Sam Williams Selected in Second Round of NFL Draft by Dallas Cowboys

Sam Williams got his pay day on Friday night.

John Macon Gillespie | Apr 29, 2022

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Sam Williams was the first Ole Miss player off the board in the 2022 NFL Draft on Friday, going 56th overall to the Dallas Cowboys in the second round.

Williams transferred to Ole Miss from Northeast Mississippi Community College, and he was named to All-American teams by Walter Camp and the Associated Press in 2021. He set the school record for sacks this past season as well, racking up 12.5 in that category. He also recorded 57 total tackles.

Those numbers in 2021 added to an impressive resume built in Oxford where he finished with 22.5 sacks for 108 yards over the course of three seasons. He also finished with 134 total tackles in that span.

Sam Williams

Williams joins a Dallas Cowboys team that won the NFC East in 2021, but the franchise also has 11-straight playoff appearances that have not resulted in a trip to the conference championship, the longest streak in NFL history.

Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral has yet to be taken as of Williams' drafting, but the latest Sports Illustrated mock draft projected him to go in the second round on Friday. The quarterback spoke earlier in the week about conversations he had with former Ole Miss wide receiver A.J. Brown leading up to the draft. Brown himself was part of a draft day trade between the Tennessee Titans and Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday.

"He really just told me to be myself," Corral said. "That was the best advice that I got throughout this whole process. At the end of the day, you're going to end up where you're going to end up, and you might as well be yourself and have a team fall in love with who you really are."

Sam Williams

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Published Apr 29, 2022

JOHN MACON GILLESPIE

John Macon Gillespie is the publisher of The Grove Report and has experience on the Ole Miss beat spanning five years.