David Montgomery Takes Running Personally
Damien Williams has been around great backs and put on his own outstanding all-around display in the Super Bowl win by Kansas City after the 2019 season.
So when he says he can't wait to watch Bears teammate David Montgomery running full speed in a game, it's a real compliment.
"It's the way he runs," Williams said. "He runs with so much aggression. Like, he runs with a chip on his shoulder.
"I want to ask him, like, 'what have you got going on personally, you know, that makes you run like this?' "
Montgomery has spent the offseason awaiting—sometimes impatiently—the chance first to get on pads and break tackles. So he'll appreciate whatever carries he gets against Miami Saturday and then Buffalo on Aug. 21.
One recent video posted on the Internet by the team had Montgomery asking coach Matt Nagy if they were finally going to get pads on. They weren't and Montgomery wasn't too happy.
Montgomery's approach has always been to take each play like it's the most important he'll ever have.
So he appreciated a talk the team experienced on Wednesday when former Washington quarterback Alex Smith, the NFL Comeback Player of the Year, stopped by camp to visit coach Matt Nagy and the team.
"I just try to take advantage of every opportunity," Montgomery said. "We had Alex Smith talking to us yesterday, and one thing that really stuck out to me was, he spoke on, 'Are you living today?' What that basically meant to me was, am I taking advantage of the day? Or am I going out there, just wanting to get through it?
"What you learn, getting older in this league, I realize getting into my third year, it's came faster than I expected. So the only thing I can ever think is whenever it's time for my career to end, I won't realize how fast it'll go 'til it's gone. So I want to be sure, whatever opportunity I get to go out there, I can show my teammates and I can show myself that I belong to be out there."
Williams likes seeing Montgomery's style because he says it can be infectious.
"That's how you create 'great happens,' going out there and making a tough play," Williams said. "If I'm on the sideline watching, now I'm heightened. Now I'm on the sideline yelling. People feed off that. They hear that. They see that.
"So when they go out there, it's like I want to make a play, too. So mentally, it's like I want to hear everybody yelling and dapping me up as well. So you want to be infectious with that. You want to kind of just bleed and leak out."
Williams called the Kansas City offense he played on typical of this attitude.
I feel like the guys we have in this (running back) room we can make a run, a long run just with the passion and the youth that we have," he said.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
