Robert Williams DB - Cowboys Madden Career 1992-1994 - Peak 69 OVR

Robert Williams carried the ball at Baylor, more than 400 yards as a running back, before the pros turned him into a defensive back. Undrafted out of Galveston, Texas, he caught on with Dallas in 1987 and spent most of the next seven seasons in the secondary through the worst stretch of Cowboys football, the one-win 1989 season and the slow climb back, a converted runner learning to cover on a team that lost a lot.

The Madden cards from that era swing hard, a 62 in Madden NFL 92, a 43 the next year, a 69 the year after, a jumps that say more about the old rating scale than about any change in his play. His attribute ratings on those cards are close to nonsense, an awareness in single digits next to a 99 tackle number, the pre-1997 conversion at its glitchiest. Underneath the noise was a steady role player who started thirty-six games and pulled down four interceptions.

Williams stuck around just long enough to touch the dynasty. He was on the roster for the Super Bowl XXVII and XXVIII champions, though he was declared inactive for the first of them, a ring earned from the margins rather than the field. He finished with eighty-five games across seven seasons, the record of a player who spent the lean years holding down a job and the good ones watching the roster he had helped survive finally win it all.