Caddy not willing to fold hand

He recently took up poker, Carnell Williams did. The black hat he wore in training camp the other day, with "Lac" on the back, gave it away - four aces on the side and a message out front:

Folding is for Quitters.

"I love poker, the game," Cadillac Williams said. "It's a nice kind of competitive game."

He plays in the rooms at the local horse track and dog tracks. He lit up when he talked about how he beat somebody.

"The pot was like $400. Guy goes all in, all confident. He stood up, threw his cards, and said he had a flush," Williams said. "I said, 'Sir, I have nothing but a full house.'"

A big smile from Caddy.

As for the other game, most everyone is betting against him. The smart money takes one look at the Frankenstein scars on his knees and says no way Cadillac Williams, 27, makes it back as an NFL running back. He'll be an ill-fated Bucs bust, a great nickname, nothing more.

A big smile from Caddy.

"I'm all in. I'm all in."

He's trying to rewrite history that says running backs don't come back from torn patellar tendons in both knees.

Who isn't pulling for Caddy against all odds, even with the reality of that already full house in the Bucs backfield, with Derrick Ward and Earnest Graham?

Who isn't pulling for the Cadillac, though it's been a lifetime (1,414 days, to be exact) since he left Lambeau Field in 2005 with 100-yard games in his first three NFL starts?

"It would be a good story," Williams said. "It might not be a bad movie."

Pivotal scene: late last December at Raymond James Stadium, Cadillac on the ground, not in pain, but in anger, after tearing up his left knee, this after making it all the way back from blowing out his right knee in 2007.

"When it happened, I was disgusted, I was on fire," Williams said. "I asked people to wake me up. Am I dreaming? Somebody wake me up. The other knee. The other knee."

But here is Cadillac at camp, running hard, running well. It's amazing stuff. Whether it's more of just a short-lived, heart-tugging camp story remains to be seen.

"The odds of him coming back are 10 out of 10 right now," Bucs receiver Michael Clayton said.

"I go with Caddy," Bucs coach Raheem Morris said.

Yes, Williams still wears the smile of a rookie sensation. But there's something else.

"He runs angry," Morris said. "He trains angry. He practices angry. He walks down the hallway angry. He eats lunch angry. That's who he is. And he smiles at you guys."

"What drives me sometimes is naysayers who say I can't make it back, not again," Williams said. "I want to do this because football is something I love, point blank, but the naysayers, I know they're there. Sometimes, when you've been through what I've been through, you get a little chip on the shoulder, like you get a sense in people's eyes, even here on the Bucs. They don't say a word, but they wonder if I can do it."

"I was one of them," said Ward, who signed with the Bucs this offseason. "I'd see Cadillac working hard, but I'd see those scars on his knees and think, 'This dude is done.' But he kept working, and started running. He's amazing. Now, like, 'Man, this dude has got it.'"

Folding is for quitters.

Cadillac Williams can't tell you how many NFL runners have come back from two wrecked knees.

"There's a guy Correll Buckhalter, tore both patellar tendons, played for the Eagles, and now he's with Denver," Williams said. "But I know it isn't a long list."

Sometimes, he'll watch tape from his rookie year.

"I see a guy who at the time had a bright future, who could have been one hell of a back in this league," Williams said. "I see it and I say, 'I did that once and I'll do it again.'"

Wouldn't it beat all?

"I know people are betting against me. It's cloudy. It's dark. There's just no way. But then you see that little old light at the end of the tunnel, and you run for it."

He's all in.