thinking, executing, and communicating with each other.

“All good defenses have great vocal, loud, talking communication,” Williams said. “It’s amazing from Practice 1 (of OTAs) now up here to Practice 8 how far we’ve come with that. We still have light years to go, and you don’t get that until you get through the training camp and start getting into the preseason games.”

And you don’t know for sure until the real games begin and you’re involved in a close, physical, exhausting contest in the fourth quarter.