​There was a moment early in Alabama’s season opener against East Carolina when Ryan Coleman-Williams could have allowed one mistake to completely change his afternoon.He had a bad drop. It was the kind of play he knows he should have made, and it was the kind of mistake that can get inside a receiver’s head really quickly. For a player who has already experienced his fair share of ups and downs during his Alabama career, it would have been easy to let that moment linger. It would have been easy to start pressing, lose confidence or spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about the play he didn’t make.Instead, Coleman-Williams did exactly what you want a veteran leader and captain to do.He regrouped, moved on and kept playing.By the time Alabama had finished off its 48-10 win over East Carolina, Coleman-Williams had five receptions for 130 yards, averaging 26 yards per catch and recording the fourth 100-yard receiving game of his Alabama career.That is what impressed me most.It wasn’t that he was perfect. He wasn’t.It was how he responded when he wasn’t.Football players are going to make mistakes. Receivers are going to drop passes. Quarterbacks are going to miss throws. Offensive linemen are going to miss blocks. Defensive backs are going to get beat. Nobody plays a perfect football game.What separates players sometimes is what they do immediately after the mistake.Coleman-Williams could have disappeared after that drop. He could have gotten frustrated. He could have let one bad play become the story of his afternoon.Instead, he kept getting open. Alabama kept trusting him. His quarterback kept throwing him the football, and Coleman-Williams kept making plays.That says a lot about where he is mentally.It also says a lot about why he is a captain.I think sometimes we misunderstand what leadership looks like in football. We think about the player giving the loud speech before the game or somebody screaming on the sideline trying to fire everyone up. There is certainly a place for that, but leadership can also be much quieter.Sometimes leadership looks like making a mistake in front of everybody, walking back to the huddle and refusing to let it affect the next play.That is what Coleman-Williams did Saturday.He didn’t allow the drop to change his body language. He didn’t disappear from the offense. He didn’t stop competing. Instead, he went on to become Alabama’s leading receiver and finished with more than half of the Crimson Tide’s passing yardage.Keelon Russell threw for 256 yards in his first start, and 130 of those yards went to Coleman-Williams.That is significant.It was especially impressive considering how the afternoon started.Coleman-Williams didn’t just recover enough to have an average day. He became one of Alabama’s biggest offensive weapons. His five receptions went for 130 yards, and averaging 26 yards per catch tells you exactly how explosive he was. He wasn’t simply catching short passes underneath and p