"As a rookie, Mario Williams was hurting from top to bottom, from his spinning head to his aching foot. At every turn, the Texans’ mountain of a manchild found himself challenged emotionally, intellectually and physically.

What eventually saved him was what got him into this mess in the first place — his preternatural, freakishly good football skills.

Although Williams spent too many Sundays in 2006 showing his Stupor Mario side to the world, not for a moment did he ever stop believing he was Super Mario, a player worthy of the status the Texans had conferred upon him when they called his name before anyone else’s in the 2006 NFL draft.

Williams knew all along he had to get acclimated to his new environs and then get healthy before he could efficiently grapple with the overheated expectations people held for him.

Which, for the record, he never considered all that unfair, save perhaps for the shrill tone of the impatience. Why? Because he contends nobody could have expected as much of him as he did.

“It was all about getting comfortable on the field, of being able to relax so things could start happening naturally, instinctively,” Williams said of his breakout second season, which he hopes will serve as a springboard for greater glories to come, commencing with his third season-opener in Pittsburgh on Sunday. “It just took some repetitions, seeing things happen over and over again. I’m not a small guy, you know. I knew people couldn’t physically beat me.”

No pain, no gain

What he won’t dwell on — because the athlete’s code requires that injuries not be turned into excuses — was how that aching heel also had to heal before real progress could be made.

“It’s a big deal not to be injured,” is all he’ll say on the subject of the plantar fasciatis that hobbled him most of the first year. “Being healthy speeds up the (learning) process a lot.”

Anyone who has experienced the pain of that condition, an inflammation of a major tendon on the bottom of the foot where it connects to the heel, can relate to how infirm he really was.

If walking is excruciating, imagine what trying to bull-rush the quarterback must feel like.

No, being a Texan wasn’t much fun for Williams early on.

But that all changed in 2007. After accumulating a mere 4½ sacks the previous fall, he exploded with 14, a total exceeded by only two of his peers. Playing loose, with verve and occasional abandon, he justified the Texans’ huge investment in him.

“When you watch guys learn to love to play,” head coach Gary Kubiak said, “that’s when you know they’re becoming great players.”

After Williams’ first off-season as a pro, he fled to the quiet of the North Carolina boondocks, where he had grown up and where he had always felt most at home.

But, when he returned there last winter, he lasted there less than a week before returning to Houston.

As he explained to ESPN Magazine, which thought enough of Williams’ prospects going forward to put him on the cover of its NFL preview edition — and enough of the Texans to tab them as the team most likely to surprise in 2008: “For the first time, when I left Houston I felt like I was missing something. Growing up I was always extremely happy and at peace in the woods, and that’s where I am now with football.

“When you’re the first pick overall, there’s a sense of chasing it, the pressure of living up to what you know you can do. I’ve stopped chasing it. Football is coming to me and I’m running with it.”"