Williams, 22, has faced his own playing mortality in his short four-year career owing to the same injury that is now threatening Egan's.
It took the young Dogs' backman two years to overcome a broken navicular bone, and even now – over a year on from the last time he missed a game because of it – he still feels pain through the troublesome bone.
Williams said he feels for Egan, who has just had another bout of surgery in an attempt to finally beat the complaint, and hopes the All Australian can find a way to return to football.
"Hopefully he gets through it. He's a really good player and you never want to see that happen to someone," Williams said.
"I'm hoping he gets over it. I know what he's going through and it's so frustrating.
"He's an All-Australian, and I hadn't played a game before I did mine, so he'd be a lot more frustrated than I was when I did it."
Egan was told last month his chances of returning to the field were slim after specialists determined he had limited motion in his foot.
He had an operation this week that fused his navicular to the cuneiform in his foot, and will be reassessed over the next 12 weeks – six of which will be spent in plaster and six in a protective boot.
The same injury almost ended Essendon champion James Hird's career, with the Brownlow medallist losing nearly a whole season when he battled the complaint over a period of 18 months in 1999.
