Williams Unsure When or If He’ll Rejoin Redskins

CARLISLE, Pa. — Doug Williams doesn’t know when he’ll be able to play football again. Moreover, he isn’t sure if he’ll be able to play football again.

The Washington Redskins’ quarterback made that bleak suspicion abundantly clear between the lines of a news conference on his return to the Washington Redskins’ training camp.

Asked repeatedly when he might be back in action, Williams reiterated that “my objective is to get well.”

After a week in Arlington (Va.) Hospital, including several days in traction, Williams said he felt “a lot better than last week.”

But there is still recurrent pain, especially in the hamstring muscle of his right leg, from the “nerve root irritation” in his lower back that stopped Williams before he could begin practice this year.

“I can only play football so long,” Williams said, “so I’ve got to think about my health. I’m not a young buck anymore.”

Williams, who has played eight seasons in the National Football League, three of them for Washington, will be 34 years old on Wednesday.

He also played in the United States Football League in 1984 and ’85 and his knees have been sensitive and suspect since arthroscopic surgery seven years ago.

Williams sees an immediate, indefinite future of ultrasound, hot packs, traction and stationary bicycle riding, which will begin today. He would not project beyond that.

Asked when he might be able to throw the football “a little,” Williams said, his voice rising slightly, “I have to get well first.”

In an earlier meeting with the press, Redskins’ Coach Joe Gibbs said he was “leaving Doug to his pace, what he can do.” Gibbs said once more that nobody has yet replaced Williams in his plans as No. 1 quarterback.

“We have a ways to go,” Gibbs said. The 80-man roster does not have to be cut to 60 until Sept. 29, after exhibition games with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota Vikings and Miami Dolphins.

Gibbs liked what he saw of backup quarterback Mark Rypien and Stan Humphries, Rypien’s presumable backup, in the Redskins’ 31-6 trouncing of the Buffalo Bills on Saturday.

Rookie quarterback Jeff Graham, Gibbs noted, didn’t have “much of a chance.” He may not. The pitching rotation for the game at Pittsburgh on Saturday is Rypien followed by Humphries.

Bill Kenney, seven months older than Williams, is the experienced quarterback the Redskins went for when Williams’ condition appeared ominous.