The unlucky 22-year-old has had more setbacks than many more senior players since being drafted to Whitten Oval in 2004.
In 2008, he was restricted to just six games owing to a problematic shoulder before thigh troubles eventually ended his season ahead of the Dogs' finals campaign.
This came after two years of being dogged by a persistent foot injury; the same one that is currently threatening to end the career of Geelong defender Matthew Egan.
For Williams – who now knows there is no point in becoming stressed about the possibility of his body failing – 2009 is a chance to finally string some games together.
"My mentality about injuries is pretty flippant now," he told westernbulldogs.com.au shortly before the Christmas break.
"If it happens, it happens, but I'm doing all the prevention I can do to stop any sort of injury, and if something happens, it's just my stiff luck.
"It's not going to be because I've done something wrong or anything like that."
With the exception of the recent thigh injury (which Williams believes could have been caused by "a heavy training load and flying to Tasmania to play for Williamstown") all of the defender's problems have been obtained in freakish circumstances.
He's since learned to become more aware of how his body feels during both games and training, and knows when he needs to ease things back.
"I'm monitoring everything; I'm monitoring my shoulder, my foot, my thighs," he said.
"I've got a pretty good handle on my body at the moment. If things go wrong, I can nip it on the bud pretty quickly and I've matured like that and I know when to pull myself out when I need to.
"I don't go 100 per cent all the time when I don't need to."
Setting objectives is also off the agenda, with the burly backman reluctant to look beyond the immediate future.
"I just take it week by week. If I play 22 games next year, that would be amazing – 25 or 26 would be better – but at the moment I'm just concentrating on pre-season and having a Christmas break," he said.
"I've gotten over thinking about just playing, or injuries and stuff like that. I just take it one week at a time.
"If I play, I play, and if I don't, that's life and you can't really do anything about it."
His shoulder is almost mended and, should everything continue to progress as scheduled, Williams will be back in full contact training in January.
Right now, he is tearing up the track and looking like an elite runner having spent a few months putting miles in his legs.
"Running-wise, it's something I've always had to work on. I've just been working on my leg strength this year and it's helped with endurance," he said.
"Pre-Christmas last year was the best running I've done but I'm building better this year and hopefully I'll peak just before the season."
But while Williams might not set goals anymore, he does have aspirations – and they involve the Dogs' pre-season campaign.
"The aim is round one, NAB Cup," he says.
"I'm hoping to play the intra-club as well. I should be fully ready to go for that."
