After last Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys veteran CB Ronde Barber talked about how the Buccaneers need to grow up. Wednesday, standing in front on his locker at One Buccaneer Place, second-year wide receiver Mike Williams agreed he, and the entire roster, need to take the older player’s advice.

“I guess it means grow up,” Williams said. “That’s all you can take from that. When the players like Ronde and Kellen [Winslow] say that [then] you are doing something wrong. That you’re not mature enough. That you are doing something [wrong] that you know is your job. So basically to grow up.”


Williams was asked what he thinks Barber and Winslow meant.


“It means all of that,” Williams said. “Talking right to the media. Saying the right things. Helping your teammates out. Watching extra film. Staying after practice ... things like that.”

Williams was shut out for the first time in his career Saturday night against Dallas and has had, like many Bucs’ players, a disappointing season compared to 2010. Through 14 games the Bucs' leading receiver in 2010 has 60 receptions for 701 yards and three touchdowns. The former Syracuse star says the mood of the team after 14 games is frustration and now a reassessment of goals is in order.

“Well, they change,” Williams said. “Everybody feels bad. We were 10-6 last year, but the simple fact is we didn’t make the playoffs last year. We didn’t make the playoffs this year either so things haven’t really changed. Like you said, people had a lot of good stuff to say [and] now people got a bad stuff [to say] today. We want to keep all our stuff inside the locker room. We know what is wrong. We got to get it together inside the locker room and go out and get wins.

“Expectations have changed for us. Our expectations were we wanted to win our division [and] we can’t do that. We wanted to get in the playoffs, we can’t do that. We wanted to win the NFC, we can’t do that. We wanted to win the Super Bowl, we can’t do that. So we are mad about [those] situations. Hopefully we get on a winning streak so we can start it over and try to do it next year.”


With two games left in a disappointing season Williams hopes the road warrior mentality of last season can come through.


“It's good that we are on the road,” Williams said. “We get to go out and be with each other. More time with each other. More meeting time and things like that when you play on the road. We've got these last two and hopefully we get a streak going.”