Seahawks waive DT Jesse Williams; bulled through kidney cancer in 2015

“What a story” has apparently ended in Seattle.

The official NFL transactions for Tuesday showed the Seahawks placed defensive tackle Jesse Williams on no-recall waivers. If the 25-year-old cancer survivor clears league waivers by Wednesday he will become a free agent.

Ten months ago, doctors found the 6-foot-3, 325-pound Australian known as “The Monstar” had cancer in his kidney, papillary type 2 cancer. That’s defined by The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York as representing “more than one category of disease but, as a group, are much more aggressive and may follow an unpredictable growth pattern.”

Surgeons at the University of Washington Medical Center removed Williams’ kidney on May 28. Astoundingly he was cleared for football workouts two weeks later. Two-plus months later, the irrepressible Williams was back on the field at Seahawks training camp. On Aug. 14 he played his first game in two years, in the second half against Denver.

“What a story,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said just before the end of the 2015 preseason, shaking his head. “What a story!”

But on Sept. 5, just before last season’s opener and while the team set its initial 53-man active roster, Seattle put Williams on its non-football-illness list. It was the third consecutive season Williams had missed to begin his NFL career with the Seahawks.

Williams’ first two years in the league as Seattle’s fifth-round draft choice out of Alabama in 2013 ended before they began because of two major knee injuries. He spent those entire seasons on the injured-reserve list. He went home to his native Australia to recover during offseasons not dejected so much as determined that year three would be his breakout debut.

Then came the cancer, the surgery, another year out -- and now Tuesday’s release from the only NFL he’s known but for which he never played a real game.

The move came the same day fellow reserve defensive tackle A.J. Francis tweeted he signed his tender offer to remain with the Seahawks:

Something says that we’ll be hearing again from Williams somewhere, somehow.

“I didn’t come out of Alabama expecting to have all these problems or anything like that,” Williams said last year. “I just stay with what the plan is for me to do, and that’s to come here and play football.

“You know, it’s not an easy job. No matter how you feel, good or bad, you have to come here and work. I pretty much try to do that every day.”

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 2:41 PM with the headline "Seahawks waive DT Jesse Williams; bulled through kidney cancer in 2015."