Not lengthy after Aaron Glenn was named the Jets’ coach, one of many first issues he did was name linebacker Quincy Williams.
Glenn mentioned totally different elements of Williams’ play that he wished him to work on after the 2 spoke for an hour and a half.
As well as, Glenn additionally shared his imaginative and prescient for the Jets and their protection with Williams.
“Every year, I try to get better,” Williams mentioned. “Yearly, my mindset is to get higher.
“Sometimes, I don’t have a blueprint. Sometimes it takes me a while to find out what that next level looks like. That call right there was one of those things where all the thought process went out of the window. It was more like, alright, now you have your challenge now, let’s create a blueprint to get to those challenges as a team and then those challenges as an individual, because if I get my team goals, then I get my individual goals.”
What’s the subsequent stage for Williams?
“The first part was coming into OTAs,” he mentioned. “We had that conversation and I already told him that I was going to be here because I need to get a mindset of what the defense is going to be like. So when it comes to training camp, it is just competition and not like I’m getting the fundamentals down pat. Now, it is time for the fundamentals.”
Williams has been one of many Jets’ greatest gamers on a defensive unit that has completed within the high 5 in yards allowed every of the final three seasons. Throughout that point, he has registered 361 tackles, seven sacks, and 41 tackles for loss. That led to Williams being chosen for the first-time All-Professional staff in 2023 and a three-year, $18 million contract extension earlier that offseason.
Nevertheless, the Jets’ protection slipped final season following Robert Saleh’s firing, amid a disappointing 5-12 marketing campaign. They allowed a median of 313.8 yards per recreation, which was the third-best within the NFL in 2024. Nevertheless, throughout the staff’s ultimate 12 video games, the Jets allowed a median of 26.6 factors per recreation and 337.9 yards per recreation.
Along with the Jets’ protection, Williams’ manufacturing dipped barely from the 2023 season. He completed final season with 116 tackles and two sacks and was not chosen to the Professional Bowl or All-Professional staff. In Glenn’s and defensive coordinator Steve Wilks’ system, Williams will probably be requested to blitz the quarterback extra recurrently. That’s an space the place Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich’s system was not utilized a lot, because the Jets’ protection relied extra on their entrance 4 to generate stress on opposing quarterbacks.
Over the past 4 seasons below Saleh and Ulbrich, Williams recorded 9 sacks.
“He’s a really good player, but there are also some things he has to get better at and he understands that,” Glenn mentioned about Williams. “That reveals you the indicators of a extremely good participant as a result of they’re OK with criticism.
“In this league, even the best players get criticized and they want to be because they want to be better. He is one of those guys that want to be better. I put him in my office and told him things he has got to work on. He knows the things he is good at and the things he’s got to work on and he’s done everything he can to get better at those things.”
Along with engaged on numerous elements of his recreation, Williams can also be specializing in changing into a pacesetter and establishing himself as a foundational a part of the staff. To assist with that, Williams spoke along with his former teammate and Jets captain, C.J. Mosley, lately after the linebacker attended his soccer camp final weekend.
Mosley was launched by the Jets in March, however nonetheless lives within the New Jersey space, not removed from the staff’s follow facility.
“Right now, it is the mindset of picking his brain knowing how to be more of a leader,” When he got here to the Jets to a brand new staff, he really sat out a 12 months. So it was like, what are the issues that you simply labored on to come back to a staff that you simply actually didn’t know. Like how did you turn out to be a pacesetter to these man, so it’s sort of just like the dialog now we have now.”
